Chapter 2

After five days' fighting into position the army formed line of battle in front of Murfreesboro. Summoning his corps commanders the General promulgated his plan of battle. General McCook was to occupy the most advantageous position, refusing his right as much as practicable and necessary to secure it, to receive the attack of the enemy, or, if that did not come, to attack sufficiently to hold all the forces in his front. Generals Negley and Palmer to open with skirmishing, and engage the enemy's center and left as far as the river. Crittenden to cross Van Cleve's division at the lower ford, covered and supported by Morgan's pioneer corps, 1,700 strong, and to advance on Breckinridge. Wood's division to cross by brigades at the upper ford, and moving on Van Cleve's right, to carry everything before them to Murfreesboro. This movement would, it was supposed, dislodge Breckinridge, and gaining the high ground east of Stones River, Wood's batteries could obtain an enfilading fire upon the heavy body of troops massed in front of Negley and Palmer. The center and left, using Negley's right as a pivote, were to swing around through Murfreesboro and take the force confronting McCook in rear, driving it into the country towards Salem. The successful execution of General Rosecrans' design depended not more upon the spirit and gallantry of the assaulting column than upon the courage and obstinacy with which the position held by the Right Wing was maintained. Having explained this fact to General McCook, the commanding general asked him if, with a full knowledge of the ground over which he had fought, he could hold his position three hours--again alluding to his dissatisfaction with the direction which his line had assumed, but, as before, leaving that to the corps commander--"I think I can," said McCook, and the conference ended.

General Braxton Bragg, a graduate of West Point, a master in military science, a commander whose endurance and hard fighting qualities in the field were more conspicuous than his generalship in the management of campaign, was in command of the Confederate army at Murfreesboro. He had taken up the execution of the plan of battle where it had dropped from the dying hand of Albert Sydney Johnston, and was advancing to carry it out at Shiloh, when his brigades were recalled by Beauregard, sick in an ambulance three miles in the rear. He had, by a brilliant flank movement of three hundred miles through a mountainous region, gained Buell's rear in Kentucky, only to emerge from the farthest corner of the State without a decisive battle. Recriminations had grown out of this campaign which threatened to sap the influence of the commanding general. General Polk had been threatened with court-martial, and Hardee expressed the opinion that if Bragg persisted in bringing charges, Polk could, if he would, "rip up the Kentucky campaign--tear Bragg to tatters." These compliments, however, passed only between prominent officers; the army was in good state of discipline, although out of an aggregate 85,372 only 47,930 were carried on the rolls as effectives, and 30,000 were absent, with and without leave.

Bragg had in his army about the same proportion of raw troops to veterans as were found in that in his front, and both armies were equally well armed. Men who had tested each other's metal at Pea Ridge, Shiloh, and Perryville, and in innumerable skirmishes, were again arrayed for a final conflict. Here was Bragg, sullen, hard-featured, unapproachable; Polk, benignant, dignified, majestic; Hardee, the superb rider, the strict disciplinarian, the steady, persistent fighter; Breckinridge, elegant in manner, eloquent in speech, courteous, courageous, the idol of the Kentucky brigade, and, like the men who composed it, dimly conscious possibly of the crime against his favorite dogma of States rights, and the ingratitude of a people whose cause they had espoused against the expressed will of their native State.

Among the division commanders were Cheatham, whose headlong charges at Shiloh and Perryville thousands of maimed soldiers both North and South had cause to remember; Cleburne, stubborn and stout of heart, blunt, impassive and heavy, who was destined two years later to pour out his life's blood upon the breastworks at Franklin; McCown and Withers of lesser note, and a host of brigade and regimental commanders who had won their rank under the eyes of their grim commander.

