Historic Site Review: Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site

While driving to Louisville in November for the Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting, I took a detour south of my route to check out the Perryville Battlefield. Perryville, admittedly, is not a battle that I was deeply familiar with and because it was a state park, I was unsure of what I would find at the site. I was pleasantly surprised and found a well-done interpretation of the battle.

The Battle of Perryville was fought on October 8, 1862 by troops under Confederate General Braxton Bragg and Union Major General Don Carlos Buell (primarily his I Corps under Maj. Gen. Alexander McCook). The battle resulted from a Confederate campaign meant to bring Kentucky into the Confederacy. While Confederate forces did win a tactical victory in the battle, they ultimately retreated to Tennessee and Kentucky was securely in Union hands for the rest of the war. While Perryville gets buried under more “famous” 1862 battles such as Antietam and Fredericksburg, it was the largest battle to occur in Kentucky and it was a key part of the fight to control the border states. About one-fifth of the combatants became casualties, making Perryville one of the bloodier battles of the war when looking at that ratio. And when examining the battle as part of a larger picture of the war, the retreat from Kentucky combined with Lee’s retreat south after Antietam had political significance in foreign policy, northern elections, and Lincoln’s move toward the Emancipation Proclamation. Put together, Lee’s push into Maryland is not isolated because other Confederate armies were pushing north as well.

The site seems small and tucked away as you approach, but the site actually pretty large and the battlefield is very well preserved. You start at the visitor center where they have an exhibit, a video, and staff to get you started. The staff member who was there when I visited was fantastic. At first I didn’t plan on spending a lot of time at the site (that plan quickly changed), and she was awesome enough to take me to the basic overview map and give me a quick and comprehensive run down of the battle and its significance that put the battle into context for me. She encouraged me to at least watch the video and got me set up with that. The video runs around a half-hour and it is very well done. It does a very good job explaining how the action of the battle moved, how Perryville fit into the larger context of the war, and the human toll on soldiers and the community. Both the video and the small exhibit in the visitor center are polished, clear, easy to follow, and feature up-to-date interpretation (no exhibit of just cases holding “stuff” here).

At this point I threw my previous plans to only stop for a short time out the window and decided I needed to walk the ground itself. I set out (in the cold, November rain) to do the walking trail. The basic walking trail is between 1.5 and 2 miles long (if I remember correctly) and it covers most of the key points in the fighting on October 8. There are additional sections of walking trail as well as sections of driving trail that cover more of the battlefield. Like any battlefield, it makes a lot more sense once you see the topography of the land and fortunately the land at Perryville has been well preserved to still see the swells that impacted the flow of battle. The surrounding area is still rural and so the vistas from the high ground are probably similar to 1862 (and are also beautiful, even on a gray and rainy day). The interpretive waysides on the walking trail are well done and keep you oriented to where you are in relation to the action of battle and, while a few directional markers needed to be fixed, it was pretty easy to stay on the path. In addition to the battlefield there is a Confederate cemetery near the visitor center with a Confederate monument, a Union monument nearby, and a few other monuments on the field.

I was very impressed by the Perryville Battlefield and would highly recommend that you check it out if you are on your way through central Kentucky. It is a well-preserved and well-interpreted site and it certainly expanded my knowledge and understanding of the Civil War as a whole. It was well worth the detour (and driving the rest of the way to Louisville with wet sneakers).

Dr. Kathleen Logothetis Thompson earned her PhD in Nineteenth Century/Civil War America from West Virginia University, and also holds a M.A. from WVU and a B.A. from Siena College. Her research is on mental trauma and coping among Union soldiers and she is currently working on her first book, tentatively titled War on the Mind. She currently teaches history at several colleges and university and leads tours of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. Kathleen was a seasonal interpreter at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park for several years and is the co-editor of Civil Discourse.