This is interesting. The Perryville battlefield park has apparently compiled an official statement regarding my book on the 16th Tennessee at the Battle of Perryville. It attempts to refute my attempts to correct the chronology and interpretation of the battle in the center and on the right. It fails pretty miserably in my opinion. Following this post is my response. This was published as a reply to an Amazon review that I posted on "Maney's Brigade at the Battle of Perryville." I responded with the post following this "official statement."
Statement on Jamie Gillum's The Battle of Perryville and the Sixteenth Tennessee Infantry Regiment: A Re-evaluation
Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site (2015)
In 2011, author Jamie Gillum self-published a book entitled The Battle of Perryville and the Sixteenth Tennessee Infantry Regiment: A Re-evaluation. Gillum's thesis is that historians have ignored evidence and erred in not giving the 16th Tennessee Infantry proper credit for capturing (or helping to capture) Capt. Charles Parsons' Federal battery at the top of the Open Knob, now more popularly known as Parsons' Hill. After an extensive re-evaluation of all the available evidence, we conclude that the traditional evaluation presented at the battlefield park is in fact the correct one. Col. John Savage's 16th Tennessee fought south of the Open Knob at the Widow Gibson farm against elements of Col. Leonard Harris's Brigade. Col. George Maney's Confederate brigade properly received credit for the capture of Parsons' Battery. The argument is presented below in four broad categories.
REPORTS: After the battle, reports from significant Confederate commanders and other writings invariably pointed to the conclusion that Savage fought Harris and that Maney took Parsons' Hill. Savage himself specifically reported recognizing during the fighting his friend and former colleague from the U. S. Congress, Lt. Col. Oscar Moore, who lay wounded on the field near the Gibson cabin. Savage personally ordered his men to attend to his old friend. Moore's 33rd Ohio was never on Parsons' Hill. Thomas Head of the 16th Tennessee later confirmed in the 16th Tennessee's regimental history that the 16th Tennessee was opposite the 33rd Ohio and the "7th Ohio," which can be no other than 2nd Ohio, since all sources have those two units fighting together all through the battle, and the 7th Ohio served in Virginia. Head in contrast writes nothing about Col. William Terrill's regiments on the Open Knob. It is impossible that Oscar Moore was on or near Parsons' position.
Brig. Gen. Daniel Donelson, Savage's brigade commander, wrote that his brigade (excepting the 8th Tennessee and 51st Tennessee) were together. The 16th Tennessee did attack too early, which is why its casualties were so high. Contrary to Gillum, it was never detached from the brigade. Had the 16th Tennessee moved toward Parsons, the 15th and 38th would have followed, yet evidence from those regiments shows that they did not.
In his memoir, Gen. St. John Liddell specifically puts General B. F. Cheatham (Donelson's wing commander) at Capt. Samuel Harris' captured battery near the Gibson cabin and reported a conversation with him, asking instructions as to where to deploy his brigade. Liddell also gives credit to the capture of Harris' battery to "Cheatham's Men."
JOHN SAVAGE AND THE "THE RIGHT TURN": After some narrative confusion about timing and events at the beginning of the battle, Gillum assumes that Savage initially drove to the west and then turned right under orders from his superiors, which would have taken him northwest to Parsons' Hill. Savage indeed describes turning to the right while under heavy fire. But the available evidence reinforces the traditional interpretation that Savage started out moving to the southwest, and so his right turn took him west toward the Gibson cabin. Crucially, the only Union battery that could have been visible to Savage at the outset was Capt. Peter Simonson's. It also was the only U. S. battery firing at the time. That is why the initial attack was directed towards this battery. The 45 degree turn to the right faced the 16th Tennessee to the west, into "the valley of death," not northwest to the Open Knob. Gillum's interpretation instead requires Savage to intentionally expose his flank to Simonson's fire while initially attacking a battery (Capt. Samuel Harris's) that had yet to be seen or open fire.
Savage himself reinforces the traditional interpretation in his own words:
"There was running up from Chaplain Creek a long hollow about half way between the battery and where the regiment was in line. I thought as soon as I moved into that hollow I would be out of reach of the battery and that I could come up on the other side within sixty or seventy yards of the battery." Note that topographically, there is no "hollow" that would take the 16th Tennessee to Parsons' Hill.
"There was no reason why the battery should not have fired upon the regiment while it was in line, except that a fire would pass through the line and only do a little damage. Marching in the new direction indicated by Cheatham's aide, I was soon in an open beech forest on the top of the hill. I was riding in front expecting a surprise, the left of the regiment was at the edge of the forest and the field, when the battery, about one hundred and fifty yards from the regiment, fired, enfilading it, sweeping the whole length of the line, killing a captain, a lieutenant and many privates. I was riding in front of the regiment; a grape shot passed through the head of my horse below the eyes." This description reinforces the conclusion that the battery was Simonson's, and that the right turn took the regiment to the Widow Gibson farm.
