Introduction

In the summer of 1862, Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s Army of the Mississippi invaded Kentucky in hopes of enlisting recruits, drawing Union troops out of Tennessee, and holding Kentucky for the Confederacy. Union General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio moved from Nashville to Kentucky, marched to Louisville to protect that major supply depot and gather recruits, and then advanced on the Confederates. Pressed by 58,000 Union soldiers at Bardstown, the Confederates withdrew to Perryville, where a severe drought had left both armies desperate for water. On the night of October 7, Confederates camped in Perryville and posted an advance guard west of town near Doctor’s Creek, where Union troops found small pools of water and were ordered to seize the water and nearby high ground. At 3:00 a.m., Federal soldiers advanced on Peter’s Hill and forced the Confederates back. Braxton Bragg, ten miles away in Harrodsburg, at first believed only a minor Federal force was present and ordered an attack, then came to Perryville after the assault did not occur and again ordered his 16,000 troops forward, unaware that 20,000 Union troops were south of Perryville, 20,000 were west of town, and 18,000 were north of Perryville. At 2:00 p.m. on October 8, Benjamin F. Cheatham’s Confederate division crossed the dry Chaplin River and struck Alexander McCook’s Union corps on the ridges, while Simon B. Buckner’s Confederates hit McCook’s right flank above the H. P. Bottom House. Surprise greatly aided the Confederate attack, and both ends of the Union line were forced back toward the Russell House, McCook’s headquarters, but Union reinforcements helped check the advance after the lines were reformed there. At the same time, Confederate Colonel Samuel Powell’s brigade attacked Charles Gilbert’s III corps west of town, but, outnumbered, was repulsed, though the action delayed reinforcements from reaching McCook. The Confederates won a tactical victory but suffered a strategic defeat, for although they drove back the Federal left, Bragg realized he was outnumbered, and the Southerners eventually left Kentucky, ending the invasion and the hopes of a Confederate Kentucky. The Battle of Perryville, Kentucky’s largest Civil War battle, killed and wounded more than 7,500 Union and Confederate troops.

Kentucky · United States