Morning actions The first shots of the battle were fired early on the morning of October 8. Finding that there were algae-covered pools of water in the otherwise dry bed of Doctor's Creek, troops from the
10th Indiana advanced to take advantage of them. They encountered the forward men of the 7th Arkansas, and some shots were exchanged. At 2 a.m., Buell and Gilbert, the III Corps commander, ordered newly promoted Brig. Gen. Phil Sheridan to seize Peters Hill; Sheridan started off with the brigade of Col.
Daniel McCook (the younger brother of the I Corps commander). Sheridan seized the hill, driving the Arkansans back to the main line of their brigade, but continued to push across the creek. Liddell's brigade could not check the momentum of Sheridan's thirsty soldiers, and Buckner, Liddell's division commander, was ordered by Polk not to reinforce him, but to pull his brigade back. Polk was concerned about starting a general engagement to the west of the Chaplin River, fearing he was outnumbered. Meanwhile, on the Union side, a nervous Gilbert ordered Sheridan to return to Peters Hill. For the preceding few days, Braxton Bragg had been deceived by the diversion launched by Sills against Frankfort, assuming that it was the major thrust of Buell's army. He wanted Polk to attack and defeat what he considered to be a minor force at Perryville and then immediately return so that the entire army could be joined with Kirby Smith's. Polk sent a dispatch to Bragg early that morning that he intended to attack vigorously, but he quickly changed his mind and settled on a defensive posture. Bragg, angered that he was not hearing the sounds of battle, rode from Harrodsburg to Perryville to take charge, arriving about 10 a.m. and establishing his headquarters at the Crawford house on the Harrodsburg Pike. Bragg was appalled at the condition of Polk's battle line, which contained gaps and was not properly anchored on the flanks. As he rode in, he observed some of McCook's I Corps troops north of town, but he assumed that the primary threat continued to be on the Springfield Pike, where the action against the III Corps had taken place early that morning. (He had no knowledge of Crittenden's II Corps approaching on the Lebanon Pike.) He gave orders to realign his army into a north–south line and prepare to attack
en echelon. Cheatham's division marched north from town and prepared to open the attack on the Union left—which Bragg assumed to be on the Mackville Road—beginning a large "left wheel" movement. Two brigades from Patton Anderson's division would then strike the Union center, and Buckner's division would follow up on the left. Another of Anderson's brigades, commanded by Col. Samuel Powel, would attack farther to the south along the Springfield Pike. The large clouds of dust raised by Cheatham's division marching north at the double-quick prompted some of McCook's men to believe the Confederates were starting to retreat, which increased the surprise of the Rebel attack later in the day. By the afternoon of October 8, most of Buell's army had arrived. They were positioned with McCook's I Corps on the left from the Benton Road to the Mackville Road; Gilbert's III Corps in the center, on the Springfield Pike; Crittenden's II Corps on the right, along the Lebanon Pike. The vast majority of action during the battle would be against McCook's corps. Because of an unusual
acoustic shadow, few sounds from the battle reached Buell's headquarters only away; he did not exert effective control over the battle and committed no reserves until late in the day.
Attack from the Confederate right Cheatham's artillery bombardment began at 12:30 p.m., but he did not immediately order his infantry forward. Union troops continued to file into line, extending their flank to the north, beyond the intended avenue of attack. Bragg moved Cheatham's division into Walker's Bend, assuming the redirected attack would now strike the Union's open flank. Unfortunately for the Confederates, their cavalry reconnaissance withdrew before McCook placed an artillery battery under Lt. Charles Parsons and the brigade of Brig. Gen.
William R. Terrill onto the Open Knob, a prominent hill on the northern end of the battlefield. The brigade of Brig. Gen.
Daniel S. Donelson was the first to cross the Chaplin River and climb the bluffs on the west bank, and it began its attack around 2 p.m. Two of the brigade's regiments had been detached, leaving only three for the attack. Cheatham shouted, "Give 'em hell, boys!" One of the enduring legends of the Civil War is that Gen. Polk, who was also an
Episcopal bishop, was nearby and seconded the cheer: "Give it to 'em boys; give 'em what General Cheatham says!" The brigade found that instead of striking the open flank it had expected, it was performing a frontal assault on the center of the Union position. The 16th Tennessee Infantry, under Col. John H. Savage, raced ahead of the other two regiments, attempting to reach the artillery battery of Capt. Samuel J. Harris. (Savage held Donelson in disdain, considering him a drunkard with limited military ability, and often paid little attention to orders from his commander. He considered Donelson's order to attack Harris's battery to be a death sentence against him.) As it moved west into a depression, it came under crossfire from the
33rd Ohio Infantry and the eight guns of Parsons' artillery on Open Knob, to the north. Cheatham ordered the brigade of Brig. Gen.
