Haven't done much work on my ancestoral regiments in a while. I will try to look up what I had done. I thought the 8th had a fairly interesting history. As I recall, it was one of the few East Tennessee units in Sherman's army group in the Atlanta Campaign. It was in the smallest of his three armies - the Army of the Ohio - but that army played a role in outflanking Confederate positions. There are several occasions when it was opposed by Confederate cavalry regiments to which I am related. The 8th returned to Tennessee when the 'march to the sea' began. It was in the counter-attack at Franklin of 4-5 regiments that stopped the one breakthrough by Cleburne's Division (again interesting to me, as I am also related to the 5th Arkansas, with which the 8th Tennessee may have engaged).

Offhand, what I recall about the 3rd Mounted Infantry was that it was a bizarre unit, made up in good part of deserters from both sides. Maybe only a few of its companies really followed orders and performed some functions. As my gggGrandfather Isenhour had the nerves to not only escape East Tennessee but to return on a recruitment mission while it was still in Confederate hands, I wonder how he came to move from the 8th Infantry to the 3rd Mounted Infantry.