Perryville, Battle of (1862).The largest Civil War battle fought in Kentucky occurred near Perryville on 8 October 1862. The engagement climaxed a campaign begun when Confederate army forces entered Kentucky earlier that summer. Confederate commander Braxton Bragg mistakenly believed that he faced one Union corps at Perryville, but there were actually 58,000 Federal troops in the area. For his part, Union Gen. Don Carlos Buell erred in believing that Bragg's entire force was in his front.

Bragg took the initiative by ordering his 16,000 men into action in the early afternoon. The main blow fell on the Federal left, where a corps commanded by Alexander McCook was shattered and driven back nearly a mile until Union reinforcements and nightfall ended the carnage. Despite this tactical success, Bragg decided to withdraw after belatedly learning that he confronted the bulk of Buell's army. Bragg's army took over 3,000 casualties; Union army totals exceeded 4,000. The Confederates retreated first to Harrodsburg and shortly thereafter into Tennessee. Buell was soon replaced as Union commander by William S. Rosecrans, but the Confederates had little to celebrate in the wake of Perryville. The hard fighting done there proved strategically inconsequential, and Bragg's boldly conceived Kentucky invasion failed.
[See also Civil War: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

Kenneth A. Hafendorfer , Perryville: Battle for Kentucky, 1981.
James Lee McDonough , War in Kentucky: From Shiloh to Perryville, 1994.

Christopher Losson