History of Pennsylvania volunteers, 1861-5; prepared in compliance with acts of the legislature, by Samuel P. Bates.

SEVENTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT.
HE companies composing the Seventy-eighth Regiment rendezvoused at
Camp Orr, on the Allegheny River, immediately above the town of Kittanning, Armstrong county. They were recruited under the direction of William
Sirwell; companies B, F, G, I and K in Armstrong county, C and E in Clarion,
A in Indiana, D in Indiana and Cambria, and H in Butler. Recruiting commenced on the 14th of August, 1861. By the middle of September the companies were all in camp, and a month later were mustered into the service of the
United States. Having received clothing, arms, and accoutrements, the companies moved on the 14th of October from Camp Orr to Pittsburg, and on the
18th the regiment was organized by the selection of the following field officers:
William Sirwell, of Armstrong county, Colonel; Archibald Blakeley, of Butler
county, Lieutenant Colonel; Augustus B. Bonnaffon, of Allegheny county,
Major.
On the 18th of October, 1861, the regiment, accompanied by the Seventyseventh, and Seventy-ninth Pennsylvania, and IMuehler's Battery, all under command of Brigadier General James S. Negley, moved by transports to Louisville,
Kentucky. On the 24th the brigade was transferred by rail to Nolin's Station,
on the line of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, where it was attached to
A. MlDowell M'Cook's Division, of the Army of the Cumberland. At Camp
Nevin, and subsequently at Camp Negley, on the south side of Nolin Creek,
the regiment was thoroughly drilled. The Seventy-seventh Regiment was here
transferred to General Thomas J. Wood's Brigade, and the First Wisconsin
and the Thirty-eighth Indiana were added to Negley's Brigade. The mortality,
owing to the unhealthy location of the camp and the excessive wet weather,
was very great.
About the middle of December the brigade moved to Bacon Creek, and
thence to Munfordsville, encamping on the north bank of the Green River, and
was engaged in drill, and in picketing the south bank of the stream, while the
wotlkmen were employed in re-building the railroad bridge. On the 14th of
February, 1862, the spring campaign opened, and M'Cook's Division, breaking
camp, marched northward with a view of taking boats at West Point, on the
Ohio, and joining Grant in his movement on Fort Donelson. But on arriving
at Upton Station, the order of advance was countermanded, and one to countermarch, and proceed to Nashville, was received. The route was principally
along the railroad. At Bowling Green a halt was made until a pontoon bridge
could be brought up, and laid across Barren River. The division arrived at
Edgefield, opposite Nashville, on the 2d of March, and on the 7th crossed the
Cumberland, and encamped in Camp Andy Johnson, two miles south of the
city.