Around Scottsville in 1862, tents housing almost 5,000 Union soldiers covered the hillsides around town, ten times Scottsville’s population. The camp rang with drilling men, stamping and neighing horses, blaring bugles, shouted orders, and cannon booming every morning at five o’clock. For four hours each day, the soldiers drilled, marched, and practiced battle skills, while a veteran officer organized a school of instruction to teach new officers tactics and squad and battalion drill. When off duty, soldiers read books, played cards or harmonicas, wrote letters, and attended religious services on Sunday. Townspeople came to watch and trade with the boys in blue, who bought fresh vegetables, fruit, and pies to supplement army rations, and some hired local women to cook, do laundry, and mend clothes. After several weeks in Scottsville, the soldiers broke camp on November 26, 1862, leaving behind twenty-seven comrades who had died of disease, then marched down the Nashville Pike into Tennessee, where many later fought in the Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro and some died there.