No Better Place to Die- The Battle of Stones River

by Peter Cozzens

  CHAPTER THREE

  A HASTY ADVANCE

  “GENERAL Bragg returned from Richmond in good spirits,” Lieutenant Colonel George Brent of the general staff wrote on 2 November. “He brought the gratifying fact that his conduct in Kentucky had been approved by the President.”

  Sustained by Davis, Bragg set the army in motion for Middle Tennessee. Time was at a premium. The North Carolinian faced the same problems on returning to East Tennessee that he had left behind two weeks before, and every day the army lingered about Knoxville things grew worse. Desertion was rampant, particularly among the Kentuckians. Field returns of 3 November showed only 30,801 present; in other words, nearly 50 percent of the army was absent, either lying in hospitals or gone home. An autumn drought had ruined crops, and an early winter blanketed the mountains with six inches of snow before November. Unable to shelter themselves properly and short of clothing, blankets, shoes, and food, troops by the hundreds succumbed from exposure to the elements. Many more, weakened by hunger, fell victim to pneumonia, typhoid, scurvy, and dysentery.1

  The necessary orders were issued, and the army began to move during the first week of November. Breckinridge's division had been in the Stones River Valley, encamped at Murfreesboro, since 28 October. Major General Ben Franklin Cheatham, meanwhile, was on the east bank of the Tennessee River, opposite Bridgeport, Alabama, ready to advance on order. As the remainder of the army left Knoxville, Bragg wired Breckinridge to fall back, if necessary, on Tullahoma, where he would be met by Cheatham's advancing division.

  The army moved slowly, their progress impaired by the poor condition of the railroads and the indirectness of the route. Boarding the cars at Knoxville, Bragg's infantry rattled along the dilapidated East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad to Stevenson, Alabama. There they changed trains, completing the journey to Murfreesboro without incident on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. On 14 November army headquarters were advanced to Tullahoma. Twelve days later, the commanding general and his escort rode into Murfreesboro.2

  As Bragg had no objective beyond the occupation of Middle Tennessee, he now was content merely to await an advance by Rosecrans. He entertained no thoughts of attacking the Federals in their Nashville fortifications; but, if they ventured from their entrenchments, as he believed they would, Bragg was confident of success in a defensive battle at Murfreesboro.

  Bragg's confidence was misplaced. His choice of Murfreesboro as the anchor to a defense of Middle Tennessee was a poor one, reflecting his ignorance of the state's topography. Bragg had concentrated his forces at Murfreesboro so as to gather foodstuffs in the rich Stones River Valley, while forestalling a Federal advance on the gateway city of Chattanooga. But the same could have been accomplished elsewhere, and at a lesser risk. To the south, at the base of the plateau of the Cumberland Mountains, were the Duck and Elk river valleys, equally fertile and far more easily defended. The former river was especially well suited to a defending army, as it snaked through numerous defiles and impassable woods. It also flowed beneath the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad east of Shelbyville, blocking that avenue just as effectively as could a defensive line at Murfreesboro. Adopting the Duck River line admittedly might mean surrendering a portion of Middle Tennessee, assuming that Rosecrans chose to leave his Nashville bastion. But even within the Stones River Valley there was a position far better than Murfreesboro. Just twelve miles to the southeast, at the edge of Rutherford County, a chain of rolling, forested foothills ranging in altitude from 570 to 1,352 feet rose from the valley, providing a spectacular view of the countryside and of any approaching enemy force.

  The main problem with Murfreesboro was the ease with which it could be bypassed, leaving a defending army outflanked. To the west, the well-maintained Columbia Pike and parallel Nashville and Decatur Railroad offered swift passage to Columbia, some fifteen miles below Murfreesboro. And nearer Murfreesboro, a country road led to Shelbyville, twenty-five miles below the town, by way of Nolensville, Triune, and Eagleville. To the northeast, Murfreesboro could be flanked by way of the turnpike between Lebanon and McMinnville, again, placing an advancing Federal army below the defending Confederates. In fact, only two routes south were blocked from Murfreesboro. One was the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, of doubtful use to an invader as it twisted tortuously for miles through the Cumberland Mountains before debouching at Stevenson, Alabama; the other was the Nashville Pike (or Nashville Turnpike), a macadamized road that forked below Murfreesboro, the principal branch becoming a mere dirt lane as it left Millersburg.3

