"The Civil War at Perryville: Battling for the Bluegrass" by Christopher L. Kolakowski

I wanted to mentioned the cool volume, "The Civil War at Perryville:  Battling for the Bluegrass" by Christopher L. Kolakowski which I picked up recently.

This is another nice little volume from History Press covering a specific moment in the Civil War.  I really like these books because they are just a good starting point for someone new to the Civil War, or just developing an interesting in a specific battle.
 

The author does a nice job of explaining how the battle gets set up....  Both the Union and the Confederacy are kind of hesitant to do much with Kentucky at first, as Kentucky tries to stay neutral.  Leonidas Polk (CSA) ends up being the guy to upset the balance, and kind of get things rolling in the blue grass state.

Kolakowski explains how things evolve (or devolve) from there.  Lots of action in Tennessee bleeds over to this conflict too.  Political manuvering in Frankfort and Bowling Green (nicely explained by the author) contribute to the conflict too.

Perryville Under Fire by Stuart W. Sanders

To go along with our recent visit to the Perryville Battlefield, I read Stuart W. Sanders' "Perryville Under Fire:  The Aftermath of Kentucky's Largest Civil War Battle".

This is a nice little book to go along with any visit.  Its a very quick read and gives many first hand stories about how the community dealt with all of the casualties and destruction.

In fact, MANY other nearby communities were affected, as sick and injured took over churches, educational, and other buildings.  Farmers were affected as soldiers took whatever they needed for food, to feed their horses, and to build fires.

Of course, after any major battle the question of how to deal with the remains of fallen soldiers becomes a major issue too.

Perryville Battlefield, KY

We took a drive through Perryville again the other day.  This is a great place to visit anytime, but, if you are trying to isolate.....  you can drive around the battlefield....  and stop to read signs, and probably not see anyone else out.  I walked through downtown too and barely saw another person.

There is a great museum though at the battlefield, and they show a movie there explaining what happened here in October of 1862.

Confederate Monument in Springhill Cemetery, Harrodsburg Kentucky

Dedicated in 1902, here is a nice Confederate Monument in the Spring Hill Cemetery in Harrodsburg, not too far from Perryville.

Perryville Battle Field Perryville, KY

Perryville has been on my "to visit" list for some time.  We were passing through, and had a few moments to explore the battlefield and museum!

I read somewhere, I THINK in a Randy Bishop book, that this is the most significant Civil War battlefield NOT managed by the National Park Service.

Like every other Civil War site we have been to, we didn't have enough time here, and I know we will be back soon.  They ARE having a Civil War reenactment in early October, so that might be a good time!

The museum at Perryville is small but packed.  I love a good display of actual relics, and they have them here!  One of the most interesting items was a gun from the area.  The gun was hidden from the owner/soldier by a wife concerned about the owner's expressing suicidal thoughts.  She hid it in the wall, and the gun was not found until about a hundred years later!

The staff at the museum/visitor center was great, and they seemed excited when asked any questions by visitors.

I was interested in a computer that visitors were allowed to use to look up their family name, and see if they had any relatives who fought in the Civil War.  You can imagine my excitement when I personally discovered that I had several relatives who fought for the Union!  I have a very odd and rare last name, and figured that my search would reveal 0.  My wife (who has a similar odd last name) also discovered several connections!

The staff at Perryville let me know that this was not some secret data base that only they had.....  ANYONE can use it!  In fact.....  HERE is a link!

http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-soldiers.htm

I would love to hear from anyone else who also discovers that they can now proudly brag of having family in the Civil War!  Any advise on good, free genealogy resources online would also be appreciated by me!  I now have some family research to do!

After our visit to the museum, we drove around the park some.  There are many trails, and I am excited about making more visits here in the future to explore them.  A few hours at great sites like this is never enough.

This is a VERY well preserved battle field.  With very few modern additions to the area, it is easy to read the signs about the battle, and to look over the acres of green fields and imagine how things were.  Little has changed.