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As mentioned in a previous article on the Antioch Church, located approximately four miles from the Perryville Battlefield, there were also several other churches that we also directly affected by the battle. They were the Presbyterian Church of Perryville and the Methodist Episcopal Church South of Perryville, Kentucky. In 1907, both churches filed for war claims.
After the battle, the Union army took possession of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. The building consisted of a large, well-constructed brick building, about sixty feet by forty feet. The church was used as a field hospital and was occupied by the Union army from October 8, 1862 until March or April of 1863. The pews were destroyed to construct bunks and the floor and other portions of the building were destroyed. According to Alf Burnett, a war Correspondent, he entered the church and found “the boys of the 10th and 3rd Ohio (who) were crowded into a little church, each pew answering for a private apartment for a wounded man . . . . (one) boy of the 10th had his entire right cheek cut off by a piece of a shell, lacerating his tongue in the most horrible manner.” According to the trustees of the church, the sum of the damage to the church came of $1,200. The trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church South sued the Federal government for damages and on May 25, 1908, the Federal government deemed that the church was loyal to the Union government and determined that with rental fees, along the damages, amounted to $425.
The Presbyterian Church of Perryville was also a brick building which was also seized by the Union army and used as a field hospital. The church was also occupied by the Federal doctors from October 8, 1862 until March or April of 1863. Again the pews of the church were destroyed. On February 25, 1908, the Senate deemed the church loyal to the Union government and was awarded the sum of one thousand dollars, but the Federal government determined that the church should be given $325 for rental and damages.
In enclosed field over the stone wall, across the street from the Hillcrest Cemetery, adjoining the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, were two rows or trenches and on the northern part of a third one, contained 136 Union dead, which were buried from the hospitals in the city. There were fifteen identified soldiers.
There was also a town cemetery hospital and although the Federal government did not give the name of the building used, there were twenty Union bodies that were reinterred to the Perryville National Cemetery in 1868. There was also a Confederate grave of S. W. Grant, of Company A, 1st Florida. About twenty yards west of the Perryville Presbyterian Meeting house, adjoining the grave yard was one grave and in the same row was a Mississippi soldier and in the lane on the west side of the cemetery were two graves with headboards.
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