Numbers 31.

Report of Major General Leonidas Polk, C. S. Army, commanding Army of the Mississippi.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
Knoxville, Tenn., November -, 1862.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following as my official report of the battle of Perryville:

At Bardstown, on September 28, the Army of the Mississippi, by order from General Bragg, was placed under my command. Up to that time I have command of the right wing only, General Hardee having command of the left. My orders from the general commanding, who was called on public duty to the capital at Frankfort, were to press in the enemy's pickets upon Louisville and to maintain my position. If the enemy advanced upon me in moderate force, to attack him; if in large force, I was fall back upon Harrodsburg, marching in two columns via Perryville and Mackville respectively. The enemy having made a general advance, I moved upon Harrodsburg, and in consequence of the state of the roads marched the whole column by the Springfield and Perryville pike. The object of this movement was to form a junction with the Army of the Kentucky under General Kirby Smith, who was to move for that purpose upon Harrodsburg also from the north side of the Kentucky River. Another object was to cover our base, which after the evacuation of Cumberland Gap by the enemy was established at Camp Dick Robinson, in the forks of the Dick and Kentucky Rivers. On arriving at Perryville I communicated with the general commanding the forces then at Harrodsburg, informing him that the right wing, under command of General Cheatham, had been ordered forward to take a position on the farther side of that town, and as there was a scarcity of water I had ordered General Hardee to halt Buckner's division near Perryville and to post Anderson's on Salt River between the two towns. These dispositions were carried into effect and I reported to the general commanding in person.

The enemy had been held in check along the whole line of march from in front of Louisville up to our present position by those gallant cavalry commanders Colonels Wharton and Wheeler, and we were constantly of his position and movements. He left Louisville in five columns on as many different routes, extending from the road to Elizabethtown around to that to Shelbyville, and we had reason to believe that much the larger portion of this force was concentrated upon Bardstown and followed our retiring army in the march to Perryville. The rest of his force pursued a route farther north to threaten General Kirby Smith.

Information having been received through General Hardee that the enemy was pressing with heavy force upon his position it was resolved by the general commanding the forces to attack him at that point. He accordingly directed me on the evening of the 7th to order Anderson's division, of Hardee's wing, to return to Perryville and also to order General Cheatham, with Donelson's division of his wing, to follow it immediately, and to return myself to that place, to take charge of the forces and attack the enemy next morning. I urged the strong expediency of concentrating all our forces upon the point to be attacked, and at all events the necessity of having the remaining division of the Army of the Mississippi (Withers') placed at my disposal. To this the general objected, upon the ground that General Kirby Smith had in-