Chapter 4:
- Bragg and Kirby Smith in Kentucky -- victory at Richmond -- the battle of Perryville -- important service of Tennesseeans -- fruits of the campaign.
On June 17, 1862, Gen. Braxton Bragg was placed in command of the army, known afterward as the. army of Tennessee, General Beauregard commanding the department. The army was concentrated at Tupelo, Miss., and after rest and reorganization was ready for the field. General Bragg had before him the alternatives of idleness at Tupelo, an attack on Halleck at Corinth, an attack on Buell at or about Chattanooga, or an attack on Grant in west Tennessee. The threatened advance of Buell meant the severance of the Confederate States, the East from the West. General Bragg, seeing this danger, determined, he said, ‘to move to Chattanooga, and drive the enemy from our important country in western Alabama, middle Tennessee and Kentucky.’ A small division of troops was sent from Tupelo to the department of East Tennessee, then commanded by Maj.-Gen. E. Kirby Smith, and later, Smith was further reinforced by the brigades of P. R. Cleburne and Preston Smith. On the 16th of August, 1862, the army of Kentucky, commanded by Maj.-Gen. Kirby Smith, crossed the Cumberland mountains into the State of Kentucky; and on the 27th and 28th of August, General Bragg crossed the Tennessee river, after which the army of Tennessee took up its march over Walden's ridge and the Cumberland mountains for middle Tennessee. It was found upon reaching that territory that the main
