This image is the cover for the book Civil War at Perryville, Civil War Sesquicentennial Series

Civil War at Perryville, Civil War Sesquicentennial Series

A comprehensive history of the bloody Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, featuring over sixty historic images and maps.

Desperate to seize control of Union-held Kentucky, a border state, the Confederate army launched an invasion into the commonwealth in the fall of 1862. The incursion viciously culminated at an otherwise quiet Bluegrass crossroads and forever altered the landscape of the war. The Battle of Perryville lasted just one day yet produced nearly eight thousand combined casualties and losses, and some say nary a victor. The Rebel army was forced to retreat, and the United States kept its imperative grasp on Kentucky throughout the war. Famous Confederate diarist Sam Watkins, whose Company Aytch journals were featured as a major narrative thread in Ken Burns’ award-winning Civil War documentary series, declared Perryville the hardest fighting that he experienced. Indeed, history would record that Perryville the second bloodiest battle of the Western Theater after Shiloh.

Few know this hallowed ground like Christopher L. Kolakowski, former director of the Perryville Battlefield Preservation Association, who draws on letters, reports, memoirs and other primary sources to offer the most accessible and engaging account of the Kentucky Campaign yet, featuring over sixty historic images and maps.

Christopher L Kolakowski

Christopher L. Kolakowski was born and raised in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He received his BA in history and mass communications from Emory & Henry College, and his MA in public history from the State University of New York at Albany. Chris has spent his career interpreting and preserving American military history with the National Park Service, New York State government, the Rensselaer County (New York) Historical Society and the Civil War Preservation Trust. He has written and spoken on the Civil War, American Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and both World Wars. From 2005 to 2008, Chris was executive director of the Perryville Enhancement Project; during his tenure he added 152 acres of critical battlefield land and increased Perryville's national profile. Today, Chris works as a military historian in Atlanta, Georgia. The Civil War at Perryville: Battling for the Bluegrass State is his first book.

The History Press