George E. Maney forward to deal with Parsons on the Open Knob, but Donelson's brigade could not withstand the fire and withdrew to its starting point at 2:30 p.m. with about 20% casualties; Savage's regiment lost 219 of its 370 men. Parsons' eight guns on the Open Knob were manned by inexperienced soldiers, some of whom were infantry recruits from the
105th Ohio Infantry. Terrill's 33rd Brigade was posted to defend the guns. Meanwhile, Confederate Brigadier General George Maney's brigade was able to approach the Knob undetected through the woods, as the Union troops' attention was focused on Donelson's attack. Eventually, the Union artillery redirected its guns, and a fierce firefight ensued. Brig. Gen. Jackson, the 10th Division commander, was killed in the action, and command fell to Terrill, who immediately made a poor command decision. Obsessed with the safety of his artillery, he ordered the 123rd Illinois to mount a bayonet charge down the hill. The 770 raw Union troops suffered heavy casualties at the hands of the 1,800 veteran Confederates. As reinforcements arrived from the 80th Illinois and a detachment of infantry commanded by Col.
Theophilus T. Garrard, the two sides were briefly stalemated. Maney's artillery, commanded by Lt. William Turner, pounded the inexperienced defenders, and Maney ordered a charge up the steep slope, which swept the Union men from the hill and captured most of Parsons' guns; the tenacious Parsons had to be dragged away from the scene by his retreating soldiers. Maney's attack continued to the west, down the reverse slope of the Open Knob, through a cornfield, and across the Benton Road, after which was another steep ridge, occupied by the 2,200 men in the Union 28th Brigade of Col.
John C. Starkweather (Rousseau's division), and twelve guns. Those guns made the Open Knob an untenable position. Starkweather had placed his 21st Wisconsin in the cornfield about the time that Maney was attacking Parsons' position. The inexperienced men of the 21st—some of whom had never fired their weapons before, the regiment having been formed less than a month earlier—could see little through the 10- to high cornstalks of the cornfield. They were surprised as the remnants of Terrill's brigade retreated through their position. As Terrill himself retreated, he shouted, "The Rebels are advancing in terrible force!" Terrill convinced the regimental adjutant to order yet another bayonet charge; 200 men advanced and were quickly smashed by the oncoming Confederates. While the Union men had to hold their fire to keep from shooting their retreating comrades, artillery fire from Starkweather's batteries caused numerous
friendly fire casualties. The 21st managed to fire a volley into the Confederate ranks, but it was answered by a 1,400-musket volley that decimated the Union regiment, and the survivors fled toward the Benton Road. To fill a gap in the Confederate line where Donelson's brigade had fought, Cheatham deployed the Tennessee brigade of Brig. Gen.
Alexander P. Stewart and they joined Maney's brigade in the advance against Starkweather. The 1st Tennessee attacked the northern end of the hill while the remainder of Maney's brigade assaulted directly up the slope. Starkweather's position was a strong one, however, and the Confederates were initially repulsed by strong infantry and artillery fire. A second charge and vicious hand-to-hand fighting brought the Confederates to the crest, among the batteries. {{Quote|text=The guns were discharged so rapidly that it seemed the earth itself was in a volcanic uproar. The iron storm passed through our ranks, mangling and tearing men to pieces. The very air seemed full of stifling smoke and fire, which seemed the very pit of hell, peopled by contending demons. At that time Brig. Gen. Terrill returned to the fight, leading his troops up the reverse slope of the hill. He was mortally wounded by an artillery shell exploding overhead and died at 2 a.m. the following day. Starkweather, meanwhile, was able to salvage six of his twelve guns and move them west to the next ridge. Col.
Albert S. Hall began the day as regimental commander of the 105th Ohio, and with the deaths of Jackson, Terrill, and Col. George Webster, advanced all the way to command of the 10th Division by the end of the day. Once again, the Federals had a strong defensive position, with good artillery support and a stone wall at the top of a steep slope. Maney's and Stewart's men attempted three assaults, all unsuccessful, and withdrew to the vicinity of the Open Knob at around 5:30 p.m. The assault by Maney's brigade over three hours was the bloodiest of the battle, and arguably its most crucial action. Historian
Kenneth W. Noe describes Maney's final repulse as the "
high-water mark of the Confederacy in the western theater, no less important than the Angle at
Gettysburg."