General Rosecrans, having arranged his plan of battle, had risen early to superintend its execution. General Crittenden, whose headquarters were a few paces distant, mounted at 6 A. M., and with his staff rode to an eminence, where the chief, surrounded by his staff officers, sat on their horses listening to the opening guns on the right. The plan of General Bragg was instantly divined, but no apprehension of danger was felt. Suddenly the woods on the right in the rear of Negley, appeared to be alive with men wandering aimlessly in the direction of the rear. The roar of artillery grows more distinct, mingled with continuous volleys of musketry. It can not be that the veteran brigades of the Right Wing are being driven back. McCook is surely only falling back to secure a position that he can hold for the promised three hours. The rear of a line of battle always presents the pitiable spectacle of a horde of skulkers--men who, when tried in the fierce flame of battle, find, often to their own disgust, that they are lacking in the element of courage. But the sight of whole regiments of soldiers flying in panic to the rear was a sight never seen but on that solitary occasion, before or since, by the Army of the Cumberland. Captain Otis, from his position on the extreme right, who arrives breathless, his horse reeking with foam, to inform General Rosecrans that the Right Wing is in rapid retreat. The astounding intelligence is confirmed a moment later by a staff officer from General McCook, calling for reinforcements. "Tell General McCook," roared the chief, "to contest every inch of ground. If he holds them, we will swing into Murfreesboro and cut them off." Then Rousseau, with his reserves, was sent into the fight, and Van Cleve, at the head of Crittenden's old Shiloh division, came dashing across the fields, with water dripping from their clothing, to take a hand in the fray. Harker's brigade was withdrawn from the left and sent in on Rousseau's right, and the Pioneer brigade, relieved at the ford by Price's brigade, was posted on Harker's right. The remaining brigades of Van Cleve's division, Beatty's and Fyffe's, formed on the extreme right, and thus an improvised line half a mile in extent, presented a new and unexpected front to the approaching enemy. It was a trying position to Van Cleve's men to stand in line, a living wall, while the panic-stricken soldiers of McCook's beaten regiments, flying in terror through the woods, rushed past them, the sharp rattle of McCown's musketry behind them lending wings to their flight. The Union lines could not fire, for their comrades were between them and the enemy. Rosecrans seemed ubiquitous. All these dispositions had been made under his personal direction. Finding Sheridan coming out of the cedars into which Rousseau had just retired, he directed him to the ammunition train, with orders to fill his cartridge boxes and return to the support of Hazen's brigade on the edge of the Round Forrest. Captain Morton, with the Pioneers and the Chicago Board of Trade Battery, pushed into the cedars, and disappeared from view simultaneously with Harker. The general course of the tide of stragglers toward the rear struck the turnpike at the point where Van Cleve stood impatiently awaiting the order to advance. All along the line men were falling, struck by the bullets of the enemy, who soon appeared at the edge of the woods on Morton's flank. The order to charge was given by General Rosecrans in person, and, like hounds from the leash, the division sprang forward, reserving their fire for close quarters. It was the crisis in the battle. If this line was broken all was lost. Every man rose to the occasion and proved himself a hero. Steadily, as a majestic river moves on its resistless way, the line swept forward, sending a shower of bullets to the front. The left was now exposed to attack, and, riding rapidly to the ford, General Rosecrans inquired who commanded the brigade. "I do, sir," said Colonel Price. "Will you hold this ford?" "I will try, sir." "Will you hold this ford?" "I will die right here." "Will you hold this ford?" for the third time thundered the general. "Yes, sir," said the colonel. "That will do"; and away galloped the general to where Palmer was contending against long odds for the possession of the Round Forrest in the center of the line. All along the line from Van Cleve's right to Wood's left, the space gradually narrowed between the contending hosts. The weak had gone to the rear; no room now for any but brave men, and no time given for new dispositions; every man who had a stomach for fighting was engaged on the firing line. From a right angle the Confederate left had been pressed back by Van Cleve and Harker and the Pioneers to an angle of forty-five degrees in less than that number of minutes. This advance brought Van Cleve within view of Rousseau, who at once requested him to form on his right. Harker, entering the woods on the left of Van Cleve, passed to his right, and now closed up on his flank. The enemy had fallen back stubbornly fighting, and made a stand on the left of Cheatham. Brave old Van Cleve, his white hair streaming in the wind, the blood flowing from a gaping wound in his foot, rode gallantly along the line to where Harker was stiffly holding his position, with his right "in the air." Bidding him to hold fast to every inch of ground, he rode to Swallow's Battery, which was working with the rapidity of a steam fire-engine, "Don't let them get your guns, Swallow!" he shouted, as he dashed by on his way to the left, where Sam Beatty, heavy and impassive, was pounding away with his minie rifles at a line of men who seemed always on the point of advancing. The brigades of Stanley and Miller having fallen back, as previously described, and the entire strength of Cheatham and three brigades of Withers and Cleburne having fallen upon Rousseau, he had fallen back into the open field, where he found Van Cleve. Loomis's and Guenthers' batteries, double-shotted with canister, were posted on a ridge, and as the Confederate line advanced, opened upon it with terrible force. Men fell like ripened grain before a reaper, but the line moved straight ahead. The field, swept by a storm of iron hail, was covered with dead and wounded men. The deep bass of the artillery was mingled with the higher notes of the minie rifles, while the brief pauses could be distinguished the quickly-spoken orders of the commanding officers, and the groans of the wounded. It was the full orchestra of battle. But there is a limit of human endurance. The Confederate brigades, now melted to three-fourths their original numbers, wavered and fell back; again and again they reformed in the woods and advanced to the charge, only to meet with a bloody repulse. Four deliberate and sustained attempts were made to carry the position, and each failed. While these events were following each other in rapid succession, and some of them occurring simultaneously, the Left Wing had not only held its position, but had furnished three brigades to repel the advance of Bragg's left upon the rear of the army.

