The Battle of Perryville and Company Aytch - Essay Example

An American Civil war; the Battle of Perryville, which took place on 8th October 1862,  is believed to have been the epitome of the civil wars that took place in America during the 18th century, throughout the war three million soldiers consisted of a few women served as soldiers as compared to sixteen thousand soldiers that served the US  army before the civil wars, by the end of the war that left a very large number of casualties almost six hundred and twenty men succumbed to death this was especially due to unpreparedness and poor training of the soldiers in the face of the new technology in the field of war, this left horrific and devastating experiences to many people and influenced many young men to volunteer to fight through different companies, among them was  Sam R.Watkins who was in the rank of the common soldier and depicted as immortality through his 1882 memoir Company Aytch.

The initial deployment of the troops took place on the proceeding day leaving the residents in a dilemma of whether to leave or to stay in their village, on the eve of the battle upon drawing picket duty, Watkins was surprised to discover a Union guard  ‘Yankee’ that was on duty across the road, as Watkins explains that on that night they were not enemies “…We got very friendly … and made a raid upon a citizen’s pantry where we captured a bucket of honey, a pitcher of sweet milk, and three or four biscuits” (Watkins  12) Watkins believes that the locals in this village were taken by surprise.

Watkins recalls in his memoirs that the following morning that a line was drawn between Perryville and the Yankee army, on the other side of the Yankees, they raised the blue flags, ready for the war with their dogs threatening to attack, but the war did not start until noon (Watkins  15). They were marching in a cornfield when the Yankees opened their war dogs on them, they were attacked from the three lines from which they were able to counter-attack killing every of their opponent mostly by the use of Napoleon guns, this resulted in many killings totaling to 55,396 federal soldiers and 16800 Braggs confederate soldiers (Watkins  27).

Watkins was quoted saying; “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 battle than that of Perryville” (Watkins  24).

Most of the soldiers who fought this war were young men about the age of 25 and were unmarried, white, and born in the United States, they only had a basic literacy level able to read and write, and most of these soldiers attended the protestant church, most of these young men enlisted to this war for various reasons such as the desire for excitement and adventure, friendship and peer pressure as well as ideological differences in protection of the Confederation liberty (Noe &Kenneth 49).

Before the soldiers joined the training they normally had a send-off ceremony attended by the soldier's family (Noe &Kenneth 119). During this occasion female relatives presented hand-sewn flags, believing that the war would only take place for a little while, however, things changed once these soldiers joined the training in camps, they were given new duties in addition to drilling such duties included gathering picket and collecting firewood (Noe &Kenneth 125). What appeared to be an enticing experience turned out to be a nasty and regretful experience especially as the war escalated soldiers continued to suffer considerably from noise pollution which left the survivor of the war emotionally distraught, wounded soldiers had very little medical care from military doctors who had rudimentary medical skills, this culminated with the majority of the wounded soldiers taken as the prisoners of the war (Noe &Kenneth 139).

As Watkins discloses, in this prison camp soldiers were subjected to many pains, first, there were very poor sanitary in the congested camps and terrible eating and feeding habits, this created an unhealthy environment that bred many diseases in the soldiers, among them were Epidemics of mumps, chicken pox, malaria, typhoid, dysentery and measles, Watkins commented that those diseases claimed more lives than the combat civil war itself (Watkins  98).

Despite the great importance of the Perryville Civil War battle, the Perryville area went unprotected until the late 19th century (Sanders &Stuart 146). Most of the resources were allocated to other areas such as Chickamauga, Shiloh, and Vicksburg, this area was left to feed for itself, and the site had become very poor by 1952 until the local Perryville Lions club rehabilitated the small confederate cemetery (Sanders &Stuart 148).