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The Russell House
During the Battle of Perryville on October 8, 1862 the home of John Russell would become the part of the battlefield and the family would forever be changed by the horror of the aftermath of the battle.
In 1862, John Russell was 39 years old and owned a white, two story framed house, which stood on the ridge south of the Mackville Road and east of the intersection. He was a prominent farmer in Perryville, Kentucky and owned 150 acres of land. He was married to Francis Russell (40) and had eight children: Isaphena, (15) Amanda (13), and Susan (10), John (8), Waller (6), George (4), and Sarah (2). Also living in the household was Susan Bailey Laws (82), who was Francis Russell’s mother. Also living in the Russell household was Asbury May (18), who was working as a farmhand. He was also the fiancé of Isaphena. The value of John’s real estate was $2,000 and his personal property was valued at $1,553. John owned no slaves and was loyal to the United States and hoped only for success for the Union army. John owned twenty acres in corn, fifteen acres in wheat, and six acres of a meadow. He also raised oats. Isaphena’s fiance, Asbury May, joined the 63rd Indiana Union Infantry during the Civil War. Isaphena and Asbury would not marry until October 29, 1866 due to the outbreak of the Civil War. 1
On a fateful day on October 8, 1862, according to Alice Matilda Laws Taylor, a niece of John Russell, wrote that John Russell was starting to feed his hogs and other stock when he saw a man running towards him, who yelled and told him to put down his buckets, catch his horse, hitch up the wagon and to tell the women and children to head for a school house, which was suspected to be Harmonia school, although never proven. John and his family managed to find their way to the school before the Union soldiers arrived at their farm. The home had a sweeping view of the fields below, and overlooked a valley with woods to the front and left as well as open fields to the right.
At 4 p.m., on October 8, Union General Alexander McCook, commander of the First Corps, under Union General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio, along with his Third Division commander Union General Lovell Rousseau, arrived at the Russell home. Both generals agreed to form Lytle’s and Harris’ brigades into a line of battle anchored on the Russell house and the commanding heights. The brigades ran in a north-south direction almost parallel to the Benton Road. McCook ordered Captain Cyrus Loomis’s 1st Michigan battery from the crossroads and placed them five hundred yards to the rear of the Russell house. The 10th Indiana Infantry moved forward into the woods and down to Doctor’s Creek. Rousseau sent the 42nd Indiana down the hill to support Captain Hotchkiss’s battery. Captain Hotchkiss battery was ordered to move two of his howitzers to the hill south of the house. Simonson’s battery was moved across the Mackville road on a small hill south of the house.
During the fighting, Calvert’s battery of Confederate General Patrick Cleburne’s brigade exchanged fire with Simonson’s battery and one of the Simonson’s limber chests was hit by a shell. Shells began to rain down on the Russell house. Charles Sligh of the 1st Regiment of Engineers and Mechanics wrote that during the battle the Rebels “flushed with success were coming on, yelling.” The 1st Regiment of the Engineers and Mechanics were ordered to take position “across a double lane worm fence in front of a white house (Russell) near our position in the morning, to check the enemy’s advance; and the rails of those fences flew as if they were struck by a cyclone to let our guns through and into position.” Colonel George Humphrey of the 88th Indiana retired to the rear and formed in line behind the Russell House to left of Loomis’s battery. Colonel Curran Pope of the 15th Kentucky Union Infantry formed in line east of the house and in support of Hotchkiss battery.
The 38th Indiana Infantry formed in the woods west of the cornfield and the 33rd Ohio was in line north of the Mackville Road. The 10th Ohio was left of the 33rd Ohio. Cleburne moved his brigade into the cornfield with Lucius Polk’s 13th and 15th Arkansas on the right and Charles Carlton’s Texas Sharpshooters on the left. At the far side of the rail fence, the 10th Ohio and 33rd Ohio opened fire, along with the 42nd Indiana Infantry. Adam’s brigade, to the left of Cleburne, moved slowly through the woods toward the Russell House.
