144 Anniversary of the Battle of Perryville (October 2006)

A Doctor’s View of the Battle of Perryville (also known as the Battle of Chaplin Hills) In the mid-19th century, Dr. Jefferson J. Polk was one of Perryville, Kentucky’s, most respected and influential citizens. Dr. Polk spent nineteen years practicing medicine in Perryville. During his career as the town's primary physician, Polk attended to 14,000 patients and delivered 825 babies. But it wasn’t until after his retirement that he would face the most challenging experience of his life treating thousands of wounded soldiers left by the Civil War’s bloody Battle of Perryville. In April 1861, the Civil War, also known as the War Between the States, erupted. Southern states, after the election of Abraham Lincoln, dropped from the Union in quick succession. Kentucky attempted to remain neutral but became caught in the middle as passions flared and muskets sounded. Throughout the Civil War, Polk remained a staunch Unionist. He wrote in his 1867 autobiography that, "I considered it my duty to God and my country to espouse the Union cause." Polk's loyalty to the Federal government came from his involvement with a local colonization society. These colonization groups would purchase slaves, provide them with freedom, and give them passage to Africa. Polk noted that, "The cause that always lay nearest to my heart was emancipation with colonization." On October 8, 1862, the Civil War arrived in Perryville. Braxton Bragg's Confederates battled Don Carlos Buell's Union troops a few miles north of town. After five hours of fighting, more than 7,500 casualties covered the fields. Nearly every church, barn, and home was converted into a hospital. Local citizens were left to bury the dead and to care for the living. Despite Polk's experience in nursing the sick, the state of Perryville remained etched in his mind when he wrote his autobiography. His description of his first battlefield visit shows how the battle overturned this once-quiet community. Polk wrote: On the second morning after the battle of Perryville, or Chaplin Hills, I visited the battlefield. In passing out on the Springfield road, the fencing was all leveled to the ground---here and there a dead rebel. After proceeding about one mile, I came to a company of Union soldiers, who had collected ten or twelve of their dead comrades and were preparing to bury them. . . . The first hospital I entered was Mr. Peter's house. Here were about two hundred wounded soldiers, lying side by side on beds of straw. Notwithstanding they were wounded in every possible way, there was not heard among them a groan or complaint. In the orchard close by a long trench had been dug, in which to bury the dead; about fifteen were lying in a row, ready for internment. I passed on northward, and saw on either hand dead men and dead horses, canteens, muskets, cartridge-boxes, broken ambulances, coats, hats, and shoes, scattered thick over the ground. I reached Mr. Russell's white house. . . . Here was the center of the great battle. The house was dotted over with hundreds of marks of musket and cannon balls. All around lay dead bodies of the soldiers. . . . In a skirt of woods close by were scattered hundreds of the dead of both armies. . . . The ground was strewn with soiled and torn clothes, muskets, blankets, and the various accouterments of the dead soldiers. Trees not more than one foot in diameter contained from twenty to thirty musket-balls and buck-shot, put into them during the battle. . . I counted four hundred and ten dead men on a small spot of ground. My heart grew sick at the sight. . . . I saw dead rebels piled up in pens like hogs. I reached my home, praying to God that I might never again be called upon to visit a battle-field. . . . For months hundreds of the wounded died every week." At Polk’s home and office in downtown Perryville, several of the injured recovered from their horrific wounds. Shortly after the battle, Polk was appointed surgeon to a makeshift hospital. This "hospital", which was actually a barn containing 40 wounded troops, was owned by a farmer who served as Polk's surgical assistant. The farmer gave the wounded whiskey to dull their pain, and when Polk would operate, the farmer-turned-nurse would sit and play his fiddle. The aftermath from the battle allowed Polk to lay aside his political convictions. Although the doctor placed the Union above all except God, he worked side-by-side with a Confederate surgeon. Karl Langenbecker was a Prussian-born doctor who emigrated to the South prior to the war. After the Battle of Perryville, Langenbecker, a surgeon with the 13th Louisiana Volunteers, remained behind to help the wounded who were housed at the Perryville Christian Church. Shortly after the battle, the Prussian Confederate became ill and rested at Polk's home. His illness, however, proved too severe, and he died on December 21, 1862. He was likely buried at an unknown site in Perryville's Hillcrest Cemetery. Polk also risked his own health while tending to the wounded. While working in the music-filled barn, Polk noted that "Here I labored day and night until my health gave way, and I was compelled to desist from my work. Many of my friends thought my illness would prove fatal; but, thank God, I soon recovered." As the last wounded soldier left Perryville, Dr. Polk again retired from the medical profession. Still active in preaching, temperance affairs, and politics, he voted for Lincoln in the 1864 election. As the war drew to a close he "began assisting rebel soldiers out of prison" as a way to "return good for evil, and repay blessing for cursing." Although the Civil War brought horror to his state and home, Jefferson J. Polk wrote that, "No part of my life is filled with so many pleasing and yet painful incidents and reminiscences as during the great rebellion.” Dr. Polk died on May 23, 1881, and is buried in Perryville.