Battle of Stones River: The Forgotten Conflict between the Confederate Army of Tennessee and the Union Army of the Cumberland

Preface

preface In the late 1960s, Thomas L. Connelly took a critical look at the Civil War by examining the great expanse between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River known as the Western Theater. He would become the father of western revisionism. Over three decades a series of talented writers emerged who reshaped the national debate—that is, that the war was not North versus South but East versus West. It was in the last, they argued, that our national trauma was determined, by a series of Federal victories between 1861 and 1863. In recent years, the pendulum has begun to swing back to Virginia, with some historians insisting that the war was won in the Eastern Theater.1 I wrote Battle of Stones River: The Forgotten Conflict between the Confederate Army of Tennessee and the Union Army of the Cumberland to give the battle its proper place in the war. The Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862 gave stark evidence that the war in Virginia had ground to a stalemate. William T. Sherman’s expedition against Vicksburg, Mississippi , had likewise been checked. The fall 1862 U.S. congressional races had proven damaging to the prowar e≠ort. The nation now focused its attention upon what Connelly referred to as “the Heartland.” The hope of both sides lay in Tennessee. Indeed, argues Donald Stoker, the Union e≠ort in Mississippi proved a “most glaring mistake,” since “the ‘real’ war was in Tennessee,” or as he termed it, “a Confederate center of gravity.”2 Fought on the cusp of 1862–63, the Army of the Cumberland under Major General William S. Rosecrans and the Army of Tennessee under General Braxton Bragg clashed in a death struggle at Murfreesboro, Tennessee . Nearly 100,000 men fought in the three-day battle, and the two armies between them sustained 23,500 casualties. The battle would prove to be a draw, although strategically it was a Northern victory. Yet the mention of Stones River frequently brings puzzled expressions to those beyond xii preface the region. Perhaps the burgeoning growth of modern-day Murfreesboro, with a current population of 102,000, has unwittingly added to the battle’s obscurity, as developers have swallowed up land around the small national battlefield park. The ground over which the Confederates launched their assault, and which was so valiantly defended by the Federals, is now a huge mall and multi-story hotel. Untapped primary material, including letters, diaries, and dozens of small-town newspapers, have added to previous works by James Lee McDonough and Peter Cozzens. First-hand accounts frequently proved to be more candid than o∞cial reports by o∞cers who had careers to protect. These accounts also relate the grim reality of fighting a winter campaign in wretched, often bitter weather, in which thousands of troops on both sides forded waist-deep Stones River. Additionally, more detail is given to the role of politics, so that the reader can understand not only what happened but why it happened and why it mattered so much. Contemporary Northern accounts refer to the Battle of Stone’s River or Stone River. Because the National Park Service, the State of Tennessee, and most modern accounts refer to Stones River, I have accepted this usage. It should be noted that the Confederate press preferred the Battle of Murfreesboro. The town of La Vergne, Tennessee, was typically spelled Lavergne at the time. I have again chosen the modern spelling. On the surface, it would appear that Stones River accomplished little more than an enormous body count. Bragg simply fell back twenty-six miles, and the war dragged wearily on. What was at stake, however, was how a protracted war, which clearly it had become by the winter of 1862– 63, might come to conclusion. Could the South, as has been suggested, “win by not losing”? That is, could the Northern will to win be broken by an indefinitely extended war? This question was very much undecided in December 1862. For both sides to avoid the ramifications of such an issue, they had to accomplish the very thing they failed to accomplish—destruction of their opponent’s army. The bloody butcher’s list of casualties would bear mute testimony that it was not from a lack of trying. After the battle, a Rebel gave his evaluation: “I am sick and tired of this war, and, I can see no prospects for having peace for a long time to come[.] I don’t think it will...