Those odd-looking books on the shelf
Battle of Perryville KY, 8 Oct 1862
Now I won’t say it was because it was starting to get late and I was starting to get frustrated — as I usually am — with George and his missing parents, but my eyes did stray along the shelves of the Kentucky Historical Society and came to rest on those odd-looking books on the shelf.
Now, an hour later, having been thrown out of the KHS at closing time, I’m no closer to finding George or his parents (or their footprints) but man… what a find those odd-looking books turned out to be!
It isn’t just that they told me much I’d never have known otherwise about the Battle of Perryville, 8 October 1862, by far the bloodiest battle in Kentucky and — purely in terms relative to the size of the armies that met in the field — one of the bloodiest battles of the entire Civil War. Union losses were 4,276 men (894 killed, 2,911 wounded and 471 captured or missing; Confederate losses were 3,401 men (532 killed, 2,641 wounded and 228 captured or missing).1
But those books told me so much about what’s hidden behind the battle lines on the map you see here. If you look really closely at the enlarged version (click on the map to enlarge it), under the bottom red arrows where Bull Run meets Doctor’s Creek, are two words: “Squire Bottom.”2 And therein lies the tale.
Henry Pierce Bottom (1809-1901) was a prosperous slave-owning farmer and a magistrate in Boyle County, Kentucky, from 1860-1865. He married Margaret “Mary” Delilah Hart around 1840 and they are known to have had two sons: Samuel Davis Bottom in 1841, and Rowan Bridges Bottom in 1848.3
Sources differ as to his loyalties during the war. Historian Kenneth Noe refers to him persistently as a secessionist4 while other sources — and, eventually, a court decision — held that he was loyal to the Union.5 What is beyond debate is that it was his farm on which much of the Battle of Perryville was fought.
And those odd-looking books on the shelf of the Kentucky Historical Society contained a printout, from microfilm, of hundreds and hundreds of pages of court filings, depositions and other papers related to “Squire” Bottom’s unsuccessful decades-long fight to win reimbursement from the Union forces for the damage done to his farm.
Battle losses weren’t compensable — they were simply what happened in war — but Bottom claimed that most of the damage was done by the thousands of Union troops who camped out on his farm after the battle. They burned his fence posts for firewood, ate his smoked meat and his oats and corn, made off with all of his hogs and his cattle and two horses. All told, he claimed more than $4,800 in damage — and collected nary a cent.6
The claim was first filed in 1866, and denied shortly thereafter both because the Bottoms didn’t get vouchers from the Union quartermaster and because of doubts about Henry’s loyalty. It was refiled thereafter and then lay dormant for years as Henry’s health failed. After his death, his executor pressed the case and kept appealing and appealing. The loyalty issue eventually went their way, but not the final decision: ultimately it just wasn’t proved that the damage came from the troops and not from the battle.7
Now maybe there are folks out there who’d have put those books back on the shelf after seeing that they have dry and dusty legal documents from a court of claims case. I mean, hey, after all, you’re not really going to get good genealogical information from a lengthy description of corn crops and numbers of hogs, are you?
And oh boy would those folks have been making a mistake. The documents in the file are simply amazing: Henry’s son Samuel testified in 1904 that the farm was “all tore to pieces,” with not a fence intact, the barn burned, and their entire crop destroyed. The family didn’t give anything to troops on either side, he said; we “had nothing after the battle to give.” Preston Sleet, a neighbor after the war and an African American Union soldier during the battle, testified for the Bottoms family that Union troops had burned the fence rails for firewood and used hay for their bedding. Even a Union quartermaster testified in favor of the claim.8
A physician from town, J.B. Bolling, said he went to the farm the day after the battle and every day thereafter for weeks to care for the wounded. The farm, he said, was “in desolation. It was all used up pretty much.” and Henry Bottom “was broken in spirit from that time on, until he died.” Another neighbor, Mingo Williams, spoke of the sheer numbers of dead in the fields. The farm was “covered in dead men.”9 Witness after witness came forward, and each and every one was examined in detail about his knowledge of the area, his own role in the battle and his relationship, if there was one, to the Bottom family. The wealth of detail is stunning.
The farm was never the same after that battle. The Union troops buried their own in neat rows. Bottom, his hands and his slaves were pressed into service to bury the Confederate dead. By 1868, the Union dead had been moved to a federal cemetery in another county; a Confederate cemetery was dedicated near the battlefield in 1902, just after Bottom’s death — the stone pillar bears the names of a few Mississippi soldiers whose effects Bottom had saved so they could be identified.10
The Union dead at Perryville were not honored there until 1931, then the entire battlefield area became a national historic landmark in the mid-1950s.11 Today, the Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site occupies much of what was Henry Pierce Bottom’s land and a major re-enactment is scheduled for the 150th anniversary of the battle, on the weekend of October 6-7, 2012.
