Perryville, Kentucky

On October 8, 1862, the largest battle in Kentucky took place as part of a Confederate offensive begun during the previous summer. The Rebels had originally invaded Kentucky believing that it would cause the state's inhabitants to flock to the Southern cause. Encouraged by his previous victories at Munfordville and Frankfort, Confederate General Braxton Bragg began to move his forces toward Perryville in order to attack what he believed was a small Union force and eventually unite his army with General Edmund Kirby Smith's column in order to decimate the Union military presence in Kentucky.

Col. George Penny Webster, ancestor of CWPT board member Judge William Webster, fell at this spot on the Perryville battlefield.

The Summer of 1862 in Kentucky had been accompanied by a brutal and unrelenting drought. Kentuckians found no relief with the change of season as the ongoing dry weather left much of the landscape of the bluegrass state parched and barren, and served to remind both the Union and Confederate forces clustered around Perryville of how trivial the destructive power of their modern armies were when compared to that of Mother Nature. In fact, when the fighting first broke out around Perryville it was between two forces who had been searching for water, both driven in desperation to find relief from thirst even if it meant risking the encounter of an enemy whose size and power they did not know.

Depending on the person and the situation, the onset of battle contrasted with the calm immediately preceding it could provoke an enthusiastic excitement in anticipation of engaging a hated and feared enemy, an intense sorrow for things feared lost forever, or a combination of confusion and many complex and conflicting emotions. However, in each of the situations below, one sees that the initiation of combat brings out feelings of great intensity; regardless of what those feelings are. We see different people, one a common foot solider, another a leader of men, and yet another the gentle wife of a college professor. The common theme that brings them together is that of normal people used to lives based on regular patterns suddenly thrown into a traumatic situation that forced them to face the fact that their very existence was at stake. The true mystery of battle is in the certainty that a person can never know how they will react to it until they are forced to experience it first-hand. This was the fate of each one of the thousands of soldiers, and civilians thrown together by the unpredictable tides of war on that October day.

Adam Johnston, an infantryman in the 79th Regiment of the Pennsylvania volunteers, recounted in his diary the events that precipitated the battle:

Left McMinnville camp in the morning, the colonel telling us, "Boys, you have longed to meet the enemy on the battlefield, and you will have a chance today, or do without water, as the enemy holds the spring that we will have to encamp at." The shout went up from every son of Uncle Sam's family, "A fight and water we shall have." The cannons were already booming, and had been all night, so at fifteen minutes past two o'clock we became engaged. . . " --Soldier Boy's Diary Book, Adam S. Johnston, Library of Congress

For Captain Robert Taylor, a native Kentuckian who commanded a company of soldiers serving the Union, the anticipation of battle evoked in him acute anxiety and a profound sentimentality for the simpler things of life so intense that it almost defied description:

I turned and looked upon the vast wall of men who were standing that day between their country and their country's flag, and as regiment after brigade came in from the rear and assumed its allotted place in the vast array for battle, my eyes were riveted to the sight, so grandly sublime was the magnificent spectacle. . . Then I knew the bloody work would soon begin. I took my place in the line and awaiting the coming struggle the half hour I stood there impatient for the signal for the onset, was the most trying of my life. The past with all its thronging memories crowded upon me. I thought of Old Frankfort and the many happy associations that clustered around that dear old town, of the many friends I had (trusting to the Divinity that had guided us this far unharmed through many difficulties) left behind and the comfort I had denied myself for the sake of standing as I stood that day. I thought of (Home), of friends, and of many things too sacred to be named until my eyes welled up with tears, for what I then deemed was lost to me forever. How can a man delineate in words, feelings such as I had at that moment! I will not attempt so difficult a task. . . I could see the streets and thoroughfare of the old town as plainly as if they lay mapped out before my eyes. --The Battle of Perryville, October 8, 1862 As Described In The Diary of Captain Robert B. Taylor, ed. Hambleton Tapp, Kentucky Historical Society

For Mrs. E.B. Patterson, a citizen of nearby Danville, the initiation of hostilities occasioned in her a mixture of fear and disbelief:

On Wednesday, the 8th of October, we were very much alarmed by hearing "the cannon's opening roar" in the direction of Perryville, ten miles distant, announcing the terrible fact that fighting had commenced in that direction between the Union and Confederate troops, though impossible to locate the exact spot at such a distance. Very soon the town was in a state of commotion, and many sympathizing friends came hurrying to our house, knowing how exposed our position would be in case the Confederate troops should form their line of battle on the side of town toward Perryville. About noon a cavalry force drew up in front of our house and halted there. I although much alarmed went out to the front gate and tried to look cool and undisturbed, though internally trembling with suppressed fears. Great was my surprise when the officer in command accosted me in a very gentlemanly manner, saying he had stopped to tell me that our location was an extremely unsafe one, and to advise me to take refuge on the other side of town. The reason he gave for doing this was that a battle was just then being fought near Perryville, and that possibly a retreat and pursuit might bring the conflict toward Danville. In that case shells would be thrown and might strike our house, destroying it and all its inmates. I listened in a sort of bewildered, half-dazed state of mind while he urged immediate flight, as there was no time to be lost. --Memoirs of Mrs. E.B. Patterson: A Perspective on Danville During the Civil War, ed. Christen Ashby Cheek, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society- Autumn 1994 Vol. 2

By two o'clock the fighting had begun in earnest; as Union Major J. Montgomery Wright, traveling on a detour route in order to avoid a dangerous main road, discovered suddenly while delivering orders on horseback from Col. James B. Fry to General Charles C. Gilbert. Wright recounted the event with the passion of a man who had just experienced a religious revelation:

At one bound my horse carried me from stillness into the uproar of battle. One turn from a lonely bridlepath through the woods brought me face to face with the bloody struggle of thousands of men. . . It was the finest spectacle I ever saw. It was wholly unexpected, and it fixed me with astonishment. It was like tearing away a great curtain from the front of a great picture, or the sudden bursting of a thunder cloud when the sky in front seems serene and clear. I had seen an unlooked-for storm at sea, with hardly a moment's notice, hurl itself out of the clouds and lash the ocean into a foam of wild rage. --J. Montgomery Wright, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 3, Published by Castle

Meanwhile, Captain Taylor's worst fear seemed confirmed as he and his men were among many who charged up a hill towards the Confederate forces of Major Generals Benjamin F. Cheatham and J. Patton Anderson:

Union Gen. James S. Jackson, killed at Perryville, from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.

Oh how shall I attempt to describe the scene that followed? Never did a brigade composed of so few a number of men, (2,400) attempt so difficult a task. . . Just as we charge the ascent, Col. Garrard ordered "fix bayonets" and as we went up to the work and before we approached close enough to use this fearful instrument of death, our dead and wounded, on the ground, far outnumbered the living in the ranks. We endured a fearful storm of balls, round shot, and bursting shell for half an hour. When our ranks began to waver, and give way, Col. Garrard ordered us to fall back to the bottom of the hill-Here it was that Gen. Jackson (Brigadier General James S. Jackson) was seen by our whole brigade to fall from his horse. . . As the lines fell back gradually, I saw Thomas Hutchinson, my 2nd Lieutenant, on the ground a few yards, ahead of and with his face all bloody. I ran to him, and asked him if he was hurt. Poor fellow, he had been struck with a fragment of shell, and the blood flowed from his face in streams. . . He told me he thought he was mortally wounded, and not to stay behind on his account, but I told him not to think of giving up so soon, and seize(d) hold of him, and carried him down the hill, when I got him down into the bed of Doctor's Fork (a tributary of Chaplin Fork of Salt River) he moaned and groaned, and made me very miserable indeed. We were laying close in under the bank to protect ourselves from the shower of iron hail that was raining over us, when a cannon ball struck within a few feet of where we were sitting, and raised an immense cloud of dust about us. He asked what that was. I told him it was a "round shot", and indicated that our position was unsafe. He coincided with me, and I hurried him off to the hospital, left him there, and joined my company. Our brigade had fallen back to the position we had occupied when the line of Battle was formed, and was in some confusion, and shortly after was put in motion as the entire line of Battle was moved in closer under the hillside. --The Battle of Perryville, October 8, 1862 As Described In The Diary of Captain Robert B. Taylor, ed. Hambleton Tapp, Kentucky Historical Society

It is interesting to see how Confederate General Joseph Wheeler recounted the same scene:

Our artillery, handled with great skill, told fearfully on the enemy, who sought, when practicable, to take shelter behind stone walls and fences. Fortunately we were enabled to enfilade many of their temporary shelters with a well-directed fire from our batteries, and this, added to our musketry, was so effective that first one regiment, then another, and finally the entire Federal line, gave way before the determined onset of our troops. --General Joseph Wheeler, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 3, Published by Castle

Confederate Gen. Joseph Wheeler, from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.