Attack from the Confederate center The
en echelon attack continued with Anderson's division in the center. At about 2:45 p.m., the same time that Maney's first attack was being repulsed on the Open Knob, the brigade of Col. Thomas M. Jones began its attack across a valley commanded by a large sinkhole. Jones had no orders to attack from Anderson or Hardee, but moved forward on his own initiative when he heard the sound of firing to his right. As they entered the valley, his men were cut down by musketry and fire from twelve artillery pieces on the next ridge, where the Union 9th Brigade (Rousseau's division) under Col. Leonard A. Harris was posted. Confederate artillery attached to Jones's brigade, Capt. Charles Lumsden's Alabama Light Artillery, returned fire, but due to an optical illusion that made two successive ridges look the same, were unable to fix on the appropriate range and their fire had no effect on the Federal line. At 3:30 p.m., the Confederate brigade of Brig. Gen.
John C. Brown moved up to take the place of Jones's retreating men. By this time, most of the Union artillery had had to withdraw to replenish their ammunition, so Brown's men did not suffer the same fate as Jones's. Nevertheless, they made no headway against the infantry units in place until successes on the Confederate left put pressure on the Union position.
Attack from the Confederate left Almost all of McCook's I Corps units were posted at the beginning of the battle on land owned by "
Squire" Henry P. Bottom. The corps' right flank, Col.
William H. Lytle's 17th Brigade, was posted on a ridge on which Squire Bottom's house and barn were situated, overlooking a bend in the Chaplin River and a hill and farm owned by R. F. Chatham on the other side. At about 2:30 p.m., Major John E. Austin's 14th Battalion of Louisiana Sharpshooters, screening Brig. Gen.
Daniel W. Adams's Confederate brigade, engaged the 42nd Indiana as it was collecting water in the ravine of Doctor's Creek. This began a Confederate attack against this area with Brig. Gen.
Bushrod R. Johnson's brigade descending from Chatham House Hill at about 2:45 p.m., crossing the almost-dry riverbed and attacking the 3rd Ohio Infantry, commanded by Col. John Beatty. The attack was disorganized; last-minute changes of orders from Buckner were not distributed to all of the participating units, and friendly fire from Confederate artillery broke their lines while still on Chatham House Hill. When the infantry attack eventually moved up the hill, fighting from stone wall to stone wall, Confederate artillery bombarded the 3rd Ohio and set afire Squire Bottom's log barn. Some of the Union wounded soldiers had sought refuge in the barn, and many were burned to death. The Ohioans withdrew and were replaced in their position by the 15th Kentucky. As Johnson's men ran low on ammunition, Brig. Gen.
Patrick R. Cleburne's brigade entered the battle at about 3:40 p.m. Cleburne's horse, Dixie, was killed by an artillery shell, which also wounded Cleburne in the ankle, but he kept his troops moving forward. As they advanced up the slope, they were subjected to Confederate artillery fire; Cleburne later surmised that the friendly fire was caused by his men wearing blue uniform trousers, which had been captured from Union soldiers at Richmond. On Cleburne's left, Brig. Gen.
Daniel W. Adams's brigade joined the attack against the 15th Kentucky, which had been reinforced by three companies of the 3rd Ohio. The Union troops retreated to the west toward the Russell House, McCook's headquarters. Lytle was wounded in the head as he attempted to rally his men. He was left on the field for dead and was captured. While Lytle's brigade was being beaten back, the left flank of Phil Sheridan's division was only a few hundred yards to the south on Peters Hill. One of the lingering controversies of the battle has been why he did not choose to join the fight. Earlier in the day, he had been ordered by Gilbert not to bring on a general engagement. At around 2 p.m., the sound of artillery fire reached army headquarters, where Buell was having dinner with Gilbert; the two generals assumed that it was Union artillery practicing and sent word to Sheridan not to waste gunpowder. Sheridan did project some artillery fire into the Confederate assault, but when Gilbert finally arrived from the rear, he feared that Sheridan would be attacked and ordered him back to his entrenchments. Sheridan's division did participate toward the end of the battle. The Confederate brigade of Col. Samuel Powel (Anderson's division) was ordered to advance in conjunction with Adams's brigade, on Cleburne's left. The two brigades were widely separated, however, with Powel's on Edwards House Hill, immediately west of Perryville. At about 4 p.m., Powel received orders from Bragg to advance west on the Springfield Pike to silence the battery of Capt. Henry Hescock, which was firing into the left flank of Bragg's assault. Bragg assumed this was an isolated battery, not the entire III Corps. Three regiments of Powel's brigade encountered Sheridan's division, and although Sheridan was initially concerned by the Confederates' aggressive attack and sent for reinforcements, the three regiments were quickly repulsed. Sheridan, who would be characterized in later battles as very aggressive, hesitated to pursue the smaller force and also refused a request by Daniel McCook to move north in support of his brother's corps. However, his earlier request for reinforcements bore fruit, and the 31st Brigade of Col.
