The Lost Gettysburg Address

by David T. Dixon

  On that cold and dreary day, the Army of the Cumberland was deployed in a long north-south line paralleling the west fork of Stones River to its east. Rosecrans had more than forty-one thousand men at his disposal. Their immediate objective was the town of Murfreesboro two miles southeast of the river. More than thirty-five thousand men from the Confederate Army of Tennessee, under the command of General Braxton Bragg, stood between Rosecrans and his objective. Bragg had chosen Murfreesboro as a defensive position to block what he believed to be Rosecrans’s ultimate goal of capturing Chattanooga, Tennessee.

  Rosecrans deployed his army in three sections in a line of battle four miles long. Major General Thomas L. Crittenden commanded the army’s left wing. The center was led by Major General George H. Thomas. On the right wing, Major General Alexander McCook deployed his men in a long line with no natural obstacle to serve as an anchor protecting his right flank. This would prove to be a vulnerable position for the Union forces. Early that morning, General McCook enjoyed a shave at his camp on the Gresham farm. As coffee boiled and bacon simmered, the captain of one of his artillery batteries took half of the unit’s horses five hundred yards to the rear for watering. Elsewhere, the men in each of the three divisions under McCook began to rouse themselves.

  On the far right, at a salient angle where the north-south Union line made an abrupt turn to the right, or west, the men of Richard Johnson’s division rose from their bedrolls. August Willich of the First Brigade received an order from General Johnson to have his troops armed and ready by daybreak, but the silence convinced Willich that the enemy had departed. Edward Kirk had left three of his Second Brigade regiments in a dense cedar break, rather than move them to a clearing in front that would have afforded better visibility for firing. After breakfast, Willich rode slowly north to confer with Johnson, giving one of his colonels instructions should anything happen while he was away. This lack of preparation would cost both brigades dearly.

  Meanwhile, Charles Anderson’s regiment and the rest of Philemon Baldwin’s Third Brigade were in the reserve camp about a mile behind the Union front lines, just within the bounds of a large stand of cedar trees. Anderson and his second-in-command, Colonel Hiram Strong, had spent the night at Johnson’s camp, returning to their brigade at about six in the morning. Twenty minutes later, they heard musket fire and before long the booming sounds of artillery from the south, indicating that the battle had begun. Hours before, while the Union brigades were eating a leisurely breakfast, Confederates led by Brigadier Generals Matthew D. Ector of Texas and Evander McNair of Arkansas had formed their troops in ranks. With no sustenance other than a small ration of whisky, the rebels smashed into the Union right wing. McCook’s troops were caught completely by surprise.

  Sergeant Major Lyman Widney of the Thirty-Fourth Illinois walked casually out toward the picket lines of Kirk’s brigade when one of the soldiers ran toward Widney. As he passed, the soldier exclaimed, “They’re coming!” Widney heard no firing, so he was skeptical and moved further forward until he could see the enemy’s breastworks. What he saw frightened him. A tide of men in gray uniforms was pouring out of the defenses and onto the open field in front of him. Widney hurried back to his regiment. In just minutes they were under a tremendous attack. “They came down on us like a tornado,” Widney remembered. His comrade, Sergeant Arnold Harrington, was shot through the knee joint. The men threw themselves flat on the ground and commenced firing, while their six cannons threw shells and grape shot over their heads into the onrushing rebels. “It reminded me of the passage of a swarm of bees,” Widney later wrote of the battle. In ten minutes, twenty-one men of the regiment were killed and more than one hundred wounded.

  The soldiers of the Thirty-Fourth Illinois fired only three rounds each before they were forced to retreat. They began running through an open corn field, but the tops of the stalks had been cut off, so cover was limited. The turf exploded around them as bullets made little furrows that looked to one soldier as if a mouse had been ploughing the ground. Other projectiles hit the corn stalks with a splattering sound. The worst sound of all was the thud of a Minié ball lodging in flesh. Kirk himself was struck in the thigh and later died from this wound. The retreat soon degenerated into a full-speed run.

