Perryville battle game: the largest battle in Kentucky
A drought, a corps looking for water, and a battle the army commander three miles away could not hear. Perryville opens The Western Campaigns in Civy War, and it is free to play.
One scenario, playable from either side. Every battle runs five minutes on the clock against a Green, Regular or Veteran enemy: the attacker has to break the line before nightfall, the defender has to hold.
Perryville
Free · opens The Western Campaigns
October 8, 1862 · 2 p.m.
As the Union, hold Open Knob, the Bottom house and the Russell house until help comes. Terrill's brigade on your left is mostly recruits raised this summer, with Parsons' improvised battery. Rousseau's brigades, Starkweather's, Harris's and Lytle's, hold the ridge above Doctor's Creek. Gooding's, Steedman's and Carlin's brigades are on their way.
As the Confederacy, roll up McCook's line and take the Russell house crossroads. Cheatham's division, Donelson's, Stewart's and Maney's brigades with the 1st Tennessee, crosses the Chaplin at Walker's Bend against Open Knob, while Buckner and Anderson go in across Doctor's Creek. Preston Smith's and Liddell's brigades come up during the fight.
The battle
In the late summer of 1862 Braxton Bragg invaded Kentucky, and Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio followed him. On October 8, in a drought that had dried the creeks to pools, McCook's corps came up the Mackville road near Perryville looking for water and ran into Bragg's army. Buell, three miles back, could not hear the guns for a trick of the wind.
Cheatham's men drove Terrill's raw brigade off Open Knob; General James Jackson was killed at Parsons' guns and Terrill fell later that afternoon. Starkweather's brigade held its hill at the end of the line, and the attacks across Doctor's Creek pushed Rousseau back past the burning Bottom barn to the Russell house, where Gooding and Steedman stopped them at dusk. Of some 22,000 Union men engaged, about 4,200 were lost; the Confederates lost about 3,400 of 16,800.
Bragg held the field, learned that he faced Buell's whole army, and withdrew that night. Perryville was the largest battle ever fought in Kentucky, and it ended the Confederate invasion; Kentucky stayed in the Union for the rest of the war.
Free or paid
Free. Perryville is the opening battle of The Western Campaigns and is free to every player. Chickamauga, Olustee, Kennesaw Mountain and Atlanta are the paid part of the expansion. The map is the survey of the battlefield made by order of George H. Thomas and published by the Chief of Engineers in 1877.
Thirteen battles, the Drill Field and the Field Manual are free. The Historical Campaigns, Grant's Campaigns and The Western Campaigns are optional one-time purchases that restore on every device signed in to the same Apple ID.