At 5:15 p.m., the sun began to set upon the battlefield. Cleburne’s and Wood’s brigades were still engaged on the McCook’s right. Union General Lovell Rousseau formed a line of battle. Union General John Starkweather patched together regiments, along with Stone’s and Bush’s battery 250 yards from the Dixville Crossroads. Cleburne, on Wood’s left, held his ground. Union General Leonard Harris and ordered the 33rd Ohio and 10th Ohio to fall back. Harris formed a new line north of the Russell House with the 10th Wisconsin, 33rd Ohio, 2nd Ohio, and 38th Indiana. Adams moved forward and saw from his field glasses McCook’s line, which formed around the Russell House south of the Mackville Road. McCook’s line comprised of the 15th Kentucky, Hotchkiss’s two guns, the 88th Indiana, and Loomis battery.
Rousseau arrived at the Russel House to meet McCook, but he had ridden to the Dixville Crossroads. Confederate artillery shells from the Bottom’s house began to rain down on his position. Rousseau wrote: “As we approached the house, 2 or 3 batteries opened up upon us from a point between us and Perryville with shell and it was the most rapid firing I have ever yet seen or heard. I do not know whether the shells struck the house or not, but the air seemed full of them. I think I saw as many as 4 or 5 burst at one time.” From the Russell house, Rousseau saw Adams brigade three hundred yards away. He ordered the 15th Kentucky east of the Russell house. Two of Hotchkiss guns opened up behind the 15th Kentucky. The 88th Indiana moved forward. Rousseau met Captain Loomis with a six gun battery, which was located four hundred feet behind the house and ordered them to open fire.
Loomis fired twenty rounds into Adams brigade. With the combined force of Hotchkiss and Loomis batteries, the 88th Indiana and the 15th Kentucky, Adams fell back. Rousseau rode out in front of his lines, put his hat on his sword and shouted: “My brave boys, I know you will never desert me in the day and hour of danger.” Wood’s brigade was sent to support Adams brigade, but Adams fell back, so Wood had to carry the assault by himself.
By 5:15 pm, Captain Holitzbel leading Gooding’s brigade came to Rousseau’s support. Gooding met McCook , who ordered him to the right of the Dixville Crossroads and formed four hundred feet behind the Russell House. The 22nd Indiana, 59th Illinois, 75th Illinois, and the 5th Wisconsin battery were placed in line of battle. Rousseau’s line was falling back to the Crossroads under Wood’s attack and made room for Gooding’s brigade.
At 6:30 pm, Wood crossed the Mackville Road and pushed past the Russell House. Wood’s brigade consisted of the 33rd Alabama, 32nd Mississippi, and 45th Mississippi. Gooding opened fire. Liddell’s brigade moved forward in support of Wood’s brigade and Steedman’s brigade moved forward to support Gooding. The Rebels charged several times but were hurled back. The 22nd Indiana charged with bayonets driving Wood’s brigade beyond the Russell House. Wood’s brigade made a stand on the other side of the Mackville Road. Wood’s counter charge forced Lieutenant Colonel Squire Keith’s 22nd Indiana back. Wood was severely wounded in the head by a shell fragment from Pinney’s battery. Steedman moved his brigade 450 yards behind Gooding. Darkness began to fall upon the battlefield, but the fight continued around the Russell House. Bragg ordered Liddell to support Wood. Colonel Kelly of the 8th Arkansas headed towards Wood’s left flank.
By this time, darkness had set and the full moon was the only light provided on the battlefield. Liddell met Gooding as Wood fell back. Liddell’s 6th Arkansas overlapped Gooding’s left at the Dixville Crossroad. The 22nd Indiana was ordered to support the 59th Illinois. Wood continued to fall back due to heavy losses. Before the battle, the 33rd Alabama started with five hundred men, by nightfall, the regiment only had eighty-eight men left.
Liddell surged forward and attacked Gooding. The 75th Illinois fought the 8th Arkansas. The regiment was pushed back beyond the Russell house. In the darkness, regiments became entangled. Gooding found himself among a Confederate line. In a hand to hand fight, Colonel Kelly of the 8th Arkansas struck Gooding over the head with his sword and captured him.
By 7:00 pm, the 59th Illinois on the left of the 75th Illinois, managed to fall back and escaped the assault from the 2nd Arkansas. The 2nd Arkansas crossed the Mackville road through an open field, west of the Russell house and captured two Union flags of Gooding’s brigade along with two ambulances with contained the personal items belonging to Rousseau and McCook.
