Bragg's movements went unchallenged throughout the day, thanks to Rosecrans's characteristic reluctance to conduct military operations on the Sabbath. In deciding that 28 December was to be a day of rest, Rosecrans was moved by operational as well as theological considerations: as the army was exhausted from two days’ marching and skirmishing through rough country and over poor roads, it was deemed wiser to do battle later with a well-rested force than to press forward with a blown one. Whatever the reason, the men in the ranks appreciated the respite and the fine weather that greeted them that Sunday morning. Of Rosecrans's decision to remain in place, David Lathrop of the Fifty-ninth Illinois wrote: “All honor and praise to him for setting such a noble example”; of the weather, Corporal Hannaford of the Sixth Ohio observed: “A beautiful, bright, quiet Sabbath morning. Following two such days of amphibious life, how delightful it seemed.”18
But two days of marching and skirmishing had not developed the situation sufficiently for Rosecrans to feel any degree of certainty regarding Bragg's intentions. The display of force along Stewart's Creek on the one hand suggested that Bragg might choose to make a stand along the south bank and contest the Federal advance on Murfreesboro; on the other hand, it would be to Bragg's advantage to defend nearer Shelbyville, thought Rosecrans, thereby drawing the Union army farther away from its base at Nashville and rendering its lines of supply and communication vulnerable to attack.
The first step to unraveling Bragg's plans was to find out where Hardee had gone the day before: If he had retired to Shelbyville, it could be assumed that Bragg was abandoning Murfreesboro in order to draw Rosecrans farther south; if he had marched to Murfreesboro, the Confederate line of battle might be expected to lie somewhere between that town and Stewart's Creek.
Rosecrans assigned the mission to McCook. (Rosecrans apparently was not averse to a Sabbath reconnaissance.) Later that morning, McCook dispatched Captain Horace Fisher with orders to take Willich's brigade, accompanied by a small cavalry escort, and trace the route of Hardee's withdrawal. Fisher promptly gathered twelve local farmers to serve as guides—assuring them that, should they lead Willich's Bluecoats into a trap, they would be shot and left by the roadside—and moved south along the Eagleville Pike, the cavalry having ridden ahead to pick up Confederate stragglers. By noon, Fisher was able to report that Hardee had been at College Grove with six brigades, but that he had left the day before. As the haversacks of captured stragglers contained only one day's cooked rations, and Shelbyville was two days away from Triune while Murfreesboro represented a march of just fifteen miles, Fisher surmised the latter town to be Hardee's destination. McCook agreed and informed Rosecrans accordingly.
Rosecrans prepared at once for battle along Stewart's Creek. Garesche wrote Stanley at 12:30 P.M. that there was “every prospect of the enemy's fighting a battle between Stewart's Creek and Murfreesboro.” Minutes later, the commanding general and his staff cantered down the Murfreesboro Pike toward the front. They arrived to a flurry of activity. A mile to the south, across the creek, a Rebel battery was taking position atop a hill. Along the creek, for several hundred yards in either direction, the picket lines exchanged a desultory fire, making a great deal of noise but doing little real damage. After inspecting the ground, Rosecrans's staff agreed that the opposite bank of the creek was so well suited to the defense that the Confederates most certainly would resist any crossing. Satisfied, Rosecrans turned and rode back to Crittenden's headquarters. After instructing Crittenden to feel his way across Stewart's Creek in line of battle at dawn, Rosecrans returned to army headquarters at Lavergne. From there, he issued orders effecting a concentration of the army. Thomas was directed to send Rousseau from Nolensville to Stewart's Creek by nightfall—a march that passed without incident—and McCook to advance on Murfreesboro by way of the Franklin Pike Monday morning.
As darkness fell and the temperature plummeted, Crittenden's infantrymen lay down to rest on their arms, fully expecting that the morning would dawn red with bloodshed. The scattered firing ceased. All along the line, pickets emerged from the woods and—laying down their weapons by mutual consent—walked to the creek's edge for a chat with their opposites. Captain Thomas Wright of the Eighth Kentucky recalled one such exchange:
Rebel—“What command does you-ens belong to?”
Federal—“The Third Brigade.”
Rebel—“Who commands that ar brigade?”
Federal—“Colonel Matthews. What is your command?”