  All these considerations left Bragg unmoved. As November drew to a close and winter approached, he grew less concerned about a Federal offensive and ordered Breckinridge's division and Polk's corps to build winter quarters outside Murfreesboro. At the same time, Bragg reorganized his depleted forces. Orders were issued consolidating the Army of the Mississippi and Kirby Smith's Army of Kentucky into the Army of Tennessee, the name it was to carry for the remainder of the war. Three corps of infantry were created, led by Polk, Hardee, and Kirby Smith. Polk's corps contained three divisions. Major General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham commanded the first. A hard drinker and a hard fighter, Cheatham was immensely popular with his troops, most of whom were fellow Tennesseans. The Nashville native, a major general in the state militia before the war, was influential in Tennessee politics and therefore not to be taken lightly. In the service of the Confederacy, the stout, rough soldier had distinguished himself in all of the Western campaigns, first as a brigade, then as a division commander.

  Major General Jones Withers, a member of the West Point Class of 1835 who resigned his commission after graduation to study law, commanded Polk's second division. Withers practiced law in Alabama until the War with Mexico, at which time he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the Thirteenth United States Infantry. Withers resigned at the end of the conflict and returned to Mobile, where he served as mayor from 1858 until the outbreak of hostilities. He began the war with Bragg at Pensacola, Florida; now, a year and a half later, he was a close friend and loyal subordinate of the commanding general, one of the few division commanders on whom Bragg could rely for support.

  Major General John Cabell Breckinridge led the third division. He was by far the most influential, and potentially the most dangerous, division commander in the Army of Tennessee. A lawyer by profession, he had risen rapidly to prominence in his native Kentucky and was elected to Congress in 1851. From 1856 to 1860 he was vice president in the ill-starred Buchanan administration. A candidate for the presidency in 1860, he finished behind Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, ahead of John Bell in popular votes. That winter he was elected to the Senate, but resigned his seat to cast his lot with the Confederacy. Assuming command of the famous “Orphan Brigade” of Kentuckians in November 1861, he rose quickly to the rank of major general, largely a result of political considerations, as Bragg was quick to point out after relations between the two had deteriorated.

  Bragg had not always been this quick to criticize Breckinridge. For a time they got along well. Bragg had been impressed with Breckinridge's performance at Shiloh, and much of his hope for success in Kentucky rested on his belief that the mere presence of Breckinridge in his home state would bring new recruits to the army in droves.

  But Breckinridge was then in Louisiana, chafing under the command of the mercurial Earl Van Dorn. Bragg begged the Kentuckian to join him. “I should be much better satisfied were you with me on the impending campaign,” he wrote. “Your influence in Kentucky would be equal to an extra division in my army…. A command is ready for you, and I hope to see your eyes beam again at the command ‘Forward,’ as they did at Shiloh, in the midst of our great success.” When Van Dorn would not consent to Breckinridge's transfer, Bragg went over his head to Secretary of War Randolph, who ordered his release. Breckinridge prepared at once to join Bragg. On 19 September, he put twenty-five hundred men of his division—all that Van Dorn would allow him to take—onto trains in Louisiana. Two week
s later, he and his men arrived at Knoxville, Tennessee, ready to join Bragg—a remarkable feat given the dilapidated state of Southern railroads.

  Breckinridge wired Bragg of his movements. “I hope you are satisfied with my energy since I was allowed to leave. I have encountered every difficulty a man could meet.” But Bragg was not satisfied. Breckinridge could not have known, since the causes lay deep in the recesses of Bragg's troubled mind, but Bragg already blamed him for a campaign that was on the verge of defeat. Bragg had convinced himself that Breckinridge was responsible for the failed recruiting effort in Kentucky. That more Kentuckians would have joined the Army of the Mississippi had Breckinridge been present is undeniable. Breckinridge, however, had done everything in his power to reach Bragg, overcoming an uncooperative Van Dorn and an unreliable railroad system. Bragg, in the bitterness of his disappointment, forgot all this. “The failure of General Breckinridge to carry out his part of my program has seriously embarrassed me, and moreover the whole campaign,” he complained to President Davis. From this point Bragg's relationship with Breckinridge declined rapidly, a process that was to have dire consequences two months later on the bank of Stones River.

