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3. Unready for Battle
- Louisiana State University Press
- Chapter
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1. Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:114; B&L, 3:611–12; W. C. Dodson, Campaigns of Wheeler and His Cavalry (Atlanta, 1899), 50; Stanley F. Horn, The Army of Tennessee (Norman, Okla., 1941), 194–95. 2. William R. Brooksher and David K. Snider, Glory at a Gallop: Tales of the Confederate Cavalry (McLean, Va., 1993), 116–25. CHAPTER 3 Unready for Battle T he day after Christmas 1862, Stanley’s cavalry brigades supported Rosecrans ’s three-pronged infantry movement toward Murfreesboro. They provided the advance, guarded the flanks, and protected the supply lines. Minty’s First Brigade moved cautiously before Thomas L. Crittenden’s corps on the Murfreesboro Pike, Zahm’s Second Brigade preceded George Thomas’s corps on the Franklin Pike, and Stanley’s Reserve Brigade slogged ahead of Alexander McCook’s corps on the Nolensville Pike. Stanley’s cavalry advance faced Brig. Gen. John A. Wharton’s brigade on the right and two smaller supporting ones. Other cavalry belonging to Wheeler’s command had been deployed on raids elsewhere: Forrest into West Tennessee and Morgan into Kentucky.1 Wheeler’s cavalry, supported by Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham’s infantry division, delayed Rosecrans’s army for three days. “Fightin’ Joe” pushed against the advance until the enemy halted to form a line of battle, then he led a mounted charge against one of the flanks and the rear. Finally, as pressure increased on Bragg’s center because of the mounting number of bluecoats , Wheeler and Cheatham fell back only to repeat the tactic. As the Federals reached the outskirts of Murfreesboro on December 29, Wheeler began a series of mounted raids against Rosecrans’s supply line that continued until the failed Confederate attack of January 2, 1863.2 On the morning of December 27, 1862, Stanley struck Wheeler’s cavalry. The Ohio general ordered a charge and forced the gray horsemen to engage Unready for Battle 57 3. OR, 20(1):617; Edwin C. Bearss, “Cavalry Operations in the Battle of Stones River,” THQ 19 (Mar. 1960): 43. 4. Bearss, “Stones River,” THQ 19 (Mar. 1960): 45–46; Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:117; Brooksher and Snider, Glory at a Gallop, 117. 5. Bearss, “Stones River,” THQ 19 (June 1960): 110–16; OR, 20(1):618, 634; Dodson, Campaigns in hand-to-hand combat. But into the night, against an orderly pull back by Wheeler, Stanley edged only two miles east to beyond LaVergne. The next day the Reserve Brigade shifted west to join McCook’s corps at Triune below Nolensville. From there, at McCook’s order, the brigade reconnoitered slowly south down the Shelbyville Pike. Stanley was supported on foot by Brig. Gen. August Willich’s infantry in a forced march to College Grove. After determining that Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee’s corps had shifted east to Murfreesboro, the Federals returned to Triune with forty gray stragglers as prisoners.3 Zahm joined Stanley at Triune on the twenty-ninth to help guard Rosecrans ’s right flank. Screening McCook’s advance, the two brigades pushed steadily east on separate roads toward Murfreesboro. When Stanley encountered Wharton’s horsemen beyond Stewart’s Creek, “a narrow stream rushing between high, steep banks,” the 15th Pennsylvania, trying to prove its mettle, recklessly pursued the Rebels. Stretching out for more than a mile, the Philadelphians galloped full tilt into an ambush, losing six men killed, including its commander, Maj. Adolph G. Rosengarten, and five wounded, Maj. Frank B. Ward mortally. The loss of the two “gallant officers” took “the spirit” for duty out of the 15th Pennsylvania. The cavalry advance halted at Wilkinson ’s Crossroads.4 The next morning Wheeler and twenty-five hundred horsemen began a counterclockwise raid around Rosecrans’s army. From east of the Lebanon Pike, he moved near Jefferson to LaVergne to Nolensville and back to Murfreesboro , his troopers burning wagon trains, destroying railroad tracks, and capturing more than five hundred prisoners (who he paroled). In response Stanley left Wilkinson’s Crossroads for LaVergne about midnight with Stokes’s 5th Tennessee and the 15th Pennsylvania. But while he was delayed midway there by a minor skirmish, Wheeler destroyed a huge train of three hundred wagons at LaVergne: “A sight,” wrote one Confederate captain, “to make all rebeldom glad. Mules [were] stampeding with burning wagons hung to their traces [and] Yankees running.” Early on the morning of the thirty-first, Rosecrans ordered Stanley to return to McCook’s right. Wheeler, now beyond Triune , was en route to join Wharton at Wilkinson’s...