The Battle of Perryville, also known as Battle at Perryville and Battle of Chaplin Hills, was an
important but largely neglected encounter in the American Civil War. It was fought on
October 8, 1862, in the Chaplin Hills west of Perryville, Kentucky. The battle began with a middle-of-the-night skirmish over a source of
drinking water, and ended more or less by default with the onset of darkness and the retreat of the tactical victor, the
Confederates. The Confederate "victory" marked the end of their offensive
campaign in the West, and their retreat left the border state of Kentucky
under the control of the Union Army for the rest of the war.
Kentucky Campaign of 1862
Situated between the Southern states of Tennessee and Virginia and the Northern states of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, the border state of Kentucky was coveted by both
sides of the conflict because of its central location. So much so, in fact, that in September 1861,
Kentucky-born President Abraham
Lincoln wrote in a private letter, “I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.”
Opposing viewpoints within the state vied for control during the early part of the war, and while the state never
seceded from the Union, a Confederate capital was set up in Bowling Green in November 1861. This prompted recognition of
Kentucky by the Confederate States and the addition of a star representing Kentucky to the Confederate flag. (Stuart Sanders; 1860-1861, Cultural Heritage, Kentucky
Tourism [1])
The initiative to invade Kentucky came primarily from Confederate General Edmund Kirby
Smith, commander of the Department of East Tennessee. He believed the campaign would allow them to obtain supplies, enlist
recruits, divert Union troops from Tennessee, and claim Kentucky for the Confederacy. Smith, established as an independent
commander by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and Braxton Bragg, designated commander of the Army of Mississippi by Davis, met together in Chattanooga on July 31 and devised a plan for the campaign: The
newly-created Army of Kentucky, including two of Bragg's brigades and approximately 21,000 men,
would march north under Smith's command into Kentucky. They would begin to oppose the Union troops there, while Bragg would
travel west to oppose Major General Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio and try to
recapture Nashville. Later, the two would reunite near Lexington for a final advance across the state.
Bragg, however, was indecisive and continuously desired more men. After Smith left Chattanooga on August 13, Bragg changed his mind. Instead of advancing on Nashville to retake the city from Buell as planned,
he wanted to turn north into Kentucky to rejoin Smith, but only if he could avoid facing Buell, who was advancing on Chattanooga
from the west.
Meanwhile, Buell was having his own difficulty sticking with any particular plan for very long. Instead of continuing toward
Chattanooga, he decided to fall back to defend Nashville. When Bragg realized Buell would no longer be in his way, he crossed the
Cumberland River into Kentucky. The news that Smith and Bragg were both in Kentucky convinced Buell of the need to get his army
between the Confederates and the Union cities of Louisville and Cincinnati. On September 7, Buell's Army of the Ohio left
Nashville and began racing Bragg to Louisville.
On the way, Bragg was distracted from his objective by the capture of a Union fort at Munfordville. Now, he had to decide again whether to continue toward a fight with Buell (over
Louisville) or rejoin Smith, who had gained control of the center of the state by capturing Richmond and Lexington and threatened to move on Cincinnati. He chose to rejoin Smith. This allowed
Buell to reach Louisville where the Union general gathered, reorganized and reinforced his army with thousands of new recruits.
Meanwhile, Bragg met Smith in Frankfort where Bragg believed the main body of the
Union army was. There he was able to attend the inauguration of Confederate Governor
Richard Hawes on October 4. (Thomas L. Breiner, Bragg's Kentucky Invasion, The Battle of
Perryville, Kentucky [2])
Prelude to battle
On October 1, Buell left Louisville with Major General George Henry Thomas as his second in command. While 20,000 men under Brigadier General Joshua Sill moved toward Frankfort, the Army of the Ohio, with 58,000 troops under Buell and Thomas, advanced
toward Bragg's army in Bardstown on three separate roads:
When he left for Frankfort on September 28, Bragg left his army of 30,000 soldiers in
Bardstown with Major General Leonidas Polk. On October
6, the approach of the large Union force caused the Confederates to withdraw eastward to Perryville.
