The Battle of Perryville began as a delaying action by Confederate Lieut. Gen. Braxton Bragg to protect the safe withdrawal of a huge wagon train of supplies and to allow a junction with Maj. Gen. E. Kirby Smith near Versailles. The Union Army of the Ohio was under Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, with Maj. General George H. Thomas second in command, and included the corps of Maj. Gen. Alexander McDowell McCook, Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden, and Maj. Gen. Charles C. Gilbert. The Confederate Army of the Mississippi was under Gen. Bragg, with Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk commanding the Right Wing and Maj. Gen. William J. Hardee the Left Wing, and included the divisions of Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham, Brig. Gen. J. Patton Anderson, and Maj. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner. The main action began at 2:00 p.m. with a fierce charge by Brig. Gen. John A. Wharton’s cavalry on the extreme Confederate right, followed by Cheatham’s rapid advance, while Buckner’s and Anderson’s also moved forward under heavy cannonading. Cheatham’s attack caught many of McCook’s men, including many fresh enlistees, off guard while they were seeking water near Doctor’s Creek, and Cheatham’s and Buckner’s divisions drove them back about a mile west of the creek after heavy hand-to-hand fighting. On the Confederate left, Anderson was unable to dislodge Brig. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s division, reinforced in time by Brig. Gen. Albin Schoepf’s division. Late in the afternoon, Anderson’s advancing left was hit by a determined charge from Col. William P. Carlin’s brigade that carried through Perryville and out on the Danville and Harrodsburg roads. Toward dusk, stubborn actions by the brigades of Col. John C. Starkweather and Col. Michael Gooding enabled McCook to stabilize his battered corps beyond the Russell house and Benton road, aided by darkness and Confederate exhaustion. Buell, whose headquarters were at the Dorsey house on Springfield road, did not know the battle was underway until 4:00 p.m., too late to use Crittenden’s corps along Lebanon road to try to envelop the Confederate force. After nightfall, Bragg realized that his small force faced practically Buell’s entire army and ordered withdrawal at midnight toward Harrodsburg. The battle ended as a tactical victory for Bragg and a strategic victory for Buell, who held the field. Confederate troops were judged better handled and used than Union troops. Bragg employed only 16,000 men and suffered 3,396 casualties, including 510 killed, 2,635 wounded, and 251 missing; Buell used between 22,000 and 28,000 men and suffered 4,421 casualties, including 845 killed, 2,851 wounded, and 515 captured or missing. It was one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles of modern times, and after it the Confederates never returned to Kentucky in great force, leaving the state firmly in the Union.