Submitted by John D. Apperson, grandson of W. O. Perry

Memories
The Selma Times Journal, Wednesday, November 2, 1927

By W. O. Perry

I had two brothers in the army, Gates, who was killed at the siege of
Vicksburg, and L. J. Perry. L. J. Perry was in Arkansas when the war started
and was the first man to enlist in Co. A. First Regiment. He served nearly
the entire four years. He was wounded in Virginia in January 1865 and came
home. Drs Moore and Vaughan got him a place in the government stables in
Selma. He was not able to do field service as he was still on crutches. When
the battle line reached Selma, L. J. put the government mules and horses across the river near Cahaba and saved them.  He took a fine saddle horse belonging to Capt.
Burke who had organized a regiment of Summerfield men. On it, L.J. ran the
Northern lines and joined Forrest's men across the Cahaba river from Fike's
Ferry. He kept the horse until after the surrender when he returned it to
Capt. Burke.

     My first recollection of Selma was in 1860. I went there with my
father, Col. Oliver Hazard Perry. All that part of Selma from the
Summerfield Road to Bakers Switch was under a rail fence and belonged to the
plantation of Mr. Platenberg. Most of it was planted in cotton. The part
between the Summerfield Road and Valley Creek was the plantation of a Mrs.
Cade. Only two homes were in that part of town then. The one at the
intersection of Lapsley Street and Jeff Davis Avenue, then known as the
Starkey-Jones house, and having the cannon ball hole in one of the columns.
And the house at the corner of Church and Jeff Davis now occupied by Mr.
Cooper.  They look very much as they did then.

City Fortified

     Some time in 1863, work was begun on the breastwork for Selma's
fortification. The labor was all done by slaves. The natural embankment from
the river up Valley Creek to the intersection of Pettus and Gary Street was
used.
The construction work began there and went by the oil mill and eastward to
the Range Line Road and from there to Beech Creek.

     I spent one night in the camp on Beech Creek, having been sent there
with provisions for the members of my family and my father's slaves. The
embankment was ten feet wide at the base and about seven feet tall. The dirt
was gotten at the base of the embankment, making a ditch for further
protection. It was topped by a picket fence.

     Gen. Wilson said that Selma was the best fortified place in the entire
South; If it had just had the men to defend this fortification. The powder
magazine was a small brick house with one iron door, about where the
Methodist orphanage is now located The arsenal, the best the South had, was
in what is now Arsenal Place and the foundry was where the L. and N. station
is now. The shipyard was on the river bank under those oak trees just below
the railroad bridge. I saw a gun-boat put in the river there in April 1863
and carried to Mobile by a steam-boat called the Reindeer. There it was made
an iron clad boat.

     The government stables were just outside the arsenal gate where the
Gulf filling station is now.  Everything was transported about town by
mules.

     The real work of the country was done by the slaves directed by a few
old men and the disabled soldiers. By their labor, the homes were supplied
with food and the soldiers fed. One-tenth of all we made was given to the
soldiers. I went with the wagons and carried provisions to the stations
provided for that purpose. We had to feed corn and other feedstuffs to the
beef cattle used by the army. At one time we fed as many as 1,100 Texas and
Missouri steers. The Plantenberg field was the location of the stockade, or prison for the army. It was about half way between the Selma University and the Cosby residence
on Broad Street.  The walls were made by setting tall stakes deep in the
ground and having them extend ten feet tall, pointed at the top. On the
inside were tents for protection from the weather and a guard was kept on
the outside at all times. No one ever escaped.

Battle of Ebenezer

     Near the close of the war in 1865 the battle of Ebenezer was fought on
Friday, March 31 at Stanton, 25 miles north of here. The two armies spent
Saturday moving southward.  Chalmers went across the country to Sprotts and
crossed the Cahaba River. Roddie came down the Range Line road to the
Phillips Place, turned west to Summerfield and crossed the river (Cahaba) at
Fike's Ferry.  Forrest's men scattered over the hills of Dallas and east
Perry to find food for themselves and their horses. I, with the help of the
negroes, fed 35 horses. My mother, with the help of the negro women, fed the
men on Sunday morning, April the second.

     They then gathered at Kenan's Mill and out the Summerfield road. There
were about 8,000 men. They went into Selma about 12 o'clock and placed their
horses under the bluff from Farrell's well to the River with the old men and
boys of Selma and Dallas county. Forrest and his men went behind the
fortifications. Then Wilson with 40,000 men appeared on the hilltop from the Summerfield road to the Range Line road. I was near enough to hear the first gun fired by Forrest. Wilson said he was not ready, but had to press forward. The firing only
lasted until sundown. Forrest left a few men to fire the cannons until the
main body of his men got their horses and crossed Valley Creek. They burned
the bridge behind them and went that night back to Fike's ferry where they
crossed the Cahaba.
The next day Wilson sent 5,000 men as far as the river, but found the stream
so high and swift from a rain that they decided not to cross. They camped
there that night and returned to Selma the next day.

     My father, who belonged to the State Troops stationed at Mobile, had
been sent home because the doctors thought he had lung trouble. They told
him he was in such bad shape that the Union soldiers would not harm him, but they compelled him to go with them and show them the way to the river.  He said Forrest's men were so near on the other side he could hear the horses
eating.