Rebel—“We ar Wheeler's; an’ I believe you-ens are the fellers we fit at Dobbins’ Ferry.”
Federal—“You bet we are! What did you think of us?”
Rebel—“Darned good marksmen; but whar yer fellers tryin’ to go ter?”
Federal—“To Murfreesboro.”
Rebel—“Well, you-ens ’ll find that ar a mighty bloody job, sho.”
After an exchange of newspapers, the pickets retired to their posts, and all was still.19
CHAPTER SIX
THE LINES WERE FORMING
MONDAY, 29 December, dawned bright and chill. A hoarfrost blanketed the fields and turnpike as the infantry of the Left Wing fell anxiously into line. Their commander also was anxious. Expecting opposition, Crittenden directed the eight-gun battery of Lieutenant Charles Parsons to disperse the Rebel pickets across the creek. At 10:00 A.M., after a brief barrage, the Bluecoats splashed into the icy, waist-deep waters of Stewart's Creek, prepared to meet Confederates on the opposite bank.
To their relief, the Yankees found only a corporal's guard of cavalry pickets as they climbed the far bank. Maney had withdrawn his infantry to Murfreesboro under the cover of darkness. Sweeping the startled pickets aside, Crittenden's infantry pushed forward in line of battle “across the fields, over fences, through thickets, and woods, and jungles of woods innumerable.” Wheeler's troopers resisted the onslaught as best they could, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. Wheeler could only report at 11:00 A.M. that Crittenden was advancing “very handsomely” near the six-mile post on the Nashville Turnpike, just north of Overall's Creek. A few minutes later, he ordered Pegram and Wharton to fall back with him to Murfreesboro. Left with the field to themselves, the Union infantry waded Overall Creek handily and continued southeast along either side of the Nashville Turnpike.
At 3:00 P.M., with the sun already low and the chill of the winter's eve setting in, the lead elements of the Left Wing caught sight of Breckinridge's Butternuts drawn up on the east bank of Stones River. As neither Palmer nor Wood, the senior officers present, cared to be responsible for bringing about a major battle, they halted their divisions and awaited the arrival of Crittenden.
Palmer and Wood were within two miles of Murfreesboro. Wood's division, in double line of battle, lay on the east side of the turnpike. Hascall's brigade occupied the extreme left, its left resting on Stones River. Next came Harker. His left regiments lay in an open field, those of his right rested in a small wood known locally as the Round Forest, through which passed the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. Wagner was astride the turnpike. West of the turnpike, Cruft's brigade of Palmer's division connected with Wagner's right. A fallow field sloped gently upward beyond Cruft's front to the Cowan farm. A few hundred yards beyond the farm, on another elevation, Chalmers's Confederate brigade waited quietly and apparently undetected behind their breastworks. Meanwhile, Grose had come up and formed in a dense cedar brake on Cruft's right, near McFadden's Lane. Negley's division struggled forward through the same cedar brake in the gathering twilight; by nightfall, Negley would join with Grose on his right, their lines connecting obliquely and facing southward into the impenetrable gloom of the forest.1
The exhausted Federals welcomed the halt. “Few of us suspected the truth,” recalled Corporal Hannaford of the Sixth Ohio, as he and his comrades collapsed on their arms and waited. “We were content to rest here for the night; and while the twilight faded away our mess sat around its bivouac fire discussing the incidents of the day, the probabilit
ies of the morrow, and our suppers.”
But the day was not quite over. At dusk, just as Crittenden reached the front, orders came from army headquarters directing the immediate occupation of Murfreesboro with one division. A startled Crittenden soon learned the reason for the order. Two hours earlier, while advancing into position, Palmer had sent word to Rosecrans that the enemy was retreating and that he was in sight of the town. How Palmer mistook the withdrawal of Wheeler's troopers for a general Confederate retreat is a mystery; nevertheless, Palmer filed the report at 3:00 P.M. and, based on this ludicrous assumption, Rosecrans ordered the occupation of Murfreesboro.
Rosecrans's acceptance of Palmer's interpretation of events is understandable. The forty-five-year-old Illinoisan was, generally speaking, one of his more able lieutenants. Although he owed his original commission as colonel of the Fourteenth Illinois Infantry to his political influence within the Prairie State, where he had been instrumental in founding the Illinois Republican Party in 1856, Palmer, unlike most politicians turned soldiers, proved to be a capable fighter whose subsequent promotions were earned by solid performance. Handsome and engaging, Palmer would enjoy a successful political career as governor of Illinois and later as a senator before being defeated in a bid for the presidency on the Gold Democrat ticket in 1896.
