Saving the Army at Perryville

Writing in the early morning hours of October 10, 1862 “by a light of oak boards with their smoke occasionally drifting” past his eyes, First Lieutenant E.J. Fitzpatrick of Semple’s Battery noted with pride the role his battery played in the recent fight at Perryville.

            Stationed to protect the town, the Alabamians were not called upon to fight until late in the day when Federal troops approached along Springfield Pike. “We fought them from about 5 p.m. till dark and had the satisfaction of stopping their advance which threatened to be disastrous to our side,” Fitzpatrick noted. “A disabled piece and broken caisson with many dead and wounded men (we are told) was the result of our practice. The casualties in our company were only two men: Greene Mitchell, wounded in the hand, and Peyton Bolling, struck by a spent spherical case bullet on the ankle, neither much hurt. Our boys behaved nobly, and today Semple’s Battery is a familiar name in this army.”

            Lieutenant Fitzpatrick’s letter first appeared in the October 22, 1862, edition of the Montgomery Weekly Advertiser. It is remarkable to think that this letter made it from war-torn Kentucky to southern Alabama in less than two weeks.

 

This well-worn example of a typical Confederate artilleryman's kepi is similar to what could have been worn by the members of Semple's Battery during the Battle of Perryville. Semple's Battery formed in Montgomery, Alabama in March 1862 and joined the Army of Tennessee, fighting in most all of its battles through to the end of the war, surrendering at Augusta, Georgia. Remarkably, the four bronze Napoleons (produced by Leeds & Co. In New Orleans in early 1862) utilized by the battery during the war still exist and are on display in Augusta, Georgia. 

Camp between Harrodsburg and Bryantsville, Kentucky

October 10, 1862

            It will, I feel sure, give you pleasure to relieve the anxiety of the friends of the Marks Battery by publishing a line assuring them of the safety of that command. To afford this relief, I snatch a moment at the hour of 1 a.m. though much fatigued by the march which has just ended and under orders to move again at daylight.

            On the 8th instant, a severe though not decisive battle was fought at Perryville, Kentucky between a portion of our army and a heavy force under the Yankee general Rousseau. Since leaving Bardstown, we had been followed closely by them and several skirmishes of some severity had occurred. On the 6th, they pressed us so importunately that our general halted at 3 p.m. and formed us in line of battle. The evening and night passed off without any fighting and so also did the day and night of the 7th, excepting an occasional skirmish.

            About half past 7 o’clock on the 8th, the enemy failing to advance on us, our forces were led to the attack. The day passed in occasional sharp encounters and closed by our driving them at dark two or three miles back in front of our right, and occupying ourselves with other parts of our line, the same position as in the morning. The loss on both sides is severe and on the part of the enemy terrible for the force engaged. One regiment from Wisconsin, numbering 400 men, lost 370 in killed and wounded. Another from Indiana was almost entirely destroyed. An officer at dark found himself face to face with them and with much presence of mind rebuked them for the confusion in their ranks, adding that he would go and have their colonel arrested. Inquiring the number of their regiment, “the 98th Indiana” was the reply. Riding back to a regiment from Arkansas, just across the road, he ordered them to fire and scarcely a man of the 98th Indiana escaped.

One of Semple's surviving gun tubes mounted on a reproduction gun carriage at Augusta University's Summerville Campus. When the battery surrendered at the end of the war, its four guns were placed into storage at the U.S. Army's arsenal in Augusta where they languished until 1955 when the arsenal closed. Two of the guns were later placed on display at Augusta University while two others were placed in front of Alexander Hall at Fort Gordon.

            Our company was divided during the action; the center section under Lieutenant Richard Goldthwaite was detached and acted with a section of Captain Calvert’s battery. They were engaged more or less all day and from all accounts did fine service. The rest of the battery was posted in a position to beat back any advance of the enemy through the town of Perryville.

They were not engaged until late in the afternoon when Colonel Gilchrist’s 45th Alabama with a Mississippi and Tennessee regiment under a mistake were ordered to charge two batteries, supported by perhaps a brigade of infantry. The charge was made across an open field for a mile. The 45th and its gallant colonel went up to within 150 yards of the batteries before they were ordered back. They retired in good order but were hotly pressed by the batteries and infantry until the latter came in range of our guns.

We fought them from about 5 p.m. till dark and had the satisfaction of stopping their advance which threatened to be disastrous to our side. A disabled piece and broken caisson with many dead and wounded men (we are told) was the result of our practice. The casualties in our company were only two men: Greene Mitchell, wounded in the hand, and Peyton Bolling, struck by a spent spherical case bullet on the ankle, neither much hurt. Our boys behaved nobly, and today Semple’s Battery is a familiar name in this army.