Lt. Colonel Squire Keith of the 22nd Indiana arrived to support the 59th Illinois left flank and moved forward on the Dixville Crossroads. Keith did not see the 6th Arkansas in front of him. Muskets opened fired and lines became intermingled and shouts rained out that “You are killing your friends.” Liddell ordered the 6th Arkansas to cease firing. Confederate General Leonidas Polk rode up and ordered cease fire and asked in the darkness “What is your name sir?” Polk heard back “My name is Colonel Keith of the 22nd Indiana and I pray sir, who are you?” Polk realized that he had ridden into Union lines. He quickly came up with a bluff and shook his fist in Keith’s face and said “I will show you who I am sir cease firing at once!” Polk turned his horse around and rode through the lines ordering the Union troops to stop firing. Polk made his way back to his lines. He ordered Liddell’s brigade to cease fire unless he had a Yankee in his sights. Polk ordered Liddell to open fire and three thousand muskets opened on the 22nd Indiana. Lt. Colonel Keith was killed. The 22nd Indiana lost over sixty percent of their regiment, which were the highest loss for any regiment at Perryville and the highest percent for any regiment during the Civil War in a single day. Keith started with three hundred men, but after Liddell’s attack, he had lost 49 killed, 87 wounded, and 23 missing. The 59th Illinois started with 325 men, but after the attack they lost 24 killed, 59 wounded, and 29 missing. The 75th Illinois started with 700 men, but lost 46 killed, 167 wounded, and 12 missing. What was left of the 22nd Indiana fell back to the rear and Liddell was ordered to cease fire. The 2nd Arkansas captured two Union flags and the 6th Arkansas captured a Union flags. The 22nd Indiana fell in line with the 59th and 75th Illinois. Pinney’s battery fired canister shot into Liddell’s men.
Liddell was preparing to attack Gay’s Union cavalry, but Polk ordered all brigades to cease fire. By 7 pm, Polk ordered Liddell to camp for the evening. Loomis, Smith, and Pinney ceased firing. Swet’s Confederate battery fell silent. Liddell wrote: “The fields and woods around us on every side were strewn with the enemy dead and wounded. Their losses could hardly been less than 500 killed and wounded in space of 4 or 5 acres.” David Lathrop, of the 59th Illinois, wrote: “In this little woods pasture lay the dead and wounded of the Third (Gooding’s) brigade with now and then a rebel in the midst showing our boys had fired as they fell back and killed some of their pursuers. The ground between this and the (Russell house) to the right and left strewn with rebels. After the battle of Perryville, the Goodknight house, Dye house, Bottoms house, Russell house, and Wilkerson house all became field hospitals.
On October 9, the day after the battle, Dr. Jefferson J. Polk, who was the town surgeon in Perryville, visited the Russell house and described the house as being “dotted over with hundreds of marks of musket and cannon balls and all around lay dead bodies of the soldiers both Union and Rebel. Many long trenches were ready made for their burial. In a skirt of the woods close by were scattered hundreds of the dead of both armies. The whole scene beggars description. The ground was strewn with soiled and torn clothes, muskets, blankets, and the various accoutrements of the dead soldiers. Trees not more than a foot in diameter contained from twenty to thirty musket balls and buck shot, which were put into them during the battle.”iiThe chimney on the house was blown away by a cannon ball. Chaplain William Smith of the 75th Illinois wrote in his diary “Lieutenants Eels and Blean were buried in the dooryard of the Russell House beneath and between two evergreen trees.” According to Hays May, they were buried across the Hays May road under a tree. Several days later, on October 10, he wrote that he went to see for himself where the 75th Illinois fought and “a burial party under the direction of Captain Hale of Company I were just getting the dead of our own regiment in a windrow, while some had already begun to dig the long trenches for their graves. I took some names and company-forty-five- side by side, Lieutenants Eels and Blean making 47, had been carried to the Russell House yard for separate and single graves. Then went to get a drink of water from a creek beyond the battle line, and found the way strewn with dead rebels, some bloated, a horrid sight.”iii On October 23, 1862, several days after the battle, Captain John Price of the 75th Illinois Infantry, Company H, wrote to William Taylor informing him of the death of his son Tunis Taylor of the 75th Illinois. He wrote that Tunis Taylor “was shot upon the battlefield of Chaplin Hills. . . . on the evening of the 8th, which battling manfully in defense of his country’s flag, and for the maintenance and perpetuation of this glorious Union. I am permitted to inform you, and do so with pride, that your son died facing the enemy, and while in the