While Colonel Hazen was gallantly defending the left of the line from nine o'clock in the morning until two in the afternoon, the fight raged no less furiously on his immediate right. Here a line composed of two brigades of Palmer's division and one of Wood's, filled out by the remains of Sheridan's divisions, who, after they had replenished their ammunition, formed behind the railroad embankment at right angles with Hazen's brigade, which alone retained its position upon the original line. Farther to the right was Rousseau, with Van Cleve and Harker on his right. I leave to more graphic pens to describe the grand pyrotechnics of the battle field at this supreme moment when victory hung evenly balanced. Past the crowd of fugitives from the Right Wing the undaunted soldiers of the Left and Center had swept "with the light of battle in their faces," and now in strong array they stood like a rock-bound coast beating back the tide which threatened to engulf the rear. Along this line rode Rosecrans with face illuminated by the light of exalted courage; Thomas, calm, inflexible as a mighty judge, from whose gaze skulkers shrank abashed; Crittenden, cheerful and full of hope, complimenting his men as he rode along the lines; Rousseau, whose fiery impetuosity no disaster could quell; Palmer, with a stock of cool courage and presence of mind equal to any emergency; Wood, suffering from a wound in his heel, stayed in the saddle, but had lost the jocularity which usually characterized him. "Good-bye, General, 'we will all meet at the hatter's' as one coon said to another when the dogs were after them," he said to Crittenden early in the action, but at ten o'clock a minie ball struck his boot and lacerated his heel--his good humor was gone for the day. "Are we going about it right now, General?" asked Morton, as he glanced along the blazing line of muskets to where the Chicago battery quivered with the rapidity of its discharges. "All right, fire low," said the chief as he dashed by. Colonel Grose, always in his place, had command of the Ammen brigade, the "glorious Tenth" of Shiloh memory, with which, and, with Hazen's and Cruft's brigades, the gallant and lamented Nelson had swept, like an avenging Nemesis, upon the right of Beauregard's victorious army, driving it back to its base at Corinth.

