The Kentucky Campaign, 1862-- Part 2: The Battle of Perryville

4.   A severe drought in the region drew both armies to Perryville.

5.  The Union Army greatly outnumbered the Confederates but only one corps was significantly involved in the battle.

6.  Famous Confederate diarist Sam Watkins declared that Perryville was the "hardest fighting" he  experienced during the war.

"I was in every battle,skirmish and march that was made by the First Tennessee Regiment during that war, and I do not remember of a harder contest and more evenly fought than that of Perryville."

7.  Small quantities of Henry repeating rifles were used at Perryville, probably the first time they were used in combat.  The Henry rifle was the predecessor  of the more famous Winchester lever action rifles.

--Old Secesh

MCCWRT April Discussion, Battle of Shiloh-- Part 1: A War and a Snowstorm

The McHenry County Civil War Round Table (MCCWRT) discussion group met Saturday, April 27 at Panera Bread in Crystal Lake, Illinois in the midst of all sorts of dire snow warnings.  As such, attendance was down to just four.  I went, but as Captain Jack Sparrow would say, "Kept a weather eye out."  As long as the snow didn't start sticking to the pavement, I was staying.

I brought along the huge book "American Heritage Civil War" to give to the eleven-year-old boy who has been at our last two meetings.  I had a smaller child's edition growing up.  But the thing I liked the most were the battle maps which had small soldiers charging and moving in formations.  I spent hours pouring over those maps.  And, the book was written by none other than Bruce Catton, who really knew his way around words.

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I had a little quiz for attendees concerning the Battle of Shiloh.

1.  Name the two U.S. Navy ships that helped turn the tide at the Battle of Shiloh?

2.  Name the two Union armies involved in the battle as well as the Confederate one.

Answers in the next post.

The Snow and the Blood and the Beer.  --Old SeceshSnow

About Schofield's Move to Wilmington-- Part 4: Fort Fisher Resembled " A Farmer's Field Strewn With Pumpkins"

"Returning to Washington, Schofield, embarked with Cox's division on February 4th, leaving the rest of the corps to follow as fast as ships could be procured.  A gale off Cape Hatteras delayed the transports for a day or  two, but the division landed safely at Fort Fisher on the 9th.

"The fort still bore evidence of the extraordinary bombardment it had undergone, and its broad sandy interior was thickly strewn with great shells rusted red in the weather, and resembling nothing so much as a farmer's field strewn with pumpkins."

--Old Secesh

About Schofield's Move From Tennessee to Wilmington, N.C.-- Part 1

That Jacob D. Cox was an interesting person.

He commanded a division of soldiers in Schofield's XXIII Corps that made the move.

This is what Cox said in his book "March to the Sea."  I had seen much about it other than saying it had been done.

"The orders which had been sent General Schofield to move the Twenty-third Corps westward, reached him on January 14th (in Tennessee).  River transports took the troops down the Tennessee and up the Ohio to points where railway transportation could be got, and the transfer to Washington and Alexandria was then completed by rail.

"The distance travelled was fourteen hundred miles, and the corps was ready to take ship before February 1st; but the unusual severity of the winter weather had frozen the Potomac River, and it was not till the 4th that the first detachments of the troops sailed (to Fort Fisher)."

--Old Secesh

Firestorm at Peshtigo-- Part 6: Francis L. Capen

In the last post, I wrote about what Abraham Lincoln had to say about this man (and he wasn't very impressed with his weather forecasts).  This was Lincoln's endorsement on a letter from Mr. Capen.

Mr. Capen's card was with his letter and read:  "Thousands of lives & millions of dollars may be saved by the application of Science to War.  Francis L. Capen.  Certified Meteorologist & Expert in Computing the Changes of the weather."

The letter requests a favorable reference to the War Department and concludes:  "I will guarantee to furnish Meteorological information that will save many a serious sacrifice."

Other letters from Capen  in the Lincoln papers demonstrate that he was more of a crank than a scientist.

15 % Chance of Rain.  --Old Secesh

Firestorm in Peshtigo-- Part 5: Lincoln On the Weather

In the events leading up to that firestorm that hit Peshtigo, Wisconsin, on October 8, 1871, the book talked about newspapers beginning to write about the weather.

President Lincoln wasn't very convinced that people who made weather forecasts knew much about their craft.  During the Civil War, he wrote about one Francis L. Capen:  "It seems to me that Mr. Capen knows nothing about the weather in advance," he wrote on April 28, 1863.  "He told me three days ago that it would not rain again till the 30th of April of the 1st of May.

"It is raining now and has been for ten hours.  I cannot spare any more time to Mr. Capen."

--Old Secesh

Apologies for No Post Yesterday

I am still trying to catch up since the storms that rolled through northern Illinois knocked out out internet until about 3 p.m. this afternoon.

That was some storm that rolled through here, but at least we didn't have tornadoes which caused so much damage and a few deaths out to our west on Thursday.

--Old Secesh