At various times during the Civil War, Confederate and Union armies were garrisoned in Bowling Green, and many soldiers encamped around Lost River Cave. Soldiers from both sides recorded their impressions of Lost River Cave and Valley in diaries and letters, describing the cave as a great natural curiosity with beautiful stalactites, detached rocks deep in the interior, and a spring twenty feet across whose bottom had never been found. Many soldiers also wrote their names on the cave walls to record their explorations, and names still visible today include B. A. Patten and C. Moon of the 105th Illinois Infantry, J. A. Ball of the 72nd Indiana Infantry, and Isaac F. Morrison of the 51st Ohio Infantry, who wrote his name backwards so it can be read with a mirror. Confederate regiments encamped at or near Lost River Cave included the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 9th Kentucky Infantry and the 2nd Kentucky Mounted Infantry, while Union regiments included the 86th, 102nd, 104th, and 105th Illinois Infantry; the 10th, 15th, 30th, 38th, 42nd, 70th, 72nd, 75th, 88th, and 101st Indiana Infantry; the 8th Kansas Infantry; the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th, and 15th Kentucky Infantry; the 2nd Minnesota Infantry; the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 15th, 51st, 65th, and 108th Ohio Infantry; and the 77th and 79th Pennsylvania Infantry.