The John C. Russell House

The Russell House, a two-story white Federal-style home with farm structures built around 1835 on John Calvin Russell’s farm, served as the headquarters of Union First Corps under Major General Alexander M. McCook during the Battle of Perryville. On the morning of October 8, 1862, McCook took possession of the house as Federal headquarters for the I Corps of the Army of the Ohio, using its high knoll to observe fighting to the south, east, and west. Just before the battle, John Russell was warned to take his family to safety, and he moved his wife Frances, their children, and his mother-in-law Susannah Bailey Laws to a schoolhouse about a mile to the southwest. As the battle progressed, the house was used as a hospital, was captured and recaptured, and was shelled by Confederate cannon that tore off the top of the east chimney. When the family returned two days later, they found their land being used as a hospital for wounded Union and Confederate troops, their mahogany furniture turned into feed troughs, homespun linens used as bandages, fence rails burned as firewood, and most of their food and animals taken by troops. Susannah Bailey Laws died a few weeks after returning home at age 83 from complications of exposure suffered during the flight from the battle. Accounts from Union Surgeon James G. Hatchitt, Confederate officer William L. Trask, and Dr. Jefferson J. Polk depict the house and grounds crowded with wounded and dead soldiers, desperate surgery without supplies or chloroform, and a landscape torn by shot, shell, and mass death. The house survived until 1962, when it burned to the ground.

Kentucky · United States