October 8, 1862---The Battle of Perryville

OCTOBER 8, 1862:              

The Battle of Perryville (The Battle of Chaplin’s Hills).  

After pursuing the C.S.A. Army of The Mississippi across most of Kentucky, advance units of the U.S.A. Army of The Ohio engage in battle near Perryville. The battle began at 1:00 AM, when Union soldiers seeking a fresh water source collided with Confederate forces in possession of a fresh water source at Doctor’s Creek. Hot skirmishing went on all morning as the two armies maneuvered for the best position. 

After noon, the Confederates launched an artillery barrage followed by an infantry attack. Major General Benjamin Cheatham C.S.A. shouted, "Give 'em hell, boys!" and Major General Leonidas Polk, who was also an Episcopal bishop, echoed, "Give it to 'em boys; give 'em what General Cheatham says!" The attack was a full, frontal assault that was beaten back with heavy losses. Convinced that the Confederates were breaking, the Union launched a bayonet charge which degenerated into a melee. Another bayonet charge ended the same way. The Union forces, becoming enervated, drew back, pursued by the Confederates, who gained the high ground, but this gave the Union artillery a chance to open up. Under intense fire, the Confederate center withdrew. Nevertheless, Confederate forces attacked the Union right and left, and inflicted heavy casualties.

Braxton Bragg had won a tactical victory, but in the face of arriving Union reinforcements he realized he could not hold Perryville, and so, after all the bloodletting, retreated into Tennessee. After the battle, Bragg was called to Richmond. In a tense meeting, he explained the seeming defeat-in-victory to Jefferson Davis. Bragg believed that the Confederacy could not absorb the losses it was taking, and chose to evacuate Perryville, rather than lose more men defending the town against an increasingly larger force. Davis was under pressure to relieve Bragg, and although Davis decided to leave the General in command, Bragg's reputation was soured.

Bragg may have been correct, but he cost the Confederacy crucial ground. 

Abraham Lincoln himself had written, on September 22^nd that, “I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we can not hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland.” 

Events were to prove the President’s point. 

Following the Battle of Perryville, the Union maintained control of Kentucky for the rest of the war. Historian James M. McPherson considers Perryville to be part of a great turning point of the war, "when battles at Antietam and Perryville threw back Confederate invasions, forestalled European mediation and recognition of the Confederacy, perhaps prevented a Democratic victory in the northern elections of 1862 that might have inhibited the government's ability to carry on the war, and set the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation which enlarged the scope and purpose of the conflict."   

Perryville thus ended the third phase of the war. 

Union casualties totaled 4,276 (894 killed, 2,911 wounded, 471 captured or missing). Confederate casualties were 3,401 (532 killed, 2,641 wounded, 228 captured or missing). In all, casualties totaled one-fifth of those involved.