One is struck by the contrast between the detailed description of the horror of battle that Captain Taylor recounts, and the matter-of-fact, self-congratulatory tone of General Wheeler's account. Perhaps the difference is an indication of what a person notices in battle depending on whether his side is winning or losing; or perhaps it is due to the different viewpoints of a commander directing the battle from a distance or a lower-rank officer enduring it up-close.

After being warned to evacuate her home, Mrs. Patterson was offered shelter by her friend, identified in her memoirs only as "Mrs. M", whose home was located on the opposite side of town. It is interesting to observe how the threat of danger forced Mrs. Patterson to quickly forget her lady-like sense of propriety, her panic-induced instinct for self-preservation instantly overruling a lifetime's worth of the practice of good manners:

I was very reluctant to inflict myself and my troubles upon her; but while hesitating I was brought to a hasty decision and my movements were accelerated by the tremendous explosion of a shell, coming from some unknown quarter, that seemed to shake the house and filled it with the odor of "villainous saltpetre." We did not loiter longer in preparing to leave our apparently doomed domicile. . . --Memoirs of Mrs. E.B. Patterson: A Perspective on Danville During the Civil War, ed. Christen Ashby Cheek, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society- Autumn 1994 Vol. 2

After hours of uninterrupted advance by the Confederate forces, the situation in Captain Taylor's sector refused to improve:

We moved up the hill and nestled close in under the guns, many of the Artillerars [sic] had been killed. . . the ground around was slippery with blood, many a poor dark looking powder begrimed Artillery man was laying (sic) stretched out upon the ground around us, torn and mutilated, their countenance plainly indicating the awful manner of their death. If my memory serves me rightly it was not more than an hour afterward that we were driven from the guns, and the battery a second time fell into the hands of the enemy as we fell back from the crest of the hill, drawing the caissons with us. . . --The Battle of Perryville, October 8, 1862 As Described In The Diary of Captain Robert B. Taylor, ed. Hambleton Tapp, Kentucky Historical Society

It is noteworthy about Taylor's recollections that his preoccupation with the blood and gore of the battle vanishes once the tide finally turns in his sector in favor of the Federal troops:

Rousseau's division which had engaged the enemy up to this time on the right, seeing the Confederates were flushing us on the left wing-moved swiftly in, covering our retreat; gained the eminence of our Battery and, driving the enemy back again, saved the day, and its leader won for himself imperishable renoun-never shall I forget my feeling of exhaltation at that moment. From the beginning of the battle in the morning, our Division had suffered defeat after defeat, until I began to fear the day had gone against us; but when I saw Rousseau's men climbing the hill with the steady step of veterans, and heard their wild shouts after they had disappeared on the other side, and saw their stalwart leader raising his cap to the front of his sword elevate his arm to its utmost stretch, and whirl it high in the air over his head. I knew it meant victory, and I almost wept with joy. --The Battle of Perryville, October 8, 1862 As Described In The Diary of Captain Robert B. Taylor, ed. Hambleton Tapp, Kentucky Historical Society

Confederate General Wheeler's summation of the battle curiously omits any description of a Yankee turnaround in any sector:

During this sanguinary struggle, our line had advanced nearly a mile. Prisoners, guns, colors, and the field of battle were ours; not a step which had been gained was yielded. The enemy, though strongly reinforced, was still broken and disordered. He held his ground mainly because our troops were too exhausted for further effort. . . At every point the Confederates had been victorious. We had engaged three corps of the Federal army; one of these, McCook's to use Buell's language, was "very much crippled," one division, again to use his language, "having in fact almost entirely disappeared as a body." --General Joseph Wheeler, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 3, Published by Castle

Mrs. Patterson and her family fled with whatever they could carry. Where the violence all around her had once caused her to flee in panic, the family's abandonment of their home shamed her. From deep within, this lady whose behavior resulting from the battle had become so recently extraordinary, behaved extraordinarily once again as she found the courage to return to her home while the battle still raged:

At last in despair I resolved to face about, no matter what awaited my change of front. Having come to this conclusion I called a halt, announced my final determination to return home and die under my own roof, or be blown up by bomb shells, rather than endure any longer the demoralization in body and mind resulting from this ignominious flight. --Memoirs of Mrs. E.B. Patterson: A Perspective on Danville During the Civil War, ed. Christen Ashby Cheek, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society- Autumn 1994 Vol. 2

Mrs. Patterson and all of her family survived their journey home, as well as their stay in the house while bombs and shells exploded all around it.