  The men of Willich’s brigade first heard skirmishing and then heavy firing on their left flank as Kirk’s brigade came under attack. Men from Ector’s Texas brigade overwhelmed Willich’s front line, driving the Yankees into their own camp, where some Union troops were killed while lying in their tents. Robert Stewart of the Fifteenth Ohio Infantry saw his pickets running back to camp, followed closely by a swarm of yelling and screaming Confederates. “Dropping our pots and pans, leaving our haversacks and blankets, we snatched up our cartridge boxes and rushed for our guns,” Stewart recalled, “only to find ourselves with our backs to the foe.” They too could do nothing but run. One dead Union soldier was found still clinging to his coffee pot.

  Bragg’s strategy was working perfectly. Kirk and Willich’s frontline brigades were swept from the field. Confederate General J. P. McCown’s forces, including his crack cavalry troops, were turning the Union right in on itself and driving it back to the northeast. In the meantime, battle-hardened troops from the Arkansas and Tennessee brigades of Brigadier Generals St. John Liddell and Bushrod Johnson had run over McCook’s left flank and were advancing toward Baldwin’s reserves. Fewer than thirty minutes after the battle began, Charles Anderson ordered his regiment out of the cedar break to form a line of battle to the left of the Fifth Kentucky.

  Baldwin immediately countermanded Anderson’s orders and the Ninety-Third Ohio moved back into the woods. The men watched in earnest as their comrades from the First Ohio and the Fifth Kentucky marched into the cornfield, settling behind a rail fence and scattered limestone boulders. It was now 7:30 in the morning. The First Ohio took the brunt of the assault and responded admirably, keeping the rebels from advancing for about twenty minutes. Bullets and artillery from both sides claimed many lives in one of the fiercest engagements some of the experienced soldiers had ever seen. When Confederate Brigadier General McNair’s Third Brigade finished mopping up the remnants of Kirk’s forces, he pivoted right to support Liddell.

  At that point Major Jacob Stafford, commanding the First Ohio, knew that further resistance would be suicide. He shouted orders to retreat, but the constant artillery barrages drowned him out. He repeated the command and still was not heard. The third time he yelled at the top of his lungs. The Ohioans fell back into the Fifth Kentucky, became confused, and broke into a dead run. The Kentuckians, left alone in the cornfield, also skedaddled. The Ninety-Third Ohio Infantry was now the only Union regiment facing the enemy from the edge of the woods.

  Anderson was losing his patience. He asked for orders. No response came. He asked again. No reply. Anxious to do something, he deployed skirmishers across the line of the woods from the left flank of the two retreating regiments east to Gresham Lane. While this movement was under way, Baldwin finally appeared on the scene and ordered Anderson to form his regiment in a line of battle on the left flank. Just as the Ninety-Third Ohio was preparing for what would have been certain annihilation against two brigades of adrenalin-fueled rebel killing machines, Baldwin shouted, “Colonel Anderson! For God’s sake, retreat!”

  Anderson ordered his men to about-face and they marched north through the woods in slow time. When the rebels entered the trees, Anderson’s men increased their speed. By the time the Ohioans exited the forest, they were in an all-out run. Anderson’s horse was hit three times, twice by bullets glancing off trees and once by another spent ball that did little damage. As Anderson turned to see how rapidly the enemy was advancing, he was hit in the pit of his stomach by a ball at a range of seventy-five yards. He thought he was mortally wounded, but the ball hit the second button of his coat, then glanced off the third vest button, passing through the back of his coat. A stinging sensation seconds later confirmed that the bullet had tor
n away flesh on the outside of one left rib. It was not a serious wound. Then Anderson’s horse was struck above the root of its tail near the spine and dropped like a stone. Anderson jumped off, but the animal unexpectedly rose again. When the colonel attempted to grab the reins, his horse knocked the drawn sword from his hands and ran away. Kicking and bucking through the lines, the horse fell again, presumably dead.