act of discharging his gun at them. He fell struck by a ball penetrating the heart. He died instantly, without a struggle. We were engaged with the enemy for one hour and forty-five minutes, and while Tunis lived, upon the field he manifested much coolness, and daring, never once flinching the well-directed and unerring aim of the enemy. After the battle was over, the enemy took possession of that part of the field occupied by the 75th Illinois. We buried our dead the next day. We gave your son a decent interment and marked the spot. Tunis was a true soldier-obedient to his officer, kind and courteous to his companions in arms. I heartily sympathize with you in your deep affection, and mourn with you in the loss you have sustained. I trust that his death was well avenged by us on the battlefield.” iv
John Hunter, from Hotchkiss’s 2nd Minnesota Battery, was wounded and left on the battlefield. He was caught between Gooding’s and Wood’s brigades. After the battle, while lying on the battlefield, he wrote: “The moon came up in great splendor and men could be distinguished for ˝ mile and presented a real panorama of a battlefield, which, once witnessed, could never be forgotten. The cries for help, for water, the curses, and prayers of the wounded as they sat up or reclined upon their arms in the beautiful moonlight, when all nature seemed hushed again to rest after the strife and carnage of the day, presented a picture that no painter’s brush could reproduce, and for the time I forgot my own terrible extremity while gazing upon the scene. But my revere was soon broken by the approach of a squad of the enemy who were picking the pockets of friend and foe alike. I called to them and asked them to send me a surgeon which they promised to do and treated me very kindly, although they took my hat, jacket, and boots, with encouraging information that they did not think I would need them. They brought me a surgeon for me and offered to take me to their hospital at Harrodsburg, which I declined with thanks and at my request, they carried me into a white house (Russell House) mentioned where I found 17 other wounded in the same room where we lay and rolled in each other’s blood for 48 hours, when but seven of us were still alive.”
Liddell wrote: “My own wounded having been cared for, I directed a detail to assist the infirmary corps in removing the wounded to a white house (Russell house) not far off on our left, which was soon filled with them, leaving large numbers un-provided for.”
Several days later, John Russell and his family returned to their home and witnessed a scene of horror and destruction. In the Russell house, Union surgeons sawed off arms and legs and threw them out of the bottom floor window. Isaphena assumed the duty of carrying away the arms and legs. She used a pitch fork to pick up the limbs. She carried away two or three wagon loads of limbs. She used a plow to bury the limbs in a ditch which was located between the Russell House and the Overstreet Farm. Isaphena sat down on a log to rest and when she looked down, there was a wounded soldier. She took him into the house and nursed him back to health. Many years after the battle, the son of the wounded man came back to the battlefield to visit and asked if he would pitch a tent on the Russell property. As Isaphena and the man began to talk, they both came to the realization that the son’s father was the man that Isaphena had nursed back to health. v.
For seventeen days, the Russell house was used as a field hospital and the army used or destroyed everything on his farm including thirty cords of wood, forty barrels of corn, two thousand bundles of sheaf wheat, one thousand pounds of hay, and four horses which were valued at $845.00. The corn was taken from his field. General Joshua Sills’ division burned one hundred panels of rail fence using them as fuel. Frances Russell had a lot of fine walnut and mahogany furniture, but every piece was destroyed. The furniture had been used as firewood and the drawers were used to feed the horses. All her chest drawers full of sheets, table covers, pillowslips, and many other linens along with homespun heirlooms had been torn apart and used by the doctors as bandages. The window lighters were all broken out. The Union army gave no receipts or vouchers to John Russell for everything they took from the farm. According to Susan Alice Matilda Laws Taylor, when the family returned from the school house Susan Bailey Laws was sick from the exposure to the cold, since a snow storm fell in Perryville several days after the battle. She never recovered and died in the winter of 1862.vi. In 1884, John Russell filed a war claim for the damages resulting from the Battle of Perryville. To add insult to injury, the Quartermaster General informed John Russell that his claim of $845.00 was not allowed.vii. He decided that John Russell was unable to convince the Union Government that his stores were actually received or taken for the use of and used by the U. S. Army.
