History of the 85th Illinois Volunteers
Illinois Volunteer Infantry
by
Henry J. Aten

CHAPTER IV.
Pages 25 - 33
____________ _

October 1862

     On Wednesday, October 8th, at three o’clock in the morning, the men were quietly aroused from their brief sleep, and the brigade began the advance, with the Eighty-fifth in front. During the night some pools of still water were discovered in the bed of Doctor’s creek, a tributary of Chaplin river, and the advance was made for the purpose of seizing a range of hills beyond the stream, with a view of securing the supply of water. It was very dark and absolute silence was enjoined, and while the regiment was marching by the right flank, the enemy’s pickets opened fire from a position just beyond the creek. At once our skirmishers rushed forward, supported by the entire regiment, and after a short, sharp fight, Peter’s Hill was carried, and before daylight our line was firmly established and a limited supply of bad water was obtained.
     In front was an open field, with heavy timber beyond, while timber and thick underbrush extended well toward the left of the regiment. About sunrise the enemy formed a column of infantry and artillery in this woods, and sent it forward, covered by a cloud of skirmishers, to retake the position from which the Eighty-fifth had driven him. His artillery opened with spherical case, which made it exceedingly uncomfortable for the regiment for a time, as it could not reply. But as soon as the brigade battery could be brought up, the guns of the enemy were silenced, and a few volleys cleared the field in front. Still the rebel force in the underbrush to the left kept up a very annoying fire, until the Second Missouri Infantry moved across the front under General Sheridan’s direction, charged into and cleared the thicket. This regiment, contrary to the usual equipment, was armed with the sword bayonet, and met with heavy loss in this charge. After his efforts to retake the lost position had been repulsed, the enemy remained inactive on this part of his line for some three hours or more.
     The day was clear and the range of hills just beyond Doctor’s creek afforded a fine view of the valley of that stream northeast to Chaplin river. In this valley were small farms, the homes of a peaceful community, unused to the bloody scenes about to be enacted in its midst. Fields, from which the wheat had been gathered, now rank with ragweed. Corn standing in the shock, orchards that had yielded up their mellow fruit, and the timbered ridges which here and there extended in the valley from the west – all these were to be swept and torn before night by the hurricane of war.
     About ten o’clock the advance of McCook’s corps arrived in the valley, and from the elevated position occupied by the Eighty-fifth, his troops could be seen as they came into line of battle across the foot hills, without a shot being fired. When the First corps deployed there remained but the usual interval between McCook’s right and the left of the Thirty-sixth brigade. But suddenly, and without warning, the enemy, who had been concealed in the heavy timber in his front and east of the creek, made a furious attack along his entire line, and about one o’clock the Thirty-sixth brigade started to his assistance. It had not gone far, however, when the enemy advanced again to assault and carry the line of hills the brigade had seized in the morning, and quickly returning under orders, the command resumed its former position.
     The recall of the brigade was most opportune, for no sooner had it returned to its original line, than the enemy opened with two batteries, under cover of which his assaulting column began the advance. To this fire the batteries of the division at once responded, and for a time there was a well-sustained artillery duel. Soon, however, our batteries turned their attention to the advancing lines of infantry, using shell at first, then case and canister. This did not check the determined advance, and when the enemy came within short musket range our batteries ceased firing; the infantry advanced and poured into the rebel ranks a most destructive fire. The action was short, sharp, and decisive. The rebel lines wavered for a moment and the next found the enemy in full retreat. During the action Carlin’s brigade of Mitchell’s division arrived on the right of Sheridan; wheeled partly to the left; struck the retreating enemy in the flank, and pursued him beyond Perryville. In this pursuit Carlin captured two caissons, an ammunition train of fifteen wagons, and a train guard of one hundred and thirty-eight men.
     As soon as the enemy was driven from Sheridan’s front, his batteries were turned upon the masses of the enemy now surging against the right of McCook’s corps. No longer menaced by the enemy on their own front, the men of the Thirty-sixth brigade had an unobstructed view of the terrible battle ranging along the front of the First corps. The quiet rural scene of the morning, whereon they had watched McCook set his troops in battle array without a sound of strife, now filled with flame and fury, had become a veritable valley of death. The shells from our batteries could be seen tearing through the masses of the enemy, or bursting in the midst of his serried column, as he recklessly charged the Union line. The fleecy smoke rose from the batteries of friend and foe and hung in the palpitating air. The spiteful puffs from the file firing marked the infantry line, while far to the rear a burning barn, fired by rebel shells, appeared. In full view, the wounded who were still able to walk, were drifting to the rear, while the stretcher bearers bore the more severely wounded back from the blue line, so stubbornly contesting every inch of the ground. So the battle ebbed and flowed, until darkness closed the eventful day upon a never-to-be-forgotten scene; one which neither tongue nor pen can adequately describe.
     The determined resistance made by McCook’s corps, aided by the batteries of Sheridan’s division, and the arrival of fresh troops, prevented the enemy from pursuing his advantage to a successful conclusion. His plan was rendered abortive; no definite results were obtained by his desperate fighting, and as soon as darkness intervened he retreated, leaving the field with his killed and wounded in possession of the Union army. The enemy abandoned the field so quietly that his retreat was not known until the advance began at daylight on the next morning.
     The losses in the Eighty-fifth were less in number than might have been expected, considering the work accomplished, but more than were sustained by any other regiment in the Thirty-sixth brigade. According to a table published in the Rebellion Records [Vol. LXVI, page 1036, Rebellion Records)], the brigade loss was: Seven killed; 63 wounded, and 9 missing, – total, 79. In the same table, which purports to be a revised list, the loss in the Eighty-fifth is given as 5 killed, 38 wounded and 9 missing. Assistant Surgeon P. L. Deiffenbacher has kindly furnished the names of the killed and wounded, but his list shows the number wounded to be less that the revised list published in the War Records, we must conclude that several men were slightly wounded who did not report to the surgeon. It is not possible to give the names of such, not is it possible to give the names of the missing. The following are the names of killed and wounded, according to the list furnished the writer by Surgeon Deiffenbacher:

