It was my good fortune to meet and shake hands, one year and about eight months later, with some of the survivors of this Western army at Greensborough, North Carolina, after Lee's surrender, and on the occasion of the surrender of Joe Johnston's army to Sherman.
Although my humble connection with Buell's army ceased at Louisville,
I will summarize its history, covering a few days longer.
Polk's and Hardee's corps constituting Bragg's army we left in the vicinity of Bardstown and Harrodsburg, with some portions at Frankfort and Lexington. Kirby Smith was at Salvisa, about twenty miles northeast of Perryville, with the main body of his army, and, believing he would be the first attacked, called loudly for reinforcement, and Bragg sent him, on the eve of Perryville, Withers and Cheatham's divisions from Polk and Hardee's corps. Bragg placed Polk in command of his army in the vicinity of Perryville, and repaired to Frankfort to witness the inauguration (October 4th) of a new Secession Provisional Governor of Kentucky—Richard Hawes (28)—her former one, George W. Johnson, having been killed at Shiloh while fighting as a private soldier.
Buell, being further reinforced with new troops, mostly from Ohio and Indiana, commenced, October 2d, a general movement against both Bragg and Smith. General Joshua W. Sill's division of General Alexander McD. McCook's corps, followed by General Ebenezer Dumont with a raw division, moved through Shelbyville towards Frankfort. McCook, with the two remaining divisions of the First Corps, commanded, respectively, by Generals L. H. Rousseau and James S. Jackson, moved from Bloomfield to Taylorsville, where he halted the second night. Crittenden's corps marched via Bardstown on the Lebanon and Danville road, which passed about four miles to the south of Perryville, with a branch to it. Gilbert's corps moved on the more direct road to Perryville. Thomas, second in command, accompanied Crittenden on the right, and Buell kept his headquarters with Gilbert's corps, the centre one in the movements. As the Union columns advanced, the armies of Bragg and Kirby Smith found it necessary to commence concentrating. For some reason, not warranted by good strategy, two points of concentration were designated by Bragg, Perryville and Salvisa, twenty miles apart. Smith persisted in the belief he would be the first to be struck by the advancing army.
General Sill, on the road to Frankfort, encountered some opposition on the 3d, but on the 4th pressed the enemy back so close that the booming of his cannon interrupted Richard Hawes in the reading of his inaugural address. Bragg, while witnessing the ceremony, received dispatches announcing the near approach of the Union columns.(29) This led to a general stampede of the assembly, most of which was Confederate military, and the inaugural was never finished. Hawes fled from the capital, half inaugurated, accompanying the army, and this was about the last heard of a secession Governor of Kentucky.
Bragg personally hurried to Harrodsburg and there met Polk, who gave him news of the movements of his army and of the approach of the Union columns. Bragg reached the conclusion that the wide front covered by the Union forces (about fifteen miles) afforded an opportunity to beat a part of them in an early engagement, and he therefore, at 5.40 P.M. of the 7th, ordered Polk to recall Cheatham's division, hitherto ordered to reinforce Smith, and to form a junction with Hardee's corps near Perryville, and there give battle immediately, and then move to Versailles, whither Smith was ordered with his army.(30) McCook was turned directly on Perryville and Sill was ordered in the same direction. Buell, at 7 P.M. of the 7th, seemed to be aware that stubborn resistance would be met with the next day at Perryville. He so advised General Thomas.(31) Polk, with Cheatham's division, reached Perryville about midnight of the 7th, and the troops were placed in position on a line previously established with the expectation that a battle would be opened early the following morning. The Confederate troops thus in position numbered about 18,000, while immediately opposed to them were no divisions yet in position, and, in fact, no real preparation for battle had been made on the Union side. There was some skirmishing on the Confederate extreme left in the night, between Colonel Dan McCook's brigade of Sheridan's division, for the possession of the water in Doctor's Fork, but nothing more.
Bragg, at Harrodsburg, not hearing the battle open at dawn, hastened to Perryville, and there learned at 10 A.M. that a council of Confederate generals had been held, on Polk's suggestion, at which it was determined to act only on the defensive. He, however, after some reconnoissances and adjustment of the lines, ordered Polk to bring on an engagement.(32)
McCook with his two divisions came within about three miles of Perryville about 10.30 A.M. of the 8th, and there encountered some resistance, and later his troops were advanced and formed with the right of Rousseau's division, resting near a barn south of the Perryville and Mackville road, its left extending on a ridge through a corn field to a wood occupied by the 2d and 33d Ohio. The right of General William R. Terrill's brigade of Jackson's division rested on woods to the left of Rousseau, his left forming a crotchet to the rear. Starkweather and Webster's brigades of Rousseau and Jackson's divisions, respectively, were posted by McCook in support of the line named. Sheridan and R. B. Mitchell's divisions of the Third Corps were posted, not in preparation for battle, several hundred yards to McCook's right, but supposed to be near enough to protect it.(33)
Save some clashes of the skirmish lines and bodies seeking positions, no fierce engagement took place until 2 P.M., when a determined attack in force fell on Terrill's brigade, causing it to soon give way, General James S. Jackson, division commander, being killed at the first fire, and Terrill fell soon after. McCook had previously (about 12.30 P.M.) ridden to Buell's headquarters, about two and a half miles distant, and informed him of the situation, but this did not awaken him to the apprehension that a battle was about to be fought. McCook's entire command present on the field was soon engaged against great odds. Of this Captain Fisher of McCook's staff informed Buell in his tent at 3.30 or 4 P.M., and Buell claimed it was his first news that a battle had been raging on his front.
Polk, with three divisions of infantry and a complement of artillery, and with cavalry on each flank, had fallen on the two unsupported divisions of McCook, choosing his place and manner of attack skilfully. Rousseau's right was struck soon after Terrill's brigade was driven back, and the whole of his division was soon in action. The Confederates advanced under cover of their artillery fire, outflanking Rousseau's right. His troops stood to their work against odds and made a most gallant resistance. Their right was turned, when Gilbert's idle corps was near enough to have come at once into action and afforded it protection. McCook's command, though suffering much, was not driven from the field. My old regiment occupied the crest of a hill, its right behind a hay-barn. In this position, under Colonel John Beatty, it fought, exposed to a heavy fire from the enemy's batteries and to a front and flank fire from his infantry. The barn at last took fire, and its flames were so hot the right of the regiment was forced to temporarily give way. Its loss was 190 of its then 500 men in line, including Captains Cunard and McDougal and Lieutenants St. John and Starr among the killed. Colonel W. H. Lytle, commanding the brigade, was wounded and captured.