Oct. 30, 1862. |
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| Joseph Wheeler. |
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that Buell was aware that a battle of much account — really one of the most sanguinary battles of the war, in proportion to numbers engaged — had been in progress.
It had been raging for several hours, when he received from McCook a request for re-enforcements.1 Buell at once sent them, and also orders for Crittenden, who was approaching, to hurry forward.
The latter was too late to engage decisively in the conflict,2 which ended at dark, when the Confederates, who had chosen their position for battle, were repulsed at all points.
So ended the destructive battle of Perryville, or Chaplin's Hills, as it is sometimes called.3 Preparations were made by the Nationals for a renewal of the conflict in the morning.
Gilbert and Crittenden moved early for that purpose, but during the night the Confederates had retired in haste to Harrodsburg, where Bragg was joined by Kirby Smith and General Withers, and all fled toward East Tennessee, leaving twelve hundred of their sick and wounded at Harrodsburg, and abandoning at various points about twenty-five thousand barrels of pork.4 The retreat was conducted by General Polk, and covered by the cavalry of the active General Wheeler.
They fled into East Tennessee by way of Danville, Stanford, Crab Orchard, and Mount Vernon, followed by a large portion of Buell's army to Rock Castle River, in Rock Castle County.
A division of Crittenden's corps was pushed on as far as Wild Cat and London, and then returned to Columbia, when the main army was put in motion for Nashville, under General Thomas, and Buell went to Louisville.5 The Government was so dissatisfied with the result of this campaign against Bragg6 that Buell was relieved of command,
and Major-General Rosecrans, who had won substantial victories in Mississippi, was put in his place.
Then the designation of the Army of the Ohio, which
Buell had commanded, was changed to that of the Army of the Cumberla d.
1 See General Buell's Report to General Halleck, October 10, 1862.
2 Wagner's brigade of Crittenden's corps went into action on Mitchell's right just at the close.
3 Buell reported his effective force which advanced on Perryville, 58,000, of whom 22,000 were raw troops. He reported a loss in this battle of 4,348, of whom 916 were killed, 2,943 wounded, and 489 missing. Among the killed were Generals Jackson and Terrell, and Colonel George Webster, of the Ninety-eighth Ohio, who commanded a brigade. The Confederate loss is supposed to have been nearly the same as that of the Nationals in number. Bragg claimed to have captured fifteen guns and four hundred prisoners.
4 So much property was abandoned on the way, or destroyed because of the inability of the Confederates to carry it with them, that it is probable they lost more in the way of outfit, waste of horses and mules, and the necessary expenses, than they gained by this great plundering raid.
5 Reports of Generals Buell and Bragg, and their subordinate officers. Supplemental Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, volume II.
6 The Confederates were equally disappointed, not because of any lack of effort on the part of Bragg, but because of the absence of demonstrations of a general feeling in Kentucky in favor of the conspirators. It was supposed that on the appearance of a large force like that of Kirby Smith, or the main army under Bragg, there would be a general uprising in Kentucky that would swell the ranks of the invaders to a volume sufficient to enable them to sweep triumphantly the rich States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and bear back to the Tennessee, and beyond, food and clothing sufficient for the Confederate armies for a year. But with the exception of the great slaveholding region around Lexington, the people with whom the invaders came in contact were either generally passive or openly hostile; and so manifest was this feeling, that thousands of those who had joined the marauders dared not remain in the State, but fled with them, and became burdensome consumers of food. As in Maryland, so in Kentucky,.the people generally refused to espouse the cause of the conspirators, who were confused and greatly disheartened by the disappointment of all their calculations of aid from these two powerful border States. Pollard, the Confederate historian, said (II. 162) that “the South was bitterly disappointed in the manifestations of public sentiment in Kentucky,” and that “the exhibitions of sympathy” were “meager and sentimental, and amounted to little practical aid” of the Confederate cause. “Indeed,” he says, “no subject was at once more dispiriting and perplexing to the South than the cautious and unmanly reception given to our armies, both in Kentucky and in Maryland.” He attributed it to a “dread of Yankee vengeance and a love of property,” and expressed the belief that professions of attachment to the “Southern cause” in those States were made with no higher motive than “selfish calculation.”
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