"The men at the battery had been killed or wounded or had fled before Maney's brigade appeared in the field to my right, some hundred yards or more distant, and the battle had ceased at the battery." If this was not Harris's battery, but instead Parsons', what was Maney attacking? Remember that there was no Federal battery north of Parsons' to be assaulted by Maney.
"None of General Maney's brigade was nearer than one hundred yards of this battery. The batteries taken by General Maney's brigade were half a mile or more to the right of this battery. " Again, if Savage took Parsons' battery, what batteries could Maney have taken?
PARSONS' GUNS: All of the guns taken from Col. John Starkweather's brigade were recovered and accounted for by Federal troops on October 9, 1862. Only two captured Federal cannons left the field (and the state) after the battle. Based on the reports of Union Gen. Alexander McCook and Confederate battery commander Lt. William B. Turner, (and others) there can be no doubt that the guns in questions are Parsons'. Sources from Maney's brigade invariably assert say they captured two batteries unassisted.
Savage himself wrote that Maney's Brigade captured batteries (plural) on his right (to the north), and were not to be confused with any guns his regiment took. There were no other batteries on the Confederate right past Parsons, so Savage clearly states here that Maney took Parsons' battery. It is worth nothing as well that Savage, because of a wound, did not witness the capture of any battery personally.
Also notable is the correspondence that ensued between Gen. Braxton Bragg's Chief of Ordnance and Col. Maney about whose names should be engraved on those captured guns as honors. Note that Bragg gave Maney, not Donelson, the honor of choosing the names. Maney replied that at Perryville, along with his four Tennessee regiments, there also was the 41st Georgia, led by Col. Charles A. McDaniel. Maney asked that McDaniel's name be engraved on a gun and it presented to a Georgia Battery. Never mentioned was any thought of adding the 16th Tennessee to the list of regiments to be honored. In the end, the two Napoleons were engraved with the names of color bearer A.T. Mitchell and Lt. Col. John Patterson, both of the 1st Tennessee of Maney's Brigade. The Napoleon engraved to Mitchell later was seen in Germantown, Pennsylvania, by a former Confederate who wrote a letter to the Confederate Veteran for its January 1914 issue.
WHERE ARE THE CABINS? Sources from Savage's brigade invariably describe fighting around log buildings. Savage famously wrote that "There was a fence and a field on my right running up to two cabins at the line of the enemy's forces. There were skirmish lines along this fence which fired on our rear as we advanced. The Sixteenth had no protection except a few trees in the forest. I ordered a charge. We drove the enemy from behind the fences, killing many of them as they fled. The right of the regiment was at the two cabins. There was a battery in the line of battle to the right, about thirty or forty yards from these cabins, between which cabins there was an entry, or space, of ten or fifteen feet. The battery opened fire upon us, killing many men, and at the same time a fire of small arms from the line of battle was directed upon these cabins. The battery fired obliquely into this space."
Based on this description, that battery mentioned can only be Harris's. No soldier ever mentioned anything about any structure anywhere on the slopes of Parsons' Hill, even though more soldiers, both North and South, wrote about that piece of ground more than any other on the field. In his book, Gillum concludes without any evidence that there still must have been a structure on Parsons' Hill, it simply hasn't been found yet by archeologists. In his book he also points hopefully to areas where trees later were removed and suggests that those depressions might comprise the remains of a house structure.
More recently, after publication, Gillum pointed in several online venues to an 1877 map of the battlefield that shows a "Hayflay" cabin southeast of the Open Knob. He has concluded that this must be the missing cabin, and thus this map confirms his interpretation. There are two obvious problems, however. First, the cabin is in the wrong place for his narrative. The map places the cabin near the modern outdoor pavilion and playground, nowhere near where it would support the Gillum narrative. It is much too far to the east.
Second, and more importantly, the map clearly depicts 1862 troop movements on an 1877 landscape. Notably, Squire Bottom's cemetery constructed after the battle also is shown on the map. All the map really establishes is that a man named Hayflay (probably Hafely) lived on the battlefield in 1877. There remains no evidence of a cabin there in 1862. It is not on the more familiar "Work Map" of the battlefield. The history of the Sleettown site also demonstrates that in terms of structures, the battlefield looked quite different by 1877. An 1877 map says little then about the state of the battlefield in October 1862. The most logical conclusion is that the structure was built in the mid-1870s.
CONCLUSION: Historical inquiry and revision is always welcome at the park, and over the years we have indeed altered several interpretations based upon new evidence. Mr. Gillum, however, has not proven his case to our satisfaction. Instead, our inquiry reconfirms the traditional interpretation of these events as currently depicted at the park.
Bringing the