  Lieutenant General William J. Hardee commanded Bragg's second corps. A member of the West Point Class of 1838, the Georgia native was an able lieutenant. Labeled “Old Reliable,” Hardee was a professional soldier who had seen action in the Seminole War and the War with Mexico. As a major he had authored the two-volume Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics that later came to be known simply as Hardee's Tactics. Endorsed by the War Department in 1855, his Tactics was a response to the replacement by the rifle of the musket as the standard infantry weapon. As the rifle both extended the range and increased the accuracy of infantry fire, new tactics were imperative. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, directed that a manual be prepared addressing these advances in weapons technology, and Hardee's Tactics was the result. In working together on the manual, Hardee and Davis formed a relationship that was later to assist Hardee in undermining Bragg's authority as commander of the Army of Tennessee.

  Hardee's most significant contribution was in changing the rate of advance, as the “double quick time” and the “run” supplanted the “quick time” as the standard pace during an attack. Hardee's double quick time called for 165 steps per minute, as opposed to the old quick-time rate of 110 steps per minute; each step was lengthened to thirty-three inches. The longer stride and faster rate enabled troops to deploy from column more rapidly. In addition, it was no longer necessary for units to halt while passing from one formation to another.

  For these and other innovations, Hardee was acknowledged to be one of the leading military scholars, North or South. He apparently regarded himself in much the same light, as his official reports during the Civil War are sprinkled with pedantic references to generalship and tactics. But the forty-seven-year-old widower had other interests as well. Tall, broad-shouldered, looking “rather like a French officer,” Hardee enjoyed a wide reputation as a ladies’ man. During the Kentucky campaign, it is said, he availed himself of the “privilege of his rank and years, and insisted upon kissing the wives and daughters of all the Kentucky farmers.” What effect this had on the outcome of the campaign is unknown.

  Hardee profited from the services of two able division commanders. Major General Simon Buckner commanded the first division at the time of the November reorganization, but was transferred to garrison duty at Mobile in early December. His replacement proved to be one of the finest combat leaders that the war produced: Patrick Ronayne Cleburne. Cleburne was a fascinating character with an even more fascinating background. At seventeen he ran away from his home in County Cork, Ireland, to join Her Majesty's Forty-first Regiment of Foot, serving three years before purchasing his discharge and emigrating to Arkansas. Here he studied law and later established a successful practice with T. C. Hindman, also a future Confederate general. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Cleburne enlisted as a private in the first regiment raised in Arkansas; by the year's end he was a brigadier general. A courageous leader, always at the forefront of battle, he was wounded twice during the invasion of Kentucky. At Richmond, while shouting a command to his troops, a minie ball passed through his mouth, carrying with it five lower teeth. Cleburne was back in action at Perryville, where he was wounded a second time. Fiery in combat, Cleburne was under normal circumstances distant and reserved, almost shy. He may have been modest and unpretentious, but as a division commander he drove himself and his men relentlessly, working to improve an already fine command. The strain left its mark: although only thirty-five, the combative Irishman was already graying. But his efforts were appreciated. Hardee held him in high regard, and he was among the few not criticized by Bragg.

  Hardee's other division commander was forty-year-old Brigadier General Patton Anderson of Florida. Anderson had seen action in the War with Mexico, during which he was elected lieutenant colonel of a Mississippi battalion at the age of twenty-one. As was the case with most of the general officers in the Army of Tennessee, Anderson had connections in Richmond. After the War with Mexico, President Franklin Pierce introduced Anderson to Jefferson Davis, who subsequently secured Anderson an appointment as a marshal in the Washington Territory. But unlike his fellow general officers, Anderson would not use his relationship with Davis to undermine Bragg; he had served with Bragg at Pensacola and Mobile in the early days of the war and, with Withers, was a firm supporter of the commanding general.