The area had been afflicted by a drought for months. The heat was oppressive for both men and horses, and the few useful
sources of drinking water provided by the rivers and creeks west of town were desperately sought after. On the evening of
October 7, Confederate Major General William J.
Hardee established a line of defense across the three roads leading into Perryville from the north and west, including
Peter's Hill overlooking Doctors Creek.
Hearing there was water in Doctors Creek, a group of Union soldiers from Major General Charles Gilbert's 3rd Corps crossed the creek around 2:00 am, intending to set up a picket line on
Peter's Hill. There they encountered Hardee's men, and a skirmish erupted with the Union force pushing the Confederates back.
Battle
Battle of Perryville
Confederate Union
Around 7:00 am, against Bragg's orders, Polk met with his officers and recommended that, because of the size of the Union
opposition, they should assume a defensive strategy. Bragg, in Harrodsburg to gather his men for what he still believed would be
the main battle in Frankfort, was concerned by 8:00 am that he did not hear the sound of Polk's attack. Travelling to Perryville
without accurate reports of the strength of the enemy, Bragg insisted that Polk prepare to strike what they believed was the
Union left flank on the Mackville Road with Confederate Major General Benjamin F.
Cheatham's division.
At 2:00 pm, Cheatham's men crossed the river, climbed the bluffs above it, and attacked Union Major General Alexander McCook's 22,000 soldiers. Confederate Brigadier General Daniel Donelson, leading the center of the attack, quickly realized that his men were striking the center of
the Union line, not its flank. Hit hard by Union Captain Charles Parsons' artillery on their right, Donelson's men were turned
back with heavy losses. Following right behind them, however, Brigadier General George E. Maney's
veteran Tennessee fighters began pushing the raw Union forces back in fierce fighting, charging up and over one hill after
another. Often, the Union artillery were unable to fire their guns down steeply enough to strike the Confederates as they
advanced up the hills, and eventually Maney's men overran and captured Parson's artillery on the Open Knob.
About an hour after the start of Cheatham's attack, Major General Simon Buckner
issued revised orders to the men of Confederate Brigadier General Bushrod R. Johnson.
Bragg had intended for them to advance straight ahead to the west against Harris' men, but when Buckner saw the strength of the
Union position, he directed Johnson to move slightly to the left to use the hills opposite Doctor's Creek as cover. Not all of
Johnson's men received the revised orders, and the various brigades advanced in a very disorganized manner. As regiments crossed
in front of and behind one another, some moving to the west and some to the southwest, the three left regiments came under attack
from a battery located on a hill to their left rear. Adams' Confederate brigade
had advanced to the Northwest during and after the midday artillery exchange, became confused about the Federal position, and did
not realize that they were attacking their own men.
As McCook's Union 1st Corps experienced fierce fighting and heavy losses, the recently promoted Gilbert continued to give
orders to his 3rd Corps officers not to waste artillery ammunition or to advance their men and engage the enemy. Occupied late in
the afternoon by an attack from Confederate Colonel Samuel Powell of Major General J. Patton Anderson's division, Gilbert did not
provide troops to support McCook's harrowed men. Brigadier General James S. Jackson,
commanding the Union Army's 10th Division was hit twice and died shortly before 1:00 pm. Within the next several hours both of
Jackson's brigade commanders (Brig. Gen. William R. Terrill and Col. George Webster)
were killed and by the end of the day Colonel Albert S. Hall, who started the day in command of the 108th Ohio Regiment, was now
in command of the division.
Throughout the morning and more than half of the afternoon, Buell was shielded from the sound of the fighting by an
acoustic shadow, caused by the hilly terrain. He was unaware that his men were engaged
in a major battle until he finally learned it from a messenger sent by McCook requesting support from Gilbert's 3rd Corps.
About 5:30 pm, having captured and recaptured Union Colonel John C.
Starkweather's Hill, Cheatham's Confederate division finally fell back to the Open Knob as the Union line settled at the
Dixville Crossroads. A last attack by Confederate Brigadier General St. John R.