  Anderson joined his troops in their scamper, entering a cotton field, where the real slaughter began. He was a surprisingly fast runner. Despite his age, his long legs allowed him to overtake the much younger Captain William Birch. As Anderson passed Birch, he was hit again and experienced another miraculous escape from serious injury. The ball hit the middle button of his left sleeve and glanced off his hip joint, creating a flesh wound fewer than two inches deep. Several days later, Anderson found the actual bullet had lodged harmlessly in his boot. Meanwhile, the booming artillery was so distracting that some soldiers stuffed cotton into their ears to avoid the concussions. In the cotton field the remnants of the Ninety-Third Ohio reformed briefly with elements of other retreating regiments and attempted to make a stand. It was brief, bloody, and unsuccessful. Anderson’s regiment lost many of its killed and wounded in this area. The retreat finally ended as soldiers from Horatio Van Cleve’s division arrived. Anderson’s troops had been pushed back more than two miles. Their backs were to the Nashville Pike.

  Anderson went to the hospital surgeon to have his wounds examined and dressed. When he removed his coat, he saw that it had five bullet holes. Anderson returned to his regiment. Remnants of Johnson’s shattered Second Division assumed a reserve position at the far northwest end of the battlefield. In front of them, rival cavalry brigades battled to gain control of the turnpike. Should the rebels cross the pike, capture the supply wagons, and cut off a northern escape route, the Union army might be pushed into the river. The Union cavalry held. The fighting was essentially over for Anderson and the Ninety-Third Ohio, though prospects for a Union victory looked bleak at best.2

  What Anderson did not know was that while he and the entire right wing of the army had been swept from the field, two of his favorite officers were gallantly buying Rosecrans the time he needed to redeploy his forces and prevent a crushing defeat. Generals Philip H. Sheridan and Joshua W. Sill had been mutual friends since their days at West Point. Sill had been Anderson’s division commander until shortly before the army left Nashville, when he opted for command of a brigade under Sheridan. An Ohio native, Sill was revered by his men for his intelligence and his fine character. Unlike the rest of McCook’s divisional commanders, Sheridan had his men up and ready at four o’clock in the morning. He and Sill had met McCook two hours earlier and warned him of an early morning attack. McCook had appeared unconcerned.

  About 7:30 a.m. the South Carolina and Alabama brigade of Colonel Arthur M. Manigault attacked Sill’s position with typical fury, pushing back the Thirty-Sixth Illinois and the Eighty-Eighth Illinois. As General Sill rode up to rally his troops for a counter-attack, a bullet tore through his brain, killing him in an instant. After several hours of intense fighting, hordes of Confederate infantry were closing on the divisions of Sheridan and Brigadier General James S. Negley like a vise, surrounding them on three sides. Sheridan’s and Negley’s brave stands came at a terrible cost until finally the brigades of Major General Lovell H. Rousseau arrived to relieve them. The rebel onslaught was reaching its peak, and victory for the Butternuts appeared close at hand.

  Rousseau’s reinforcements filed past the brigades of Colonel William Grose to his right, when they were met with a furious assault and their left flank thrown back. Grose ordered the Sixth Ohio, commanded by Anderson’s nephew Nicholas, along with the Thirty-Fourth Indiana, to his front right, while other regiments faced southeast in V-shaped formations to defend the Nashville Pike. Colonel Nicholas Anderson’s troops and the Hoosiers watched as crazed and confused Union soldiers from Sheridan’s and Negley’s divisions fled by in haste. When they finally cleared their ranks, the oncoming rebels were a mere one hundred yards distant. A desperate firestorm erupted. The Thirty-Fourth Indiana was overwhelmed almost before the men could fire a shot. Nicholas Anderson’s troops withstood the first volley with considerable loss but responded bravely, exchanging fire for about twenty minutes.

