Roaming With Carl

Battle of Perryville – Turning Point of the Civil War?

Going to the Perryville battlefield was the main driver to make the trip in my Acura instead of flying to Washington D.C. This battle was one of the strategic keys of the Civil War. After Perryville the Union realized that it would not lose the war; even if they didn't know how they would eventually end it. The Confederacy realized at the end of this battle that they could not win the war. It was no accident that Shelby Foote named the first volume of his trilogy Fort Sumter to Perryville. I don't intend to make this post another rehash of the battle and the events before and after.

The battlefield is a tad over 12 miles from Danville KY. The park is not part of the National Military Park system but a Kentucky state park. The facilities have a fairly new look about them and the museum reflects the great care the volunteers have spent in collecting appropriate artifacts for display.

The 20 minute Video is well done and makes good use of special effects to provide a sense of the times.

There are 17 miles of trails on the site but threatening skies kept me on the short 0.8 mile loop in the main battle field area and a gravel road that takes you out the back entrance to the park. I have some pictures which I will try to put up some how.

My personal observation is not unique as others have noted and commented on it. Of all the Civil War battlefields I have visited Perryville has the roughest terrain of them all. Extreme up and downs that could hide a couple of hundred troops less than a hundred yards away. On the other battlefields most had fields of view of hundreds of yards.

All in all I spent 4 hours at the battlefield and got showered on once. I was particularly interested in the 8^th Kansas Volunteer Infantry that was part of Mitchell's division. By this time General Mitchell's 5^th Division was a veteran of Buell's maneuvering to block Confederate General Bragg's advance into Kentucky. The 8^th Kansas's history reflects that from 23^rd of August 1862 up to 29 September, the regiment had marched 414 miles before landing in Louisville for four days rest. Five days before the 8 October main event at Perryville.

The 8^th and the 35^th Illinois were engaged as skirmishers in support of the Privey's Fifth Wisconsin Battery on the left of McCook's brigade on 7 October. The Regiment's history only reflects a short skirmish repelling an attack on a supported artillery battery on the 8^th,. A chronology of the battle reflects that General Mitchell's division, spent the day in blocking position near the town of Perryville. That position is outside of the park boundaries and is now covered with small farmsteads.

NOTE: This post is under construction and will be revisited as time permits to answer questions that I have as a result of comparing the 8^th Kansas's history with the material collected at the park.

Technorati Tags: Perryville, 8th Kansas Volunteer Infantry, Civil War

General Thomas and 8th Kansas

The March 2007 Smithsonian article on General Thomas re-infected me with the Civil War Bug. This is the first time the bug has bit me since the onset of google and wikipedia and the results are amazing to  me

For additional information there is a good page on Thomas at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Henry_Thomas that adds more perspective to the Smithsonian story and is a good overview of the Civil War in the Western Theater. 

One rediscovery I have made is this contemporary unit history for the 8^th Kansas in the  Kansas Guard Museum website.  If you can get past the flowery language of the period and have any understanding of the Civil War in  the  Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia  area; this is good detail of the Civil War grunts life. Since the 8th Kansas was a player through out much of General Thomas life in the same area, it is a nice follow-up to the Smithsonian story.

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