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PERRYVILLE, BATTLE OF

PERRYVILLE, BATTLE OF (8 October 1862). After Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg had attended the inauguration of the secessionist governor of Kentucky, he gathered his scattered army to form a junction with reinforcements, commanded by Gen. Edmund Kirby-Smith, coming from Cumberland Gap. On 8 October 1862, Bragg's army was drawn up in battle array near Perryville. Union troops under Gen. Don Carlos Buell, marching from Louisville, unexpectedly encountered the Confederate force. A bloody battle followed. The Confederates retained possession of the battlefield, but withdrew eastward during the night to join Kirby-Smith and then southward the following day to protect Knoxville, Tenn.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones, How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1983.

McWhiney, Grady. Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.

Thomas Robson Hay/A. R.

See also Civil War; Cumberland, Army of the; Cumberland Gap; Morgan's Raids.