Perryville’s bloodiest battle area next
on Civil War Trust’s preservation list

“All along our front, a solid line of dead and wounded lay, in some places three deep, extending to the right from the barn,” according to a Louisiana soldier.

In describing perhaps the bloodiest part of the Oct. 8, 1862 Battle of Perryville, the Confederate trooper wrote that the fighting along this 141-acre tract was “the grandest, but the most awful sight ever looked upon.”

It ended with 494 men either killed or wounded, a major portion of the 7,400 casualties suffered at Perryville.

The Civil War Trust has launched a campaign to save the battlefield acreage (Overstreet Farm) that surrounds the historic Squire Henry P. Bottom House on three sides. Purchase price for the property is $725,000, but through a matching grant from the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program and a major individual gift, the Civil War Trust needs to raise only $181,250 to complete the transaction.

The Trust already has saved 385 acres at Perryville.

The farm is bounded on the east and south by Doctors Creek, on the north by the wartime Perryville/Mackville Road. The property’s Bottom House is the only surviving building that was actually between the contending armies. The farm also contains the site of Henry Bottom’s Barn (which burned during the battle, killing many wounded men who had crawled in there), and the “Widow Reynolds Cabin.”

The Overstreet farm was the southern part of Bottom’s farm during the battle. The Overstreet property also borders the current Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site along the original Perryville/Mackville road.

The acreage has been referred to as “The Nut Cracker.” It marked the extreme right flank of Alexander M. McCook’s Union 1st Corps. It’s also the spot where this flank was caught between the Confederate Brigades of Patrick Cleburne and Daniel Adams and was crushed.

Cleburne was wounded and his horse “Dixie” was killed and the commander of the Union 17th Brigade, William H. Lytle, also was wounded in this area.

The Battle of Perryville concluded with Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg – being short of men and supplies – withdrawing during the night and retreating through Cumberland Gap into Tennessee. The 1862 Confederate Invasion of Kentucky then was over and the Union controlled Kentucky.

Those wishing to contribute to the campaign will find more information at www.civilwar.org.