Recruits to the 5th Kentucky Infantry were promised a pay of $11–$21 a month, in addition to clothes and lodging.
Although a recruitment station was placed at the corner of 8th Street and Main Street in Louisville, the actual training took place across the Ohio River at Camp Joe Holt, in present-day Clarksville, Indiana.
[1] On July 1, 1861, 334 recruits were shipped to Camp Joe Holt as the first company.
On September 17, 1861, the regiment left Camp Joe Holt, to stop Confederate forces from approaching Louisville.
The regiment was attached to Rousseau's 1st Brigade, McCook's Command, at Nolin to November 1861.
3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, Right Wing, XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland, to January 1863.
3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, XX Corps, Army of the Cumberland, to October 1863.
Moved to Muldraugh's Hill, Kentucky, September 17, 1861, and duty there until October 14.
Buell's Campaign in northern Alabama and middle Tennessee June to August.
Passage of Cumberland Mountains and Tennessee River and Chickamauga Campaign August 16-September 22.
Operations on line of Pumpkin Vine Creek and battles about Dallas, New Hope Church, and Allatoona Hills May 25-June 5.
The Louisville Legion nickname was derived from an earlier Kentucky militia unit that was first constituted on January 21, 1839, in Louisville, and was mustered into federal service for the Mexican–American War, from May 17, 1846, as the 1st Kentucky Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
[2] Of the regiment's service during the Civil War, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman wrote, "No single body of men can claim more honor for the grand result than the officers and men of the Louisville Legion of 1861.
"[3] Ten years after the Civil War the Louisville Legion would again organize as the Kentucky State Guard's 1st Regiment of Infantry.
In this incarnation it would take part in the French Eversole Feud and the Rowan County War.
Afterwards it would maintain the peace around Frankfort, Kentucky, after the assassination of Governor William Goebel, and then patrol the Mexican border.
[3] The 138th Field Artillery and 149th Armor Brigade of the Kentucky National Guard are directly descended from the Louisville Legion.