William P. Carlin (Mitchell's division) moved up on Sheridan's right. Carlin's men moved aggressively in pursuit of Powel, chasing them as fast as they could run toward Perryville. As they reached the cemetery on the western outskirts of town, fierce artillery dueling commenced. Carlin pressed forward and was joined by the 21st Brigade of Col.
George D. Wagner (Wood's division, II Corps). They were poised to capture the town and the critical crossroads that dominated Braxton Bragg's avenue of withdrawal, but an order from Gilbert to Mitchell curtailed the advance, despite Mitchell's furious protestations. {{Quote|text=It was like running a marathon, over fences and ditches and cornfields, the enemy ahead and we in pursuit. At times, we were so close that I was once able to give a Rebel a kick in the rear.
Dixville Crossroads Bragg's attack had been a large pincer movement, forcing both flanks of McCook's corps back into a concentrated mass. This mass occurred at the Dixville Crossroads, where the Benton Road crossed the Mackville Road. If the Confederates seized this intersection, they could conceivably get around the right wing of McCook's corps and effectively cut them off from the rest of the army. The southern jaw of the pincer began to slow at the temporary line established at the Russell House. Harris's and Lytle's brigades defended until Cleburne's and Adams's attack ground to a halt. The northern jaw had been stopped by Starkweather's defense. The remaining attacks came from north of the Mackville Road by two fresh brigades from Buckner's division: Brig. Gen.
St. John R. Liddell's and Brig. Gen.
Sterling A. M. Wood's. The initial target of the assault was Col. George Webster's 34th Brigade of Jackson's division. Webster was mortally wounded during the fighting. His death marked the final senior loss for the 10th Division—the division commander, Jackson, and the other brigade commander, Terrill, had also been mortally wounded. (The previous evening, Jackson, Terrill, and Webster had been idly discussing the possibility of all of them being killed in battle, and they dismissed the thought as being mathematically negligible.) Webster's infantry and Capt. Harris's artillery battery posted on a hill near the Benton Road shot Wood's attackers to pieces, and they were forced to fall back. They regrouped at the base of the hill and renewed their assault. Harris's battery ran low on ammunition and had to withdraw, and the Confederate attack pushed Webster's men back toward the crossroads. Col. Michael Gooding's 13th Brigade (Mitchell's division) arrived on the field from Gilbert's corps and took up the fight. Wood's men withdrew and were replaced by Liddell's. The arrival of reinforcements was a result of McCook's belated attempts to secure aid for his beleaguered corps. At 2:30 p.m. he sent an aide to Sheridan on Peters Hill requesting that he secure I Corps' right flank. McCook dispatched a second staff officer at 3 p.m. to obtain assistance from the nearest III Corps unit. The officer encountered Brig. Gen.
Albin F. Schoepf, commanding the 1st Division, the III Corps' reserve. Unwilling to act on his own authority, Schoepf referred the staff officer to Gilbert, who in turn referred him to Buell's headquarters more than away. The arrival of McCook's staff officer at about 4 p.m. surprised the army commander, who had heard little battle noise and found it difficult to believe that a major Confederate attack had been underway for some time. Nevertheless, Buell ordered two brigades from Schoepf's division to support I Corps. This relatively minor commitment indicated Buell's unwillingness to accept the reported dire situation at face value. Liddell's men fired at an unknown unit less than east of the crossroads. Calls were heard, "You are firing upon friends; for God's sake stop!" Leonidas Polk, the wing commander, decided to ride forward to see who had been the victims of the supposedly friendly fire. Polk found that he had ridden by mistake into the lines of the 22nd Indiana and was forced to bluff his way out by riding down the Union line pretending to be a Union officer and shouting at the Federal troops to cease fire. When he had escaped, he shouted to Liddell, and the Confederates fired hundreds of muskets in a single volley, which killed Col. Squire Keith and caused casualties of 65% in the 22nd Indiana, the highest percentage of any Federal regiment engaged at Perryville. Although Liddell wanted to pursue the assault, Polk had been unnerved by his personal contact with the enemy and halted the attack, blaming the falling darkness. The Union units moved their supplies and equipment through the endangered intersection and consolidated their lines on a chain of hills northwest. McCook's corps had been badly damaged during the day, but was not destroyed. == Aftermath ==