SANDY DANCY IN THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE
Chaplin River ~ Perryville, Kentucky
On October 8, 1862, at 2:00 p.m., Sandy Dancy, Company A, 9th Tennessee Infantry Regiment, a part of General Cheatham's division, moved into Walker's Bend and attacked across the Chaplin River. General Cheatham's Confederate attack was intended to hit the Union flank but actually slammed into the front of McCook's First Army Corps.
STUART W. SANDERS, writing for The Kentucky Humanities Council, Inc., stated:
"On October 8, 1862, Henry Bottom's Perryville, Kentucky farm became one of the casualties of Kentucky's largest Civil War battle."
"When the Battle of Perryville was over, thousands of dead, wounded, and dying troops lay scattered over Bottom's farm. The battle denuded his land of forage and livestock, and burned his barn to cinders. The Union Army commandeered his home as a hospital. Finally, Bottom, who owned most of the land upon which the battle was fought, had to bury hundreds of dead Confederate soldiers."
"The Union troops buried their comrades in regimental plots, but the Confederate casualties were left lying on the battlefield. Eight days after the battle, one Union officer remarked that "There are hundreds of men being eaten by the buzzards and hogs." Since most of these corpses were lying on his farm, Henry Bottom and a number of his field hands buried most of the Confederate dead."
"According to war correspondent Alf Burnett, the Confederates were not buried until a Union officer ordered Southern sympathizers to do it. Resident Joseph Hafley claimed that he was "arrested" by Union authorities and forced to bury the dead. Burnett wrote that these interments were "accomplished by digging a deep hole beside the corpse, and the diggers, taking a couple of fence rails, would pry the body over and let it fall to the bottom."
"H. P. Bottom proved to be more caring. He examined each corpse for identifying marks, names, and insignia, and then recorded this information, hoping to alert the families of the dead. Bottom then buried the Southern soldiers where he found the most bodies. This mass grave, containing the remains of several hundred soldiers, is located at the Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site."
Sandy Alexander Dancy is apparently buried in one of the unidentified individual, or one of the mass Confederate graves at the Perryville Battle Field. No family records for him exist, past the Regimental muster roll that indicates he was killed at Perryville.
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