Today historian Rick Britton joins Charlottesville Right Now talks about: This week in U.S. History. On October 8, 1862, the Battle of Perryville, also known as the Battle of Chaplin Hills, was fought just west of Perryville, Kentucky, as the culmination of Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Kentucky Campaign. It became Kentucky’s largest Civil War battle.

Bragg, with his Army of Mississippi, initially won a tactical victory against a single corps of Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Union Army of the Ohio. The battle is considered a strategic Union victory, sometimes called the Battle for Kentucky, since Bragg withdrew to Tennessee soon thereafter. The Union retained control of the critical border state of Kentucky for the remainder of the war.

A few interesting details: Thanks to an “atmospheric shadow” Union General Buell didn’t realize until late in the fighting that a major battle was taking place on his flank. (This led to him not getting his entire force into the fight.) It was the fight that first brought notice to Union Gen. Philip Sheridan (who later, after the war, commanded the entire U.S. Army.) In the battle, about 16,000 Confederate’s took on a Federal army totaling 37,000. Total casualties on both sides of almost 8,000 make Perryville, percentage-wise, one of the war’s bloodiest battles.

ALSO: On Wednesday, October 12th, at 6:00 p.m. at the Senior Center, Rick is presenting a FREE talk entitled “The Gettysburg Campaign: Lee’s Second Invasion.” Culminating in the Civil War’s bloodiest battle, the Gettysburg Campaign has been studied very closely for over 150 years. What was Lee’s purpose in invading Pennsylvania? Was there really a chance of Confederate victory? Would Confederate success at Gettysburg have ended the war? And what if “Stonewall” Jackson had been present? Come hear the answers to these and many more fascinating questions!