Now, at sunset along the west bank of Stones River, he realized the inadvisability of his earlier report. Supported by Wood, Palmer remonstrated with Crittenden against a twilight advance. Both division commanders stressed the hazards involved in a movement after dark over unknown ground toward an enemy of unknown strength. The captious Wood, a thirty-nine-year-old West Point graduate considered by many to be the “military brains” and “military character” behind Crittenden, suggested that his commander might simply ignore the order, as if it had never been delivered. Small of stature and dark-complected, Wood was accustomed to having his way with Crittenden. This time, however, he failed. Crittenden insisted that the order be obeyed. Wood and Palmer wheeled their horses and returned to their commands to make ready. After setting their divisions in motion, they again rode to their commander in a final effort to have the order rescinded. Perhaps Crittenden, watching his infantry disappear into the dark toward the river, was beginning to have second thoughts. Although Crittenden refused to countermand Rosecrans's directive, he agreed to suspend the movement for an hour, while he sought out the commanding general.2
At that moment, Rosecrans arrived on the field. He immediately approved Crittenden's suspension of the operation, much to the relief of Wood and Palmer.
But scattered fire from across Stones River indicated that contact already had been made. The engaged units belonged to the brigade of twenty-seven-year-old Colonel Charles Harker. Orphaned as a child, the young Harker became, at age twelve, a clerk in the Mullica Hill, New Jersey, store of N. T. Stratton, a two-term member of Congress who rewarded his employee with an appointment to West Point. Now, just eight years after graduation, the youthful colonel was leading the advance across Stones River. Throwing out a strong skirmish line of two companies per regiment, he crossed the Fifty-first Indiana, Thirteenth Michigan, and Seventy-third Indiana simultaneously at the ford northwest of Wayne's Hill. It was 7:00 P.M., well after nightfall. Flashes of rifle fire greeted Harker's skirmishers as they emerged shivering from the river. They returned fire, not knowing at what or how many they were shooting. The exchange was brisk, but Harker had encountered only the enemy picket line posted along a fence near the bank. After a few minutes the outnumbered Rebels fell back into a cornfield at the base of Wayne's Hill. Harker's skirmishers pursued, only to be halted by fire from infantry concealed among the rows of standing corn. With the approach of Harker's main line, the Confederates fled up the hill to the protection of Cobb's Kentucky battery. Observing the Rebel retreat, Colonel Abel Streight unleashed his Fifty-first Indiana on the double-quick. Streight's Hoosiers climbed undetected in the darkness to within a few yards of the guns and delivered a volley of rifle fire into the unsuspecting artillerymen. For a moment it appeared that the battery would be lost, and with it a key elevation. Cobb rallied his men, but the weight of numbers was beginning to tell. At that moment, Colonel Robert Hunt arrived with his Ninth Kentucky and the Forty-first Alabama, and the balance suddenly shifted. The Fifty-first Indiana, finding itself now outnumbered, stumbled back down the hill and into the cornfield, where it met the Seventy-third Indiana and the Thirteenth Michigan. Here all three regiments remained, concealed among the cornstalks, until their recall at 10:00 P.M.3
As they recrossed Stones River, Harker's weary soldiers were unaware how close they had come to taking Wayne's Hill and—had they been supported by the rest of their division—rendering the entire Rebel line on the east side untenable, perhaps altering the shape of the battle to come. Only the initiative of Hunt saved this key hill for the Confederates.4
In a larger sense, however, it was Rosecrans, not Bragg, who occupied the more precarious position. Nightfall found only a third of the Army of the Cumberland on the field, opposed by the entire Confederate army. Southwest of Negley's position, between the Wilkinson Turnpike and the Franklin road, Confederate cavalry moved with impunity. McCook's wing, which was to have joined Negley on his right, was at that moment bivouacked astride the Wilkinson Turnpike, on the west bank of Overall Creek. A mile and a half of dense cedar thickets and a creek lay between the Right Wing and the Center.