COMPANY A.

KILLED – Corporal Benjamin White, Lemuel Y. Nash
WOUNDED – First Sergeant Albert G. Beebe, Sergeant Daniel Havens, William D. Blizzard, Gibson Bass, and William M. Thompson

COMPANY B.

WOUNDED – Lieutenant Charles W. Pierce, Thomas M. Bell, Benjamin F. Kratzer, Ellis Southwood

COMPANY C.

KILLED – Henry Shay, Orlando Stewart
WOUNDED – Sergeant John H. Duvall, James S. Chester, Channing Clark, William Newberry, Jonathan P. Temple

COMPANY D.

KILLED – Sergeant Freeman Brought
WOUNDED – William Davis

COMPANY E.

WOUNDED – William F. Allen, Royal A. Clary, James Lynn

COMPANY G.

WOUNDED – John Aten

COMPANY H

WOUNDED – Henry Bloomfield, Marion Horton, Solomon Meyers, Lemuel J. Sayres, Daniel Worley

COMPANY I

WOUNDED – Sergeant Laban V. Tartar, Corporal James Moslander, William Minner, John Watson

COMPANY K

WOUNDED – Jefferson Bowers, Isaac Fountain

     When the eventful day closed, it was with a sense of infinite relief that the tired, hungry men threw themselves upon their blankets for rest and sleep. They began the fight without breakfast; had no dinner, and now when night came the arbitrary orders of a grossly incompetent corps commander prevented the issue of rations until midnight. All had looked forward to the test of battle with more or less solicitude, lest some should fail to meet the stern demands of duty when the supreme hour of trial should come. But the men – the boys – in the ranks had proved themselves true born heroes while the officers had shared with them alike the danger and glory of the day. The Eighty-fifth had established a reputation for both fighting and staying qualities; a reputation that must be sustained in all future actions, and now, confident in themselves and in each other, officers and men awaited the coming of another day.
     At daylight on the morning of the 9th, the advance began by moving the troops, not engaged the previous day, against the left of the enemy. This movement soon developed the fact that the enemy had retreated during the night. Bragg had quietly and in good order retired, leaving his killed and wounded on the battlefield. About noon the Thirty-sixth brigade moved across the field from which the enemy had delivered his attack on McCook’s corps, and after a short march camped at Perryville; remaining in this camp throughout the 10th and 11th. In the meantime burial parties gave the dead of both friend and foe decent burial. At places on the field the dead were scattered very thick; bearing striking proof of the deadly character of the conflict. The writer remembers a point where a Confederate battery had been taken and retaken. There the Union and rebel dead appeared in about equal numbers, and among them the faithful horses that had drawn the battery into action.
     Considering the number of troops engaged, the losses were severe, amounting to 4,348 in killed, wounded and missing – more than one-fifth of the force engaged on the Union side. The loss of the enemy was never known, but it must have equaled, if it did not exceed, ours. Bragg in his official report admits a loss of twenty-five hundred prisoners, but as fully 4,000 prisoners, consisting mostly of sick and wounded, fell into our hands, he must have reported, as he usually did, much less than his actual loss.
     Buel reported the strength of his command before the battle at 58,000 effective men; less than one-half of which was brought into action. The entire Confederate force in Kentucky did not exceed 40,000 men, and of this force fully 15,000 men were under Kirby Smith near Frankfort, too far from the battlefield to render Bragg any assistance whatever. But when the time came for striking a decisive blow, the Union commander failed to use his whole force, and the battle of Perryville furnishes a single example of lost opportunities. Buel had a largely preponderating force; his men were well equipped and eager to be led against the enemy, but he utterly failed to rise to the demands of the occasion.
     General Don Carlos Buel graduated in the class of 1841 at the West Point Military Academy, and served in the War with Mexico, where he was wounded and won the brevet rank of major. From 1847 to 1861 he served as assistant adjutant general in the regular army, and his long service in the routine of a bureau office probably unfitted him for handling, on the battlefield, the large number of troops which composed his command. After finding the enemy and closing down on his position on the evening of the 7th, it appears to have been Buel’s plan to spend the following day in preparing to fight a great battle on the 9th. But the Confederate commander disposed of that proposition by striking quick and hard on the 8th. Bragg was well known to be a fighting man, and a breach of the peace should have been expected by Buel, as soon as our army appeared within the usual murdering distance of the enemy.
