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The Situation
The war in the West was not going well for the Confederacy. After victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, Island No. 10, Wild Cat Mountain, and Mill Springs, the armies of the United States controlled all of Kentucky, the western half of Tennessee and parts of northern Mississippi and Alabama. Acting on exaggerated claims that tens of thousands of Kentuckians would rally to the Confederate cause, two Confederate armies invaded Kentucky in August and September of 1862.
- The army of General Edmund Kirby Smith bypassed a Union division at Cumberland Gap and engaged a hastily assembled Union force in and around Richmond, Kentucky, on August 30. The Union force was destroyed (the 2nd Battle of Bull Run was fought in the East on the same day.) Confederates subsequently occupied Kentucky’s capital city, Frankfort, on September 2. The Confederate Army of Mississippi, under General Braxton Bragg, moved into Kentucky in early September and captured the Union garrison at Munfordville on September 17 (the same day as the battle of Antietam).
General Buell’s Union Army of the Ohio followed Bragg’s forces into Kentucky and, as Bragg veered east towards Bardstown; Buell marched into Louisville on September 29, and immediately began incorporating new recruits into his veteran army. Over 30,000 new Union recruits were raised since the Confederates first crossed the Kentucky border. Buell arranged his almost 80,000 soldiers into four columns and marched out on October 1. About 20,000 men under General Joshua Sill marched straight east toward Frankfort and Lexington. The other three columns, the main force numbering just under 60,000, marched to the southeast in an attempt to trap the Confederates in the state.
On October 4, as the Confederate leadership and Smith’s army were in Frankfort inaugurating the exiled Confederate Governor of Kentucky, Bragg was receiving information of a strong Union force (Sill) approaching Frankfort. He also received reports of some of the Union main force due west of Lawrenceburg. Bragg assumed that the main Union force was marching towards Lawrenceburg and ordered both his and Smith’s armies to concentrate there.
By October 7, the Union III Corps was in contact with the rear guard of Bragg’s army just west of Perryville. Since this area had the only good water supply in the drought-stricken area and the hills made it defensible, General William J. Hardee, wanted to fight there. Hardee requested heavy reinforcements. Bragg, believing this Union force was a minor diversion, forwarded Hardee one division and sent General Leonidas Polk to take command. Polk’s orders were to smash this “minor” Union force as quickly as possible and then join the main Confederate force at Lawrenceburg to fight what he believed would be the battle for Kentucky.
Thus 16,000 Confederate soldiers were poised to attack 60,000 Union troops at Perryville on October 8, 1862. Ironically, Polk believed there were only about 20,000 Federals opposing his forces and Buell believed there were 50,000 Confederates facing him. The stage was set for the battle that would decide Kentucky’s fate in the Union.
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