The Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, was fought on October 8, 1862, between Major General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio and Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s Army of Mississippi. From Wikipedia:
The Battle of Perryville, also known as the Battle of Chaplin Hills, was fought on October 8, 1862, in the Chaplin Hills west of Perryville, Kentucky, as the culmination of the Confederate Heartland Offensive (Kentucky Campaign) during the American Civil War. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg‘s Army of Mississippi[b] initially won a tactical victory against primarily a single corps of Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell‘s Union Army of the Ohio. The battle is considered a strategic Union victory, sometimes called the Battle for Kentucky, since Bragg withdrew to Tennessee soon thereafter. The Union retained control of the critical border state of Kentucky for the remainder of the war.
On October 7, Buell’s army, in pursuit of Bragg, converged on the small crossroads town of Perryville in three columns. Union forces first skirmished with Confederate cavalry on the Springfield Pike before the fighting became more general, on Peters Hill, when the Confederate infantry arrived. Both sides were desperate to get access to fresh water. The next day, at dawn, fighting began again around Peters Hill as a Union division advanced up the pike, halting just before the Confederate line. After noon, a Confederate division struck the Union left flank—the I Corps of Maj. Gen. Alexander M. McCook—and forced it to fall back. When more Confederate divisions joined the fray, the Union line made a stubborn stand, counterattacked, but finally fell back with some units routed.[9]
Buell, several miles behind the action, was unaware that a major battle was taking place and did not send any reserves to the front until late in the afternoon. The Union troops on the left flank, reinforced by two brigades, stabilized their line, and the Confederate attack sputtered to a halt. Later, three Confederate regiments assaulted the Union division on the Springfield Pike but were repulsed and fell back into Perryville. Union troops pursued, and skirmishing occurred in the streets until dark. By that time, Union reinforcements were threatening the Confederate left flank. Bragg, short of men and supplies, withdrew during the night, and continued the Confederate retreat by way of Cumberland Gap into East Tennessee.[9]
Considering the casualties relative to the engaged strengths of the armies,[4] the Battle of Perryville was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. It was the largest battle fought in the state of Kentucky.[10]
There’s more at the original.
Though the Confederate States assumed that Kentucky should just naturally be part of the CSA, the Bluegrass State never seceded from the Union, declaring neutrality between the USA and CSA instead at first. Later, the state legislature petitioned the Union for support. Kentuckians fought on both sides, some 35,000 for the Confederacy and 125,000 for the Union.
The city of Perryville isn’t much of a much, with a population of fewer than 1,000 people, but the town logo has, horrors!, offended some of the Special Snowflakes™.
You see, the town logo has the Confederate flag on it. Oh, not as some homage to the Confederacy, but as a remembrance of the battle, about the only thing of note for the area. It also has the American flag on it as well, and the date of the battle. The Perryville Battlefield State Historical Site is nearby.
From the Lexington Herald-Leader:
By Karla Ward | June 8, 2021 | 9:00 PM EDT | Updated: June 9, 2021 | 9:29 AM EDT
The Perryville city council voted last week to form a committee to work on a redesign of the city’s logo, which currently includes images of the Confederate flag.
Perryville’s logo became a topic of discussion at the May council meeting, when Councilman Tim Simpson suggested putting up Perryville city flags between the American flags hanging along Second Street, according to a city Facebook post.
“It really never even crossed my mind as far as what it was and what it looked like,” Councilwoman Kelly Gray said in an interview Tuesday, until she took a good look at the city’s logo that night.
“I’m looking at the flag, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, we cannot do that,’” she said.
There’s a good deal more at the original.
One wonders: why would Mrs Gray be so very upset over a logo depicting the battle when she and her husband Adam have claimed to be very concerned with historic preservation?
Perryville residents Kelly and Adam Gray have been sued by the Kentucky Heritage Council over alleged changes they made to a historic property. The couple say they only improved the property and are “baffled” by the suit.
The civil suit, filed in Boyle Circuit Court, concerns a structure at 122 N. Bragg St. in Perryville.
The suit claims the historic structure, referred to as the Bond House, has been altered in violation of a Preservation and Conservation Easement, which allowed the Grays to benefit through reduced property tax payments. . . .
According to the suit, KHC claims when the Grays bought the building, the deed described it as subject to all easements and restrictions, and that the property must be “maintained forever substantially in the condition it was in” at time of purchase.
The suit describes several changes the Grays made to historic attributes of the home, including wood windows, brick nogging, interior and exterior doors, interior wood trim and interior plaster walls and ceilings.
The suit also states the defendants caused or allowed a signature from a soldier at The Battle of Perryville that was located on a plaster wall to be removed, as well as historic stair elements from the property.
Maybe it was the signature of a Confederate soldier?
“We could have saved ourselves an immense amount of money if we had just built a brand new house from the ground up, but because we have a passion for historic preservation and for Perryville, we thought it was more important to save a piece of history despite the extra costs that we knew would come along with that,” Kelly Gray said. She said she and Adam Gray “value historic preservation … and want our children and grandchildren to have the privilege of seeing these historic structures standing 100 years from now. However, in the end we are really on the same team, which continues to baffle me. Why is an organization suing us for doing exactly what they fight for each and every day?”
Judging by the photos in the Danville Advocate-Messenger, the Grays are on the right side of history as far as the restoration is concerned; the building was condemned and looked like it was about to fall down. But for a lady who claimed she has “a passion for historic preservation,” why is she so opposed to celebrating the history of the region? Yes, the Confederates fought there, but they also lost the initiative in Kentucky in part because of that battle; General Bragg’s Army had to retreat from the state, and the Union dominated Kentucky through the rest of the war.
Historic preservation means preserving history, not denying it, yet that is what Mrs Gray wants to do. My good friend Robert Stacy McCain
But as the American patriot John Adams famously said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Sadly, today’s left are trying to prove Mr McCain wrong: the ‘state of facts and evidence’ can be altered if they are incorrectly taught, or not taught at all. The dedicated historic preservationist Kelly Gray wants to what, say that the Union won a great victory at Perryville, by fighting against nobody?
The Special Snowflakes™ are just so terribly, terribly offended by the Confederacy and slavery, things which died in this great land 156 years ago. There are no Confederates left, there are no former American slaves remaining alive. History itself is now the perceived enemy of the snowflakes and the #woke.
The Perryville logo does not somehow celebrate the Confederacy; it states that a great battle was fought there, 158½ years ago. If someone were to walk the streets of that small town and ask, what the heck does that symbol mean, a knowledgeable resident could say that yes, a Civil War battle was fought there, and the result was that the Confederates were forced out of Kentucky as a result. Ought not that to be a history the snowflakes would want?
