William W. Bennett, A narrative of the great revival which prevailed in the Southern armies during the late Civil War

The marching and maneuvering of both armies, Confederate and Federal, ended in the battle of Perryville on the 8th of October. The desperate valor of the Southern troops bore down all opposition on this bloody field, and after driving the enemy before them and camping for the night on the field of battle, General Bragg deeming it hazardous with his wearied men to renew the conflict with the heavily reinforced army of the Federals, withdrew in good order to Harrodsburg, and thence to Bryantsville. In his official report, General Bragg says of this battle: “For the time engaged, it was the severest and most desperately contested engagement within my knowledge. Fearfully outnumbered, our troops did not hesitate to engage at any odds, and though checked at times, they eventually carried every position and drove the enemy about two miles.”

Many a Christian hero fell in this sanguinary battle, but among them all none offered a purer life on the altar of his country than Thomas Jefferson Koger, of Alabama. He was a pious, zealous, eminently useful minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and for nearly twenty years had been a member of the Alabama Conference. At the close of his term as Presiding Elder on the Columbus District, he entered the army of the South as a private in the ranks, but was afterwards appointed chaplain. In reference to his entrance upon a military life, exchanging the quiet round of ministerial duties for the bustle and toil of a soldier's life, we must let him speak in his own vindication, if any be needed.

In a letter to his dear friend, Rev. 0. R. Blue, he says:

I go from a deliberate conviction that it is my duty to go. It is under these feelings alone I leave my family. I go, trusting in God to bless and prosper me in the just cause. Pray for me.