Not only had McCook failed to reach his objective, but he had been inexcusably silent all day. Neither Rosecrans nor Thomas knew anything of his activities or whereabouts until late afternoon. Although he neglected to tell anyone, McCook had broken camp and taken up the march on the Bole Jack Road shortly after daylight as ordered, Davis's division leading. Zahm's cavalry brigade divided into three parallel columns and screened the infantry. The Third Ohio, in the center, ran into the enemy first, striking Wharton's picket line after just five miles. Minutes later the Fourth and First Ohio, screening the right and left respectively, also ran into Rebel outposts. A spirited, running skirmish continued for three hours and two miles across the entire front. Finally, after launching a brief counterattack to upset the momentum of the Union advance, Wharton withdrew across Overall Creek and made no further effort to develop the strength of the Federals. Credit is due Zahm and his Ohioans who, by aggressively sweeping Wharton before them, prevented him from accurately reconnoitering the Union infantry as it arrived on the field. Bragg was thus unaware of the gap between the Right Wing and Center; had he known of it, he might have launched a decisive attack while the Federal wings were still separated and vulnerable to defeat in detail.
It was late afternoon before the infantry came up. Davis arrived first. While Woodruff's brigade stood guard at the bridge over Overall's Creek, the remainder of the division marched off to the right and bivouacked in line of battle. Sheridan arrived next and filed off to the left. Johnson reached the front at 8:00 P.M., and McCook placed him on Davis's right.
By his own admission, McCook reached the Wilkinson Crossroads with Davis at 4:25 P.M. Although about one hour of twilight remained, he took no further action. Rather, he told his division commanders to bivouac while he awaited orders from Rosecrans. They came an hour later. Aware of the vulnerability of his separated major commands, Rosecrans directed McCook to feel his way forward at once and to continue until he made contact with Negley. For reasons that remain unclear, McCook waited until 10:20 P.M. to acknowledge the order, and then he said only that cavalry had gone out in search of Negley's flank. When Zahm's troopers reported that they had been unable to find it, McCook allowed them to make camp on the old road to Nashville, near his headquarters, and made no further effort to comply with Rosecrans's instructions.5
As the night wore on, a cold north wind came up, chilling the men of both armies as it blew through the timber and across the open fields. With the rain-soaked ground their only bed, restless soldiers, too cold to sleep, struck out in search of wood. Cedar boughs, fence rails
, underbrush—anything that would burn was gathered to feed the campfires. The Confederates, woefully short of blankets, suffered acutely.6
At army headquarters near the Nashville Turnpike, Bragg and his lieutenants prepared for the Union attack they believed would come at dawn, a belief born of incomplete intelligence. By midnight, the Confederate line of battle was essentially complete. That morning, after drawing three days’ rations and sending their wagons to the rear, the men of Cheatham's division had taken position behind Withers. Brigadier General Daniel Donelson led his brigade of Tennesseans across the Wilkinson Turnpike bridge to the west side of Stones River. There they bivouacked, some four thousand feet behind Chalmers. Brigadier General Alexander Stewart formed his command on Donelson's left, following a sharp westward bend in the river. West of Stewart's line the river again made a sharp turn, this time to the east. There Maney arrayed his three regiments. Colonal A. J. Vaughan deployed on Maney's left, completing Polk's second line, which now lay some five to eight hundred yards behind Withers. McCown remained with his division on the east bank as the army reserve.
Bragg had deployed his infantry so as to cover all approaches to Murfreesboro; he considered this precaution necessary until the “real point of attack should be developed.” For a time during the day, it had appeared as though the attack would come along the Nashville Turnpike and the Lebanon road. Continuing its mediocre performance, Confederate cavalry had exaggerated the size of Hazen's column on the Jefferson Pike two days earlier, leading Bragg to conclude that a significant threat was developing from the direction of Jefferson. He continued to harbor these fears until the morning of 30 December, when it was discovered that Hazen had left the Jefferson Pike to rejoin Crittenden the day before. And while Bragg laid plans to meet this phantom threat to his right, Wharton sent word of McCook's very real appearance along Overall Creek. Now fearing an envelopment of his left should McCook cross the creek, Bragg committed his only reserve, the forty-four-hundred-man division of John P. McCown, to extend that flank across the Franklin road. With his entire army now positioned forward, Bragg went to bed, convinced that he had done everything possible to prepare his command for battle.7
No Better Place to Die- The Battle of Stones River Page 9