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“I think to lose Kentucky is nearly to lose the whole game,” said President Abraham Lincoln.
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It was just one of the many desperate struggles that characterized the bloody fighting that afternoon.Īt the outset of the American Civil War in April 1861, both sides coveted the key border state of Kentucky. What followed was a bloody scuffle for control of the guns. The Rebels then chased them back to the top of the knob. In response, Maney’s men delivered a well-aimed volley that shattered the Buckeyes. Most of the bullets passed over the heads of the Confederates. The Ohioans moved downhill and fired a volley. In a desperate effort to save the valuable guns, Terrill ordered the men of the 105th Ohio, who had just reached the knob, to counterattack the Confederates. Maney’s other two regiments caught up with the first line and joined the attack.
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As a result of the artillery fire, “large boughs were torn from trees, the trees themselves shattered as if by lightning, and the ground plowed in deep furrows.” Among the commanders at Perryville were (clockwise from top left), General Braxton Bragg, Maj. “The battery was playing upon us with terrible effect,” wrote Lt. In the 41st Georgia alone three color bearers were cut down by Yankee bullets or canister. Color bearers fell to the ground wounded or dying, but always another soldier picked up the colors and bore them forward. But the veteran soldiers recovered and swept uphill shrieking the hair-raising rebel yell. “It was almost impossible for mortal men to stand up in the face of such a rain of lead and our lines wavered a moment,” wrote a memberof the 41st Georgia. The spray of lead balls mowed down many of the Southerners. When the Rebels began their uphill assault, the Union gunners switched to double-canister. “His presence and manner … imparted fresh vigor and courage among the troops,” recalled Colonel George Potter, commander of the 6th Tennessee. The men might not have moved were it not for Maney’s exhortations. Reluctant to give up their position behind the fence, the men nevertheless heeded their veteran commander. With his regiments suffering additional casualties from Federal fire with each passing minute, Maney gave the order to charge. Maney’s Rebels, clad in faded gray uniforms that matched the flora so well that Federal staff officer Samuel Starling thought from a distance that they wore camouflage, had reached a split-rail fence overgrown with brush partway up the east slope of the knob. It was supported by the 123rd Illinois of Brig. Situated atop the knob was Lieutenant Charles Parson’s eight-gun battery.
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Maney’s immediate objective was to drive the Federals from an eminence known as Open Knob, one of the key positions on the north end of the battlefield. The Battle of Perryville had begun less than an hour earlier, and Maney’s brigade was part of a sledgehammer attack by the reinforced Confederate right wing against Maj. George Maney maintained tight control of the three regiments in his first line as he pressed his attack against a key position on the extreme left flank of the Union Army on the afternoon of October 8, 1862.