From Kentucky.
[Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.] Camp Near Bowling Green, Ky., January 16, 1862.
Please allow an old patron and a Virginian a small space in your little sheet, but now a member of the Fifty-sixth Virginia Regiment, many a mile from his native State and the place of his birth, battling for his country and liberty, ‘"away down in Dixie,"’ to drive back the rude invader from the soil of one of Virginia's daughters--Kentucky.
Here we are at this place, after many a wearisome hour's travel and sleepless nights, ready and willing to lend our aid to drive them from our sacred land.
Let what come that may, we, the Fifty-sixth, will at all times be ready and willing to face the music, and where the danger is greatest there will we be found battling like soldiers and men. Should we have a fight, as some seem to expect, you may expect to have a good report of the Fifty-sixth.
We are now attached to Floyd's brigade, and you know that he is a host within himself and dreaded by our enemies.
We would not object to taking them at any time two or three to one, if they will only show their faces.
We have many a good and true soldier stationed around this place, and our Generals have been fully awake to the importance of our defence.
Rumor has it that there is about sixty thousand Yankees on Green river now crossing.
They now have their bridge over the river completed, and can make a move if they like, but I am under the impression that they will not be seen here soon.
We are quartered about three and a half miles from town, in a fine body of woods, and with an abundance of good water about three hundred yards distant. We have had some disagreeable weather since our arrival at this place on Saturday last.
We have an abundance of one very useless thing here, and that is mud; it has no end, and I am of the opinion that in some places it has no bottom.
I have just finished a nice stone chimney to my tent, which adds much to comfort, though rude and unsightly as it is. I am sure that you, or any one else who had undergone what we have for the last ten days, would envy my situation.
I will in future keep you posted in matters of importance. 