According to a book entitled The Roll of Honor, the dead were buried in one hundred and fifty locations, with one hundred and twenty locations on the battlefield. H. P. Bottom, John Russell, and David Wilkinson buried the bodies in twenty trenches, containing between five to twenty-nine bodies each, totaling 322 bodies. There were also eight hospital trenches containing fifteen to fifty-five bodies each, totaling 260 bodies.
According to the family, years after the battle, when rain would fall upon the house, the floors were made of ash in the upstairs and downstairs, would turn a dark, blood red color. Somehow the blood from the amputations remained in the house and continued to bleed red into the 20th Century. Years later after the battle Hays May was plowing one day and dug up a shallow grave. The skull, bayonet, rifle, and part of the uniform were all lying in the grave. Hayes May put his two fingers in the eyes of the skull and his thumb in the nose and took the skull to his father Ashbury and asked “What is this!” The remains were taken by Hayes May and his father to be properly buried.viii.
In 1867, Union General George Thomas ordered the Union dead, which were buried in trenches around Perryville, dug up and moved to Peter’s Hill on the Springfield Road in the Perryville National Cemetery. The Union soldiers that were buried on the Russell farm were also reinterred in the Perryville National Cemetery. Edmund Whitman was in charge of finding the Union graves so they could be interred in the Perryville National Cemetery. He gave detailed notes on where the Union graves were buried at the Russell house. He found one trench that contained 15 or 20 bodies northwest of the house. He found another trench that contained 16 bodies with ten of them marked. Fifteen yards northwest of the house was a trench with ten bodies. Forty yards north of the house, he found in a trench of twenty men of the 98th Ohio Infantry, with seventeen being identified. Near a cedar tree he found five unknown. Thirty yards northeast he found sixteen soldiers from the 22nd Indiana, with eight men marked. One hundred yards from the northwest, he found a trench with ten bodies. Sixty yards north by a fence he found one grave, identified and according to Whitman, John Russell buried the body three weeks after the battle. The soldier was wounded during the battle and crawled there and died. His name was cut into a cartridge box. In orchard, in a trench, he found fifteen unknown. In a garden, forty yards southeast of the house was twenty unknown soldiers buried in a trench. He also found individual graves scattered throughout the property. After Whitman identified all the graves, Thomas buried 969 Union soldiers in the National Cemetery. Unfortunately only two-thirds of the Union dead were never identified when they were placed in the national cemetery. Later in the year in 1867, the property designated as a national cemetery became a legal issue, when the land in question had been tied up in in legal wills and the Perryville National Cemetery was closed and the Union bodies were reinterred at Camp Nelson Cemetery in Jessamine County, Kentucky. About two hundred of the Confederate soldiers from the battle were buried in a mass pit by H. P. Bottoms, which still exists today on the Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site. Another two hundred Confederate soldiers are buried in another mass pit on the Goodnight Cemetery. The rest of the Confederate dead were buried by local citizens of Perryville. The residents of Perryville basically dug a hole next to the body, took a fence rail, and rolled the body into the pit.
John Russell passed away on November 25, 1896. The proceeds from his estate were divided among his children and his wife Frances, who had preceded him in death. His daughter Isaphena, who married Asbury May, purchased her siblings shares and obtained ownership of the Russell farm. Isaphena willed her house to Rutherford B. Hays. Hays May. Hays May and his wife Anne Wayne, owned the land until his death in 1957. Hays May in turn willed the house to one of his daughters, Rachel May, who married Seymour Claunch. Upon their deaths, shortly after 1969, the land was willed to their daughter Anna Lee, who married Clarence Sharp. The land was finally willed to Hazel Sharp in 1976, who married Russell Townsend. Hazel’s children graciously sold the property after her death in 2009. Unfortunately the Russell house was burned in 1964, during a Halloween prank.ix.
The residents of Perryville, such as John Russell and his family, not only suffered financial loss from the battle, but suffered emotionally for at least a generation. The land and trees could not be used because of the buried bodies, bullets, and cannon balls. All the houses were used as field hospitals. The sights and sounds affected the residents with nightmares for a generation.
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