I don’t have any ancestors — that I know of, yet! — from Boyle County, Kentucky, and I can’t spare time on this trip for a side jaunt to Perryville. For today, I’m off to the archives and back to hunting for footprints left by George and his parents.
But if my eyes should come to rest on any other odd-looking books on the shelf, you know what I’ll be doing. Because for us, as genealogists, it’s the hidden treasures tucked away in those dry and dusty odd-looking books that keep moving us forward… and where, who knows, maybe someday, those footprints I’m hunting may just turn up.
SOURCES
Image by Hal Jespersen, http://www.posix.com/CWmaps/, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
- Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), “Battle of Perryville,” rev. 13 May 2012. ↩
- Hal Jespersen, “Perryville: 1545” (http://www.posix.com/CWmaps/ accessed 16 May 2012). ↩
- See Owners of the Perryville Battlefield,” The Perryville Civil War Battlefield Website (http://www.perryvillereenactment.org : accessed 16 May 2012). ↩
- Kenneth W. Noe, “Remembering Perryville: History and Memory at a Civil War Battlefield,” The Perryville Civil War Battlefield Website (http://www.perryvillereenactment.org : accessed 16 May 2012). ↩
- See generally R.B. Bottom, Executor, vs. United States, case files 9877 and 2514 consolidated. The stated citation on these volumes, reprinted from microfilm by the National Archives for the Kentucky Department of Parks, is to General Records of the Department of the Treasury, Records of the Division of Captured Property, Claims, and Lands, Record Group 56, National Archives, Washington, D.C. The case file name and numbers have been confirmed; the record group has not been confirmed. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Noe, “Remembering Perryville: History and Memory at a Civil War Battlefield.” ↩
- Ibid. ↩
Great reminder to look at everything you can. On a client research trip to deep south Texas, I picked up an old, weird looking little ledger to discover it was the county’s “license” book from pre-vital records days. There were licenses for taverns, barbers, and several other businesses. Beyond simply registering the license and fees, there were reports of deaths, receipts paid by people identified as relatives of the licensee, one report that the guy could not pay because of some illness, transfers of ownerships, and some little hand-written personal notes. Since these records were from the 1800s, it was well before death records were recorded. If I can ever get back down there, I’d love to abstract that record and publish it. What a gem!
Those old odd-looking books are just terrific — and what a find for you!!! Please do get back down there and abstract them!!! (And if that was in Colorado County, sooner rather than later!!!)
That was a fascinating story! Thank you for sharing that! I’ll be sure to keep odd-looking books in mind when I do my research. 🙂
And when you do, keep an eye out for my missing folks, willya??? (Can you tell I’m still frustrated? Where the heck was George born anyway???)
During a recent visit to Kentucky to see my sister we stopped by her church to drop off some papers and on a whim she and my brother-in-law offered me the “nickel tour”. Of course I accepted and as we were checking out one particular room I noticed a very old looking bookcase in a corner that seemed to have lots of interesting books including two very large Bibles and what appeared to be either notebooks or ledgers, also old.
The Bibles were in fact old but the real treasure was the notebooks and ledgers that were records of the church covering from about 1890-1910. Marriages, Sunday School class lists, Church committee meeting minutes and more. I am sure that my sister and brother-in-law thought I was nuts as I gushed over these records but once I explained how valuable they would be to a genealogist they allowed as how they had something important. I told my sister the next time we visit I need at least a day at the church for “abstract” purposes and that the tour was worth way more than a “nickel”.
Pat
Pat
Wow! That’s a terrific find, Pat… and I’m sure the church also has no idea how valuable those will be!
I have never seen my Odd Little Book, but found out about it when searching marriage licenses. 1870s through 1890s…three of my family licenses record “with permission of mother/guardian on file in this office.” So I tried to find out where they were on file now. The first answer I got 15 years ago was that they were scattered through all the other legal documentation and not very useful. But recently I revisited the issue calling the local archivist who said, “Oh I have that book right here!” Mysteriously, my individuals’ permission slips do not appear in the book which “is a very complete record for that time,” so I’m still not sure of parents for these folks. But I try to tell everyone I know who is researching in this area (Gold rush country, California) that these books DO exist!
Your posts are always so fascinating, Judy. I love how you take something that could be so dry and make folks WANT to hear more. For those of us already bitten by the genealogy bug…we can’t stay away!
Oh I hope you get your Odd Little Book! These finds are such fun. And thanks so much for the kind words. Blending history and genealogy and law, to me, is what makes it all so interesting!