  The remaining corps of the Army of Tennessee was composed of the two divisions that Kirby Smith had furnished Bragg. Neither Carter Stevenson nor John McCown, Kirby Smith's division commanders, relished the prospect of serving under Bragg; McCown already was estranged of the commanding general. Kirby Smith shared their distaste for service in the Army of Tennessee, and he did not join his command until early December.

  The cavalry also was reshuffled. Brigadier General Joseph Wheeler, a twenty-five-year-old favorite of Bragg, was appointed chief of cavalry. His selection won for Bragg yet another enemy, the more experienced but less flamboyant Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest's anger at having been passed over is understandable. There was little in Wheeler's record to date to merit such a promotion, except perhaps loyalty to Bragg. He had failed repeatedly to provide effective reconnaissance during the invasion of Kentucky, although he did conduct an admirable delay as commander of the rear guard during the retreat. In any event, the youthful general was now in command of Bragg's three regular brigades of cavalry, one of which was assigned to each corps of infantry. Bragg prudently allowed Forrest and John Morgan to retain independent commands.4

  Bragg firmly believed that the move into Middle Tennessee and the reorganization of the army was having a salutary effect on his troops. On 24 November, two days before establishing his headquarters in Murfreesboro, Bragg wrote Davis that deficiencies in clothing, shoes, and blankets were being overcome; that supplies were abundant; that, in short, “the health and tone of my old Army of the Mississippi were never better.”

  Davis was skeptical. Although he wanted to believe his old friend, too many disquieting reports of continued unrest within the army's officer corps were reaching his office, mostly from the headquarters of Polk and Hardee. Affairs outside of Tennessee were disturbing him as well. Cooperation was at a minimum in the West, and coordinated action was nonexistent. While Bragg prepared for his advance into Middle Tennessee, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton was in peril of losing much of Mississippi, including Vicksburg, to Grant's late-autumn offensive. Pemberton turned to Bragg (who, theoretically at least, was his commander) for reinforcements, but instead got only advice and the suggestion from Bragg that his move into Middle Tennessee might relieve pressure on the Confederates in Mississippi, to the extent that it created a diversion in Grant's rear. Bragg did, however, take advantage of his position by having the commands of Earl Van Dorn and Mansfield Lovell, both operating in northern Mississippi, placed under his authority. Everyone conc
erned—everyone but Bragg, that is—was upset. Pemberton wrote Davis for special instructions, and Van Dorn asked to be relieved. When his request was denied, he countered by wiring Richmond that Union transports were threatening Vicksburg and his rear and that Bragg should be ordered to attack these forces. Replying for Secretary of War Randolph, Samuel Cooper, the Adjutant and Inspector General of the Confederacy, merely told Bragg to take whatever action he deemed necessary to save Vicksburg without really ordering him to do anything. Consequently, Bragg did nothing. In a wire to Cooper on 21 November, he argued that the dispatching of troops to Mississippi would be tantamount to abandoning Middle Tennessee. From the tone of his correspondence, Bragg appeared surprised that he was responsible for Pemberton's army; it was a burden he neither wanted nor then felt himself capable of assuming.

  Bragg's reluctance to accept this authority probably stemmed from his experience as department commander during the invasion of Kentucky. Then he honestly tried to act the part, only to be undermined from below and circumvented from above. While planning the occupation of Chattanooga, Bragg actually turned command of the Army of the Mississippi over to Hardee in order to better orchestrate movements within the department. Taking a broader strategic view of the situation around him than Rosecrans ever contemplated (although still insisting that the needs of the Army of the Mississippi came first), he assigned Van Dorn to command of the District of the Mississippi, along the east bank, with orders to defend Vicksburg, keep open communications with the trans-Mississippi, and deny the Federals northeastern Mississippi. Sterling Price was placed in command of the District of the Tennessee. Bragg instructed him to hold the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and, of paramount importance, prevent Grant from reinforcing Buell in Middle Tennessee. Kirby Smith was told to move from Knoxville, and Humphrey Marshall from western Virginia into Kentucky. Bragg made Polk “second in command of the forces” and, as mentioned, gave Hardee the Army of the Mississippi, with which Bragg traveled.