The aftermath of Perryville proved to be as ghastly a reminder of the value of peace as did the battle itself. A Kentucky doctor, J.J Polk, described a scene that put in sharp contrast the reality of battle compared to the promises of glory that commanders on both sides used to rally their men:

The whole scene beggars description. The ground was strewn with soiled and torn clothes, muskets, blankets, and the various accouterments of the dead soldiers. Trees not more than one foot in diameter contained from twenty to thirty musket balls and buck-shot, put into them during the battle . . . I counted four hundred and ten dead men on a small spot of ground. My heart grew sick at the sight, and I ceased to enumerate them. Turning my steps south toward Perryville, I saw dead rebels piled up in pens like hogs. I reached my home, praying to God that I might never agin be called upon to visit a battle-field.

. . . For more than ten days after the battle the field hospitals, except Antioch church and Mr. Goodnight's farm, were being cleared of the wounded; the two above excepted contained about three hundred of the wounded. All the churches and public buildings, together with most of the private houses, in Perryville, were employed as hospitals. Thousands of the wounded were brought in and made as comfortable as possible. For months attentive surgeons and rich sanitary stores were furnished, together with voluntary contributions from the surrounding country. There was scarcely a house for ten miles around that was not encumbered, more or less, with the sick and wounded. --Autobiography of Dr. J.J. Polk, John P. Morton and Company, 1867

While the aftermath of the battle brought out pity and compassion in Dr. Polk, the sight of their dead enemies had a different effect on some of the soldiers. An anonymous Union solider recorded in his diary:

I suppose our folks at home would see us as a hard lot if they could see how differently we look on a dead man. While out in the cornfield, near where Loomis' battery had such a long, hard tussle, I saw them carry a lot of dead rebels up to where a long trench had been dug. There must have been fifty bodies, and when the trench was finished they commenced putting them in. At first they were dropped down carefully, but the boys got tired, as it was a very unpleasant job, and began tumbling them in with handspikes as they would a log.

Sometimes one would tumble in face downward, and the boys would sing out: "About face," "Close up on the left,'' "Cover your file leader." "If you get tired turn over," and the like. It sounds a little rough, but these are rough men. They are from Kentucky, and they hate a rebel even after he is dead. --"Perryville-Notes from a Civil War Soldiers Dairy", The Kentucky Explorer, June, 1991

Of course, the Confederates also endured the dreadful consequences of Perryville. Private Sam Watkins remembered:

The Battle of Perryville presented a strange scene. The dead, dying, and wounded of both armies, Confederates and Federal, were blended in inextricable confusion. Now and then a cluster of dead Yankees and close by a cluster of dead Rebels.

I helped bring off our wounded that night. We worked the whole night. The next morning about daylight a wounded comrade, Sam Campbell, complained of being cold, and asked me to lie down beside him. I did so, and was soon asleep; when I awoke the poor fellow was stiff and cold in death. His spirit had flown to its home beyond the skies. --Co. Aytch, Sam R. Watkins, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1962

Position of battery on Union Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau's line, looking across Doctor's Creek, from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.

The reactions first-hand participants had to the Battle of Perryville, and to the war in general, demonstrated that though responses varied, they all seemed to be based in the most fundamental aspects of the human character. All of the stories surviving from the war show the common theme of ordinary people forced to confront extraordinary circumstances. The fascination that these stories evoke is due to the endless possibilities for human action revealed in each. Some ran in fear for their lives, some bravely stood their ground, committed to defending the principles closest to their hearts, in the face of near-paralyzing fear. Still others, like Mrs. Patterson did both, first fleeing and then returning to bravely face her destiny.

There is some disagreement as to whether the Battle of Perryville was a Rebel victory or a tactical draw. Realizing he faced a much bigger Union force beyond Perryville, Confederate General Braxton Bragg decided to withdraw his forces from Kentucky, leaving this important state in Union hands for the rest of the war. The failure of the Confederates to advance further into Kentucky following Perryville, along with the Rebel defeat at Antietam (Sharpsburg, Md.) in September, also dashed Southern diplomatic hopes for recognition of the Confederacy as a separate nation by Great Britain.

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