Liddell pushed the Union forces back along the Mackville Road until, at last, Union Brigadier General James Steedman
arrived from the 3rd Corps in support of McCook, and the attack was halted by the fall of darkness. (Thomas L. Breiner, The
Battle of Perryville, The Battle of Perryville, Kentucky [3])
Union casualties totalled 4,211 men: 845 dead; 2,851 wounded; 515 captured or missing. Confederate casualties were fewer at
3,396: 510 dead; 2,635 wounded; 251 captured or missing.
Aftermath
The Confederate forces held their ground until Bragg, finally realizing that the main body of the Union army was in the area,
gave the order around midnight to retreat. Buell did not know his opponent had abandoned the field until Crittendon's 2nd Corps
moved into Perryville at 10:30 the next morning. He did not begin to follow after them until the following day, October 10. Bragg united his forces with Smith's at Harrodsburg, and the Union and Confederate armies, now of
comparable size, skirmished with one another over the next week or so, but neither attacked.
Bragg soon realized that the sources of help he had hoped for (Robert E. Lee from
Virginia, Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price from
Mississippi, and new recruits from Kentucky) would not materialize, and he made his way
southeast to Knoxville, Tennessee. He was quickly called to the Confederate
capital, Richmond, Virginia, to explain to Jefferson Davis the charges brought by his
officers about how he had conducted his campaign.
Buell called off his "pursuit" of Bragg and returned to Nashville. On October 24, a change
of command structure in the Union army relieved him of his duties and more or less ended his career. (Thomas L. Breiner, The
Retreat After The Battle of Perryville, The Battle of Perryville, Kentucky [4])
Battlefield
The Battle of Perryville battlefield as depicted in
Harper's Weekly, November 1,
1862
Perryville's homes and farms were left in shambles by the battle. Henry P. Bottom, a prominent secessionist on whose farm a
significant portion of the battle was fought, suffered losses of pork, corn, hay and wood to Union soldiers who remained in the
area for weeks after the fighting. The main force of the Union army had buried most of their dead in long trenches before
pursuing Bragg, but most of the Confederate dead were still unburied a week after the battle. Union soldiers finally forced local
residents to help them lay the dead in shallow trenches carved in the dry soil. Two months later, 347 were re-buried in a mass
grave on Bottom's land.
At the end of the war in 1865, Union soldiers reburied the remains of 969 Federal dead in a
national cemetery at Perryville with a stone wall, two gates and plans for a monument. The monument was never erected, however,
and in 1867 the new cemetery was closed and the Federal dead transferred to Camp Nelson in
Jessamine County, Kentucky, leaving no identified Federal dead on the field
at Perryville.
On the fortieth anniversary of the battle in 1902, a Confederate monument was dedicated in the
Confederate cemetery begun by Henry Bottom at the center of the field, and a smaller Federal memorial was erected nearby in
1931. The Perryville State Battlefield site was established in 1954
by the Kentucky State Conservation Commission, and a museum and visitor's center were opened near the monuments on the battle's
one hundredth anniversary in 1962.
For a century following the war, the memory of the Battle of Perryville (and many others fought in the Western Theater) was minimized by what has been called the "Lee tradition," which emphasized the deeds of the armies and generals who fought in the Eastern Theater, particularly Virginia.
Around the time of the war's centennial, however, numerous scholars worked to establish the importance of the Western campaigns.
In recent years, appreciation for what happened at Perryville and other battlefields in Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi has
grown.
More than 7,000 acres (28 km²) at Perryville are now recognized as a National
Historic Landmark, and the site averages around 100,000 visitors per year. A reenactment of the battle occurs each
October. The Perryville Battlefield Preservation Association was created in 1991 to preserve,
enlarge and protect the park. The acquisition of 149 acres (0.6 km²) of farmland from a descendant of Henry Bottom more than
doubled the size of the park and allowed visitors to complete a tour of the entire battlefield.
References
- Kenneth W. Noe (2001). Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle. The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN
0-8131-2209-0
- Kenneth W. Noe (April 14, 2001). Remembering Perryville: History and Memory at a Civil War Battlefield. History of Perryville
Battlefield
See also
External links
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