After the formation of this line at noon it never receded; as has been stated, the right swung around until, at two o'clock, about one-half of the lost ground had been retaken. The artillery, more than fifty guns, was massed in the open ground behind the angle in the line; twenty-eight guns had been captured, when they poured a continuous torrent of iron missiles upon the Confederate line. They could not fire amiss. The fire from Cox's Battery was directed upon Hanson's brigade across the river, where Cobb, with Napoleons, returned the compliment with zeal and precision. Schaefer's brigade having received a new stock of cartridges, formed on Palmer's right, where later the brave commander received his death wound, the last of Sheridan's brigade commanders who had fallen during the day.

At four o'clock it became evident to the Confederate commander that his only hope of success lay in a charge upon the Union left, which, by its overpowering weight, should carry everything before it. The movement of Cleburne to the left in support of McCown had deprived him of reserves; but Breckinridge had four brigades unemployed on the right, and these were peremptorily ordered across the river to the support of General Polk. The error made by General Polk in making an attack with the two brigades that first arrived upon the field, instead of awaiting the arrival of General Breckinridge with the remaining brigades, was so palpable as to render an excuse for failure necessary. This was easily found in the tardy execution of Bragg's order by Breckinridge, and resulted in sharp criticism of the latter. The Third Kentucky, now nearly annihilated, and its Colonel, Sam McKee, killed, was relieved by the Fifty-eighth Indiana, Colonel George P. Buell. The Sixth Ohio, with the gallant Colonel Nicholas L. Anderson at its head, took position on the right of the Twenty-sixth Ohio, with its right advanced so that its line of fire would sweep the front of the regiments on its left. The Ninety-seventh Ohio and One Hundredth Illinois came up and still further strengthened the right of Hazen's position. They had not long to wait for the attack. These dispositions had barely been made when a long line of infantry emerged from behind the hill. Adam's and Jackson's fresh brigades were on the right, and Donelson's and Chalmers's, badly cut up but stout of heart, were on the left. Out they came in splendid style, full six thousand strong. Estepp's case-shot tore through their ranks, but the gaps closed up. Parsons sent volley after volley of grape shot against it, and the Sixth and Twenty-sixth Ohio, taking up the refrain, added the sharp rattle of their minie rifles to the unearthly din. Still the line pressed forward, firing as they came, nor wavered in the onward march, until met by a simultaneous volley of musketry which stretched hundreds of their number mangled upon the earth. They staggered back, but, quickly reformed and reinforced by Preston and Palmer, advanced again to the charge. The battle had hushed on the extreme right, and the dreadful splendor of this advance is indescribable. The right was even with the left of the Union line, and the left stretched way past the point of woods from which Negley had retired. It was such a charge as this that broke the lines of Wallace and Hurlbut at Shiloh, and enveloped Prentice in its strong embrace. It had no sooner moved into the open field from the cover of the river bank than it was saluted with such a roar of artillery as shook the earth. Men plucked the cotton from the bolls at their feet and stuffed it in their ears. No human force could withstand the tornado of iron that swept against it. Huge gaps were torn in it at every discharge. Men lay in heaps before and behind it. Shells exploding sent showers of mangled forms into the air. They staggered forward half the distance across the fields, when the infantry lines blazed in their front, and a shower of minie balls was added to the fury of the storm. They wavered and fell back. The field was won. Night fell upon a field strewn with the mangled forms of men, who, but twenty-four hours before were buoyant with life and hope, upon the faces of dead men turned upward to the sky; upon long lines of infantry faint for lack of food and gasping for water; upon a horde of panic-stricken men wending their way in solemn procession to the rear, "where the subsequent proceedings interested them no more," and upon Walker's and Shackelford's brigades marching to the front, Garesche, Schaefer, Sill, Roberts, McKee, and genial, happy hearted Fred. Jones, and a host of others were dead or suffering mortal agony.

The first day's fight was over.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.

The following misprints have been corrected: "Breckenridge" corrected to "Breckinridge" (page 15) "Confedrate" corrected to "Confederate" (page 22)