     Although Buel was a soldier by education, he was without confidence in himself or in the troops he commanded. This lack of confidence was mutual, the troops distrusting the ability of their commander – many going to the extent of questioning his loyalty. This unfortunate feeling was well nigh universal and was shared alike by both officers and men. General Thomas had urged Buel to fight at Sparta, Tennessee, before Bragg entered upon his gigantic raid in Kentucky. A corps commander, distinguished for his soldierly instinct, severely censured Buel for failing to attack the enemy at Glasgow and other points, while the two armies were marching on parallel roads in Kentucky, so near each other that a battle might have been brought on if there had been any desire to fight. General McCook told the writer within a few years that if Buel had sent him any one of the five divisions standing idle, and in easy reach, at three o’clock in the afternoon at Perryville, he would have destroyed that part of Bragg’s army with which his corps was engaged.
     In the reorganization of the army at Louisville, some seemingly inexcusable blunders were committed. The division which General Thomas, doubtless the most able officer in our army, composed of veterans he had led so long, was taken away from him, and he was named as second in command, which really left this capable officer without any command whatever. But worst of all, by some “hocus pocus” unexplained to this day, Charles C. Gilbert, who had not then been appointed a general officer by the President, was assigned to the command of the Third corps. Without experience or other qualification, Gilbert was undoubtedly the worst appointment to command an army corps made during the war. On the day of the battle, in utter disregard of the necessities of his troops, he left the men short of rations throughout the day and until late the following night. Even then his arbitrary orders were only relaxed at the earnest solicitation of General Sheridan. Fortunately for his country, the battle of Perryville was the first and last appearance of this incompetent officer as a corps commander.
     After three days had been frittered away in useless tactical maneuvers, timid advance was resumed on the 12th. The division moved through Danville and Lancaster, where the batteries exchanged a few shots with the rear guard of the enemy. But the foe was quickly routed and the march continued without further interruption through Stanford to Crab Orchard, where the command arrived on the evening of the 15th. Bragg had made good his escape and the invasion of Kentucky was ended.
     It is a noteworthy fact that the campaign in Kentucky caused the most bitter feeling in the opposing armies against their respective commanders. But perhaps the feeling of disappointment was greatest among the Confederates, and certainly the most difficult for them to bear. They had entered upon the Kentucky campaign under the promise of 20,000 recruits for the rebel cause, and had brought guns along to supply that number of recruits with arms. But the hoped for uprising did not occur; the arms were never taken from the wagons, and needlessly encumbered the train of the fleeing foe as he returned to Tennessee. General Bragg did not consider – so far as the Confederacy was concerned – that the state was worth fighting for, and now, disappointed in his scheme of conquest, and bitterly censured by his own army, he made haste to get beyond the barrier the Cumberland river was supposed to afford.
     On Thursday, the 16th, F. S. Henfling, of Company F, was accidentally shot in the leg. The regiment had been out to give the men an opportunity to discharge their guns, and it seems probable that some gun missed fire, which may account for the accident. The wound proved fatal, Henfling dying a few days later in the hospital.
     On Sunday, the 19th, the regiment was detailed for picket duty. Rest for the tired men and animals had been the order of the day at Crab Orchard, and the new troops especially enjoyed their stay in that genial climate. But the next day orders were received for a concentration of the army at Bowling Green, and in the early morning the regiment took up the line of march from the picket line. After a march of twenty miles the regiment camped for the night on a stream known as Rolling Fork. The line of march led the Thirty-Sixth brigade through Lebanon, Parkville, New Market and Campbellsville. A fall of six inches of snow during the night and early morning of the 25th was the only incident that happened to relieve the monotony of the march. This was a new, if not an agreeable, experience for troops without tents or shelter of any kind.
     On Saturday, November 1st, the regiment arrived at Bowling Green. That night the tents which had been left at Louisville, were brought up, the mails arrived and were distributed, and from letters and papers received from home the men learned of the progress of the war – the fortune that had followed the other armies in the broad field. They also learned without regret that Buel had been removed. From General Orders it appeared that our army, heretofore known as the Army of the Ohio, had been designated as the Army of the Cumberland, under the command of Major General W. S. Rosecrans.

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