Darden's MS Battery - Friendly Fire

Darden's MS Battery - Friendly Fire. Perryville . The Battle For Kentucky. , At 2:45 P.M., Confederate General Bushrod Johnson's brigade, the lead element of General Simon B. Buckner's division, came over this ridge and opened the battle in this part of the field. At Perryville, Johnson commanded 1,500 men in 5 Tennessee regiments plus the 5th Confederate Infantry and Captain Putnam Darden's Mississippi battery (The Jefferson Artillery) of 4 cannon, two of which deployed here., Johnson was originally ordered to advance straight west toward Doctor's Creek and Loomis Heights (in front of you), but at the last minute Buckner changed their route to the southwest (to your left front) to take advantage of the terrain. Not all of Johnson's units received the new orders, and as the bri-gade jumped off some went west while some angled southwest. The brigade quickly became confused as regiments slalomed back and forth in the face of Union artillery fire., Just as the Confederates started to straighten things out, severe artillery fire came from their left and rear. Surprised, the 25th Tennessee, 44th Tennessee, and 5th Confederate sheared off to charge the cannon - which they discovered to be the friendly 5th Company of the Washington Artillery, posted on the hill to your left across the road. The Louisianans had changed their direction of attack and approached this area from the southeast. They mistook Johnson's men for Union infantry. General Cleburne's men were also fired on by their fellow Confederates because most of them sported recently-captured new Yankee trousers they liberated from a Union supply depot some weeks earlier., General Buckner rode forward and finally straightened out the confusion, and sent these two brigades westward against the Federals waiting around the Bottom farm., As we ascended the hill we were fired into by our own artillery in the rear. Several of our men were killed and wounded, and we had to fall back. I sent an aide to stop this battery. I can only account for this blunder from the fact that most of our men had on blue Federal pants. , - General Patrick R. Cleburne, 2nd Brigade, Buckner's Division, The regiment was promptly in motion and charged rapidly over the hill and forward through a corn field and over a large meadow, where we were exposed to an enfilading fire coming from the enemy on our right and a battery upon our left. . . . We charged rapidly up the hill with fixed-bayonets to silence and take the battery on our left, and having gained the top of the hill we found it to be the Washington Artillery, and immediately reported to them that they had been playing upon their own men, when the firing ceased. , - Colonel John Fulton, 44th Tennessee Infantry, (Caption):, General Bushrod R. Johnson. General Johnson was an Ohio native who had turned 45 the day before the battle.