  The Confederates were so close that Nicholas ordered his men to fix bayonets and prepare for hand-to-hand combat. Before he could give the command to charge, however, he found himself out-flanked on both sides and was forced to retreat. Nineteen men, including his adjutant and five color-bearers, died there. In all, 112 were wounded. The Sixth Ohio had held its ground for forty minutes and prevented a breakthrough to the pike. Unlike that of his uncle, Nicholas’s battle was far from over. He had been wounded in the thigh but refused to leave the field. The Sixth Ohio replenished its ammunition and formed a line of battle astride the Nashville Pike. More men of Nicholas’s regiment died while holding that position just west of a landmark known as the Round Forest, where Colonel William B. Hazen was making a determined defense of the Union left. Hazen held his position all day in the most contested section of the battlefield.3

  General Rosecrans, who seemed to be everywhere during the battle, cheering on his forces and adjusting his strategy, was riding to the Round Forest in the early afternoon. Without warning, a twelve-pound shell cut through the air and decapitated chief-of-staff Julius Garesche, splattering Rosecrans with the blood and brains of his best friend. Rosecrans appeared shaken for a moment then turned to Sheridan and told him that good men must die in battle.

  By nightfall the Union Army still held the Nashville Pike. Both armies had sustained horrendous casualties in what was fast becoming one of the bloodiest major battles of the Civil War. Confederate commander Bragg was encouraged following the first day of battle. Although he had not achieved his ultimate goal, his men had demolished nearly a third of the Union Army and captured more than three thousand prisoners. His telegram to Richmond implied victory. “God has granted us a Happy New Year,” he boasted. Rosecrans spent the first part of the evening riding through the lines, consulting with his division commanders, and encouraging the rank and file. He then assembled a council of war. The shell-shocked McCook had seen enough slaughter and wanted to head back to Nashville. Generals George Thomas and Thomas Crittenden wanted to remain in position and fight. Rosecrans decided to stay.4

  On New Year’s Day both armies rested. Most of the adversaries respected an informal truce so that they could tend to the wounded and bury their dead. Nicholas Anderson had time on his hands as he rested his wounded leg and wondered what the next day would bring. The Harvard graduate and lover of literature composed a poem that day that revealed his feelings about the gallant men lost in the terrible battle:

  STONE RIVER, JAN 1, 1863

  The day had sped. The night winds wildly moan

  Their wintry chorus o’er the prairie West;

  Weird wandering shadows, lengthening, floating, on

  To angels’ realms find refuge in their breast.

  Hark to the sound! The engine’s rushing blast

  Thrills the hamlet as it rattles past.

  An aged father totters to the door.

  “Great battle fought!” He trembles at the cry;

  The dim-eyed mother breathes a broken prayer

  For souls now hushed in death and victory.

  Resounds the shout,— “the battle surely won!”

  Ah! Where their boy who to the war has gone?

  The prattler, standing by his mother’s knee,

  Lists to the shout, and eager clasps her hand:

  “Oh tell me, mamma, where in Tennessee

  Is papa now, and where his patriot band?”

  He hears the sob; he startles at the tear,

  And quivering lips which faintly murmur, “Where?”

  Sleep silently, brother, husband, son, and sire,

  Where violet blooms bedeck thy heather bed!

  T
here let us raise the monumental spire

  To mark the tomb of brave unnumbered dead.

  Rear high the shaft above the sweeping river,

  Of martyrdom and love, a sign forever!5

  The foes dug trenches and repositioned their troops for the next phase of the battle. Rosecrans tightened his formation and sent Van Cleve’s division to the far left, across the Stones River to an eminence on the east bank. This was a shrewd move, as the hill commanded a view of the open fields in front of his army. It was the perfect location to place artillery batteries. Bragg received no report of this movement until the following morning, when his own plan was already decided. It proved to be a critical missing piece of information.

  Former Kentucky senator and presidential candidate John C. Breckenridge commanded a division in the corps of Confederate Lieutenant General William J. Hardee. Breckenridge’s troops were massed on the east side of Stones River, facing the Union left wing. Frustrated by inaccurate reports of enemy troop movements on the first day of the battle, the Kentuckian inspected the Union positions personally on the morning of January 2. When he saw Union troops dug in on a hill near McFadden’s Ford, he became concerned. Dozens of artillery pieces aimed on an attacking force from this position meant that his planned attack would be sure suicide. Breckenridge reported his findings to Bragg, whose response was curt. He ordered Breckenridge to take the hill. By sending the victory telegram to Richmond two days earlier, Bragg had committed himself to another attack. He could not back down now.