Stones River: Bloody Battle in Tennessee (review)

BOOK REVIEWS appear in the works of Richard Sewell, Joseph Rayback, and Frederick Blue. Frederick J. Blue Youngstown State University Stones River: Bloody Battle in Tennessee. By James Lee McDonough. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1980. Pp. xiv, 271. $14.50.) It is nearly a century since Alexander F. Stevenson pubUshed his Battle of Stone's River, and but for pamphlets and occasional articles since, that is the last word that we have had on the New Year's battle in middle Tennessee. It has deserved more, says James L. McDonough, author of this new treatment of the engagement, and indeed it does. The battle itself was a peculiar affair, fought in pieces and largely mismanaged by both Union and Confederate commanders. Certainly there was no clear-cut victor or vanquished in the fight itself, but the withdrawal of Braxton Bragg and his Confederates signaled thathe was unwilling to fight any more, and thatlefttheUnionwithamuch-needed success. It helped salve somewhat the painful memory of the Yankee debacle at Fredericksburg only a few days before, and despite his later failures as a commander in thefield, GeneralWilUam S. Rosecrans never lost the esteem and friendship of President Lincoln for giving him "a hard-earned victory, which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over." McDonough has already produced a well-receivedvolumeon Shiloh, and, as a Tennesseean, his interest in Stones River comes to him naturally. So, too, does a well-displayed knowledge of the field itself and of the characters who fought over it in those cold December and January days. The likable, humorous, rather sympathetic nature of Rosecrans comes through, even while he fought a hesitating and poorly planned action. And the pathetic Braxton Bragg, consumed by his own fears and paranoias, unable to face responsibility for his acts, is here as well. McDonough touches only briefly upon Bragg's war against his own generals in the days after the battle, but it is enough to provide a good picture of a classic scapegoat hunt. McDonough is happily judicious in his conclusions about the battle. There are a few pages of unprofitable"what ifs" that areperhaps better left to the realm of informal discussion over a convivial glass than inserted in a scholarly volume. Yet, they are followed by a commendable reserve in judgment on the battle as a whole. McDonough resists admirably the universal temptation to claim more importance for his subject than it warrants. Indeed, he declares that most ofits participants were left wondering what, if anything, they had accomplished. After all, the Federals only won control ofa few more miles of middle Tennessee. With losses equal between the two armies, neither gained much by what 90CIVIL WAR HISTORY it inflicted upon its foe. Bragg's army was still at large and, indeed, would sting Rosecrans once more at Chickamauga and end his career. The greatest significance of Stones River, then, was simply that "the Federal army had prevented a Confederate victory at a time when the Union cause could hardly stand another defeat." And that alone was enough. Confederate morale in Tennessee took a deep dive, a direction vastly enhanced by thewar thatBraggpromptly began to wage upon his own generals. Within the high command of the Army of Tennessee, the repercussions of Stones River were heard for more than a year after the guns stopped. It began the demoralization and disintegration of a great army from within and gave a loss-weary Lincoln a New Year's win in what would be a year of victories, 1863. William C. Davis Civil War Times Illustrated Victims, A True Story of the CivilWar. ByPhillip S. Paludan. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981. Pp. xvi, 144. $11.95.) Phillip Paludan has combined the findings of the social sciences with an exercise in la petite histoire to create an intriguing study. From his base point, the massacre of thirteen Unionist mountaineers atShelton Laurel, North Carolina, the author expands the investigation to embrace larger issues, such as the impact of the Civil War on small communities, the causation and characteristics of guerrilla warfare, and the forces underlying human perversity. Faced with a scarcity of primary material, Paludan turns...