nothing to indicate that it would be abandoned lightly. Some maneuvering for advantage and one decisive battle were to be expected before Kentucky could be rid of her invader. Everything goes to show that the final retreat of the enemy was suddenly determined on, and that it was not at the time to be calculated upon as a matter of course. Any movement on my part, solely in anticipation of it, would only have turned the enemy in a different direction, and any presumptuous attempt to capture a superior force by detachments would, according to all probabilities, have been more likely to result in defeat than in success.

The effective force which advanced on Perryville on the 7th and 8th under my command was about 58,000 infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Of these about 22,000 were raw troops, with very little instruction, or none at all. The reports show an actual loss of upward of 4,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the battle, which would leave the effective force about 54,000 after it. I did not hesitate therefore, after crossing Chaplin River and finding the enemy had fallen back, to await the arrival of General Sill's division, which had marched to Frankfort, and had been ordered to join, via Lawrenceburg and Chaplintown, when it was ascertained that Kirby Smith's force had marched to form a junction with Bragg. That division on the march from Louisville encountered a strong outpost of the enemy on the Frankfort road about 12 miles out, and skirmishing was kept up until its arrival at Frankfort.* It was followed closely by the division of General Dumont which remained at Frankfort.

In marching from Frankfort to join the main body Sill's division was attacked near Lawrenceburg by a portion of Kirby Smith's force, which it drove off, and then continued its march, arriving at Perryville on the evening of the 11th. Pending its arrival the army took position, with its right 4 miles from Danville, its center on the Perryville and Harrodsburg pike, and the left near Dicksville, on roads converging on Harrodsburg.

On the 11th three brigades from Crittenden's and Gilbert's corps, with Gay's and Colonel McCook's cavalry brigades, were sent out to reconnoiter the enemy's position. He was found in some force 2 miles south of Harrodsburg in the morning, but retired during the day, and his rear guard was driven out in the evening, with the loss of some stores and about 1,200 prisoners, mostly sick and wounded. It was probable that he would retire his whole force to Camp Dick Robinson, though it was not certainly ascertained what portion of it had crossed Dick's River. To compel him to take at once one side or the other, and either give battle on this side or be prevented from recrossing to attack our communications when a move was made to turn his position, the left corps moved on the 12th to Harrodsburg [General Sill's division having arrived the night before], the right corps moving forward and resting near and to the left of Danville, and the center midway on the Danville and Harrodsburg road, while a strong reconnaissance was sent forward to the crossing of Dick's River. The enemy was found to have crossed with his whole force.

The ground between the Kentucky River and Dick's River, as a military position, is rendered almost impregnable on the north and west by the rocky cliffs which border those streams, and which are only passable at a few points easily defended. Such is the character of Dick's River from its mouth to where the Danville and Lexington road crosses it, a

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*See skirmish near Clay Village, p.1020.

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