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The daytime weather was relatively warm and pleasant on New Year's Eve down in the valley at Nashville, TN, where Hospital Steward Robert Winn had spent the past five days. Robert was serving in the Civil War as a medic with Company E, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Kentucky Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, 4th Army Corps, Army of the Cumberland, Military Division of the Mississippi in the U. S. Army. He had arrived one day past Christmas, having marched along with the 2nd Battalion for three out of the five days it took them all to come down from Bowling Green, KY. The 22nd and 23rd of December out on the road had also been pleasant, but on Christmas night they had encountered rain while on their trek. Since then the weather had been described as "indifferent." But around five o'clock on the final afternoon of 1863, an abrupt climatical change suddenly plummeted to bitter cold temperatures in five minutes time. Robert Winn was trying to stay warm in the frigid weather and thinking about his brother-in-law Matthew Cook who was out on a scouting mission away from camp, and about his sister Martha (Winn) Cook way up at Hawesville who was waiting out the war for the safe return of her two loved ones. As the old year was ringing out, his thoughts were also concerned with the problems of his good friend at Hawesville, JOHN TAYLOR. By late 1863, JOHN had long grown disenchanted with the way the situation at Hawesville was evolving. Proprietors of the local coal mines seemed interested only in increasing their profits without regard for the welfare of mine workers. And a fellow named John Shephard was a chronic irritant to union members. The Miners' Union was apparently ineffective, causing the disappointed JOHN to drop his membership. JOHN didn't trust Kentucky's Rebel-sympathizers who were being conscripted into the Union army, but yet he pondered the idea of a family man such as himself enlisting in order to gain a steady paycheck. |
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