History of the 58th Indiana Regiment of Volunteers
 

Rev. John J. Hight, the Chaplain of the regiment, kept a diary that totaled some 2000 pages. Col. Gil R. Stormont, then owner and editor of the Princeton Clarion and a member of the 58th, edited this diary. This edited version was published as a book of over 300 pages in 1895.

Dr. Andrew Lewis of Princeton was asked by Gov. Oliver F. Morton in Sept. 1861 to recruit a regiment in the county. He did so, Dr. Lewis was offered the rank of Colonel, but declined and H. M. Carr of Crawfordsville, who had been appointed Lt. Colonel, was made Colonel. The other officers: George P. Buell of Lawrenceburg, Lt. Colonel; James T. Embree of Princeton, Major; Dr. W. W. Blair of Princeton, surgeon (Later made medical director of General T. J. Woods division); Samuel Sterne, of Princeton, Quartermaster; Dr. J. R. Adams of Petersburg, assistant surgeon.

The regiment at once went into training at the fair grounds in Princeton, and after weeks of drill was ordered Dec. 11 to prepare 3 days rations and be ready to go to Louisville. The men went by train to Evansville, marched down Main Street to the river and boarded the steamer Baltic for Louisville, and went into camp at nearby Bardstown. On Jan 14, 1862 the ladies of Gibson County represented by Mrs. Ophelia Hanks Mowry, Miss Artemesia Hanks and Miss Mollie Summers presented a stand of colors to Lt. Col. Buell and Maj. Embree.

The 58th fought courageously in the principal battles of the war such as Shiloh, Chickamauga, Stones River, Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain, Knoxville, Resaca, and Atlanta-March to the Sea. Throughout his diary Chaplain Hight wrote freely, caustically of military practices, events, men, especially the officers. Of Shiloh, one of the bloodiest battles of the war, he said:
"Johnston (Confederate General) committed a great error when he attacked our Army on Sunday. One greater than Johnston or Grant has said" 'Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy.' There certainly had been enough of disastrous Sabbath fighting to have taught him a lesson...Another error was filling the canteens of his soldiers with whiskey... The wild huzza of the drunken charge is soon stilled by the leaden hail delivered by sober men... The surprise of our men at Shiloh enabled the rebels to fight wildly and successfully all day, but when night came and the excitement and the whiskey were spent, the rebels went down in their feelings as far below a proper level as they had been above it during the day...Most of them sank down in drunken stupor where night overtook them."

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