Time is precious and composition by a light of oak boards with their smoke occasionally drifting across the eyes is difficult.

Respectfully,

E.J. Fitzpatrick


P.S. I have not been able to learn the names of any from south Alabama who were hurt, except Colonel Sam Adams of Butler County. He received a painful but not dangerous wound of the foot by a musket shot. He is doing well; no bones apparently broken.   

To read another account from a Confederate artillerist at Perryville, please check out "A Mississippi Gunner at Perryville."


Sources:

Letter from First Lieutenant E.J. Fitzpatrick, Semple’s Alabama Battery, Montgomery Weekly Advertiser (Alabama), October 22, 1862, pg. 3

"Augusta's Civil War Legacy in Bronze," Dr. Russell K. Brown, see here. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on t...
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true ...
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of h...
Read more

The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

Image
T he 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.           Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84 th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84 th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Ma...
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on se...
Read more

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth

Image
W riting 30 years after the Battle of Corinth, James A. McKinstry of the 42 nd Alabama recalled his experiences storming Battery Robinett with Colonel William P. Rogers of the 2 nd Texas and expressed guilt that it was perhaps his action that brought about the colonel’s demise. “On seeing a line of Federals approaching, and before giving the situation a thought, I immediately raised my gun and fired full into the breast of a Federal sergeant, who was in front of the column, and only a short distance from us.  'Twas then that Captain George Foster shouted, "Cease firing, men! cease firing!" and waved his handkerchief, then I realized the true situation. 'Twas too late! That fatal volley had been turned on our little band from the muzzles of 1,500 muskets. I was still standing just as I was when I fired my last shot, and within a few feet of Colonel Rogers, when a Minie ball went crashing through my left hip and turned me half round; another went tearing through my ...
Read more

Cook & Brother of New Orleans

Image
    The lockplate of a New Orleans-made Cook & Brother Enfield rifle produced in 1862 shows the fine craftsmanship that became the hallmark of the maker throughout the Civil War. Note the stars and bars flag at left, an emblem used on C&B's production throughout the war and the Cook & Brother, N.O. 1862 markings. Earlier production weapons at New Orleans had the flag located just above the maker's name while later weapons produced in Athens, Georgia would have a modified flag and Athens on the plate followed by the serial number.        In the spring of 1861, two English-born businessmen, Ferdinand and Francis Cook of New Orleans, perceived the need for the South to have its own domestic production of firearms and  set out to prove "that rifles could made here as well as in Yankee land or in Europe." The brothers  elected to produce copies of the British Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield rifle as this was considered the benchmark longarm...
Read more

I Want to See a Battle: A Hoosier at Shiloh

Image
W riting in his diary, Private Manius Buchanan of the 29 th Indiana recalled the eagerness with which his regiment marched towards Savannah, Tennessee with the sounds of the battle of Shiloh ringing in their ears.           “The forced march was kept up until 2 p.m. when we were halted until 4 p.m,” he noted. “The rest was really needed, but the continual question is ‘Why are we stopped here?’ The sound of battle increased in volume and anxiety to be up and doing grows more intense. As I am weak from a late sickness, I am urged to fall to the rear; but no, in common with all, I want to see a battle and fear this will be my only chance.” The regiment would go into action the following afternoon, and of the four neighborhood boys who had enlisted together in Co. B, only Buchanan escaped unscathed. One afternoon's exposure to the horrors of battle was all it took to satisfy this Hoosier's desire to see the elephant. “I wanted to see a battl...
Read more

An Interview with Forrest in May 1864

Image
  “The noise of battle is the only music that ravishes the senses of Forrest.” I t was May 1864. Back east, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac were locked in the deadly dance of the Overland Campaign while in Georgia, General William Tecumseh Sherman's army squared off against General Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of the Tennessee in the campaign for Atlanta.       Based in relatively quiet northern Mississippi, General Nathan Bedford Forrest bided his time waiting for a Federal advance from Memphis. Earlier in the month, General Samuel Sturgis led a brief campaign into Mississippi but Forrest was sure Sturgis would venture out again. In the meantime, he tried to keep his reorganized command intact despite persistent demands from his superiors that he return the absentees and deserters who inflated his ranks (nearly 1,000 in number) to their original commands.      Around this same time,  an old acquaintance from Me...
Read more