Semple's Battery

Semple's Battery. Perryville . The Battle For Kentucky. , Semple's Alabama Battery was formed in Montgomery, Alabama in March of 1862. Initially stationed at Mobile Alabama, it joined the Army of the Mississippi after the Battle of Shiloh, and marched into Kentucky attached to General S.A.M. Wood's Brigade, S.B. Buckner's Division of General W.J. Hardee's Left Wing., The battery was armed with four 12-pounder Napoleon smoothbores and two 3.8-inch rifled bronze cannon. When the battery arrived in the area, the Napoleons were detached from the brigade and stationed just west of the town of Perryville on the grounds of the Harmonia College. The remaining two guns of Semple's Battery, along with the rest of Wood's Brigade, came to this spot., From here, Semple's two 14-pounder rifles, along with Carnes' Tennessee Battery, Stanford's Mississippi Battery, Darden's Mississippi Battery, and the 5th Company, Washington Artillery from Louisiana participated in an artillery duel with Union batteries commanded by Peter Simonson and Cyrus Loomis. Here they suffered one man killed and two others wounded., Later in the day, the remainder of Semple's Battery were engaged in the town of Perryville, where they helped beat back an attack by William Carlin's Union brigade late in the day., Then it was the cool, deliberate firing and splendid practice of your battery, performed the most signal service in checking that advance and finally causing the enemy to turn and take shelter behind the brow of a hill on the opposite side of the village from that which they occupied. This check so timely given, allowed Powel's brigade to reform in its original position, where it kept the enemy at bay. , - General James Patton Anderson to Captain Henry C. Semple, A Federal battery on a ridge in sight across a field began shelling us when Semple's battery got into position near the right of the 33rd Alabama, and near [the Dye House], and in the artillery duel that followed General S.A.M. Wood our brigadier, fell or was thrown from his horse and left the field and the regiments that went in to the fight were without the aid of a Brigadier, no one assuming the command that I know of or saw. , - William E. Mathews 33rd Alabama, Semple's Battery, as did others, carried a portable forge with it and was accompanied by one or more of the best blacksmiths for repair work, and at their time would make and fit the best of tempered and well-proportioned blades at $1.00 each, to knife handles that we would obtain and furnish to them, or would make blades and handle entirely of iron if desired. , - William E. Mathews 33rd Alabama Infantry, (Caption):, Captain Henry Churchill Semple (1822-1894), (Photo Points of Reference to Union Artillery Postions):, Artillery Batteries of Union Army 1st Corps and Their Ranges from Semple's Battery (1,760 yards is one mile), HP Bottom's Burning Barm 1,225 Yards, Cyrus Loomis' 1st Michigan Battery 1,173 Yards, Peter Simonson's 5th Indiana Battery 1,249 Yards, Samuel Harris' 19th Indiana Battery 1,927 Yards, John Starkweather's Artillery Batteries (Stone's 1st, KY and Bush's 4th IN) 1,800 Yards, Charles Parsons' Improvised Battery 1,870 Yards