the 15th Kentucky Infantry Regiment ...

i recently read 'the battle rages higher: the union's 15th kentucky infantry regiment' and, thankfully, as i always try to do when i read something ... i learned a whole heck of a lot.

for those unfamiliar, the united states was once engaged in a civil war, lasting from 1861 until 1865 ... granted (no pun intended), this war happened a long time ago, so who could blame you if you don't know anything about it ... but let me preach a bit ... you should know something about it. some 620,000 american soldiers and sailors died (from the federal forces and confederate forces, combined) and an undetermined number of civilians ... we can at least say more than a million americans died in this war, though we may never know the true number ... so by this reason alone, americans should care that the union was nearly lost ... the united states as it exists today would not be so if just a couple of battles had gone differently.

and this can be argued, but in my opinion (which is highly uneducated), even if the confederate states had defeated the U.S., they would have been begging by the turn on the 20th century to be let back in ... while the agricultural base was high in the south, the industrial base belonged to the north, which would have led to such high tariff on imports and exports going both ways, the south could have never survived ... so bocephus can sing all he wants 'if the south woulda won' but i just don't think the south could have sustained in a win, even with england on their side.

but back to the book ...

even though kentucky was considered a border state and a bit of a neutral, the commonwealth still had tens of thousands of soldiers enlist for the union ... in the first two months of the war, more kentuckians volunteered for the union cause than did for the south in the entire war ... nevermind that kentuckians were democrats (and largely remain so) and lincoln was a republican, kentuckians were proud of their place in the united states and took it as an affront to that paternal nature of government prevelant in the early years of our nation.

the 15th kentucky was drawn from around louisville and central kentucky, enlisting citizens who were mainly agrarian in background and irish, scottish and german in heraldy ... most of the 980 plus men that served in the unit over its three-year existence were immigrants to the united states, causing a bit of turbulence with the 'native-borne' soldiers ... kind of sounds a lot like today doesn't it?

the 15th fought at perryville (kentucky's major battle), the battle of nashville, stone's river, chickamauga, chattanooga and took part in the siege of atlanta, most of the time facing across the field into the rifle sights of the first kentucky of the CSA, the 'orphan brigade' ... that unit was also drawn from the same geographic region, so many in both units had friends, family and neighbors in common ... it was a rather unique situation.

more than fifty percent of the unit ended up as a casualty, either killed, wounded or mustered out due to wartime sickness and ailments ... only 30 other units, out of hundreds of union regiments, had higher casualty rates.

after reading the book, even while reading, i was blown away by the history that sits all around us east of the mississippi and at some points west of the big river ... these soldiers camped, trained and fought in fields and villages that are now our backyards and subdivisions ... civil war forts sit all around us, many of them overgrown and forgotten to time ... some communities do well to preserve their history (such as tiny sacramento in webster county or glasgow and their fort williams, which is featured in my default pic) ... others simply allow the remnants of our past to erode and decay, never to be considered again.

in kentucky, the civil war is still a bit of a sore spot for some ... both president lincoln and president jefferson davis were born here, barely 100 miles apart ... we have the jeff davis memorial just to the west of us in fairview in todd county and old abe is 200 in 2009, but i just don't think kentucky is getting with the program ... there is still a bit of work to be done.

we get bent out of shape over high schools with rebel mascots, turn our cannons all sorts of directions to avoid pointing it towards 'the friendly side', our squares contain both confederate and union memorials, we preserve musket balls in home's walls, yet we still do not try to teach our young people just how important the outcome we received in the civil war was and is today. in this part of the country, we have battle re-enactments and there is always a larger number of confederates actors than union, though the state was largely pro-union ... it is certainly fashionable in our part of the world to wear the 'stars and bars' and pledge your undying loyalty to the CSA, even if you have no idea what it all meant.

if there is a point to this blog, it is this ... there are plenty of 'sources' of knowledge out there, but nothing beats getting out and learning on your own ... read a book and then visit the sites it talks about ... ask some of the older folks around where the battles and campsites were; they know these things. it is up to you to learn, because if you are relying on someone else for the truth, you might end up like atlantans waiting for a savior from richmond ... under immense fire and not a prayer in hell, save the pity of god himself.