After the fighting on the 31st December, the two armies watched each other on the 1st January, with very little happening. On the 2nd came an ill-judged attack by Bragg on the Federal left wing.

Bragg’s direct order to attack Breckinridge is against it Bragg’s report of the assault Rosecrans report Bragg receives view of his commanders Bragg praises the private soldiers

On the 2nd January Bragg looked out on a situation where the Federals still faced him from behind a strong position, albeit one somewhat different from that where they had started on the 31st December.  Also, Van Cleeve’s division had occupied a hill east of the river from which artillery could enfilade Polk’s division if he were to advance in the centre.  He decided he had to advance and drive Van Cleeve back. Breckinridge was to attempt this difficult task, which was to take place an hour before sunset in the hope that this would not allow the Federals time to reform and counter-attack.  Breckinridge protested to Bragg that he would not be able to do this, but Bragg had used poor information on the 31st to justify his tardy reinforcement of Hardee, and Bragg was not going to wear it a second time. When Breckinridge tried to explain his difficulty Bragg responded;

“Sir, my information is different.  I have given the order to attack the enemy in your front and expect it to be obeyed.”

Breckinridge, forced to obey told one of his commanders;

“General Preston, this attack is made against my judgement and by the special orders of General Bragg. Of course we all must try to do our duty and fight the best we can.  But if it should result in disaster and I be among the slain, I want you to do justice to my memory and tell the people that I believed this attack to be very unwise and tried to prevent it.”

The Federals had a battery of some 57 guns on the west side of the river.  The photo above and below was taken from just about the position of the guns.  The river that the Confederates had to cross, whilst being fired on by the battery, runs through the centre of the photo where the grass ends.

This photo is looking to the right of the one above, again the river is where the grass ends.  In reading accounts of the battle I had gained the impression that the battery was on ‘heights’ above the river. The photo shows that while the battery is above the river, height is a relative term. The guns are shown in the map below, just west of McFadden Ford.  I believe the photo above is looking directly at the ford.

The map above is taken from “Battle of Stones River” in the Civil War Series.

Beatty and his brigade commanders, in the area of McFadden’s Ford, watched the preparations and movement on the Confederate side as Breckinridge prepared for his assault. Beatty called for a strengthening of the left wing to meet the expected attack, Rosecrans responded by moving Negley’s division from the right wing and placed it in reserve on the left by the ford. By now the weather had deteriorated from drizzle to hard rain and sleet.  Confederate Brig. Gen. Hanson rallied his men for the coming attack; “The order is to load, fix bayonets and march through the brushwood.  Then charge at the double quick to within a hundred yards of the enemy, deliver fire, and go at him with the bayonet.” Hanson fell in the action, and bled to death from a shrapnel wound which had cut an artery in his leg.

When Breckinridge’s men attacked the Federals on the heights at about 4 p.m. they had the result they desired, the federals retreated. However, the Feds had positioned 58 guns under Major John Mendenhall in such a position that they could catch the butternuts in enfilade fire. They did this to devastating effect, forcing the Confederates now to retreat.  Around one in three of those who started the advance failed to return. Bragg later reported;

“General Breckinridge at 3.30 p.m. reported he would advance at 4 o’clock. Polk’s batteries promptly opened fire and were soon answered by the enemy.  A heavy cannonade of some fifteen minutes was succeeded by the fire of musketry, which soon became general.  The contest was short and severe; the enemy was driven back and the eminence gained, but the movement as a whole was a failure, and the position was again yielded. Our forces were moved, unfortunately, so far to the left as to throw a portion of them into and over Stone’s River, where they encountered heavy masses of the enemy, while those against whom they were intended to operate on our side of the river had a destructive enfilade on our whole line.  Our second line was so close to the front as to receive the enemy’s fire, and , returning it, took their friends in rear.  The cavalry force was left entirely out of the action.”

The following is the action as reported by Rosecrans;

“About 3 p.m., while the commanding general was examining the position of Crittenden’s left across the river, which was now held by Van Cleve’s division, supported by a brigade from Palmer’s, a double line of skirmishers was seen to emerge from the woods in a southeasterly direction, advancing across the fields, and they were soon followed by heavy columns of infantry, battalion front, with three batteries of artillery. Our only battery on that side of the river had been withdrawn from an eligible point, but the most available spot was pointed out, and it soon opened fire upon the enemy. The line, however, advanced steadily to within 100 yards of the front of Van Cleve’s division, when a short and fierce contest ensued.  Van Cleve’s division, giving way, retired in considerable confusion across the river, followed closely by the enemy.

General Crittenden immediately directed his chief of artillery to dispose the batteries on the hill on the west side of the river so as to open on them, while two brigades of Negley’s division, from the reserve, and the Pioneer Brigade, were ordered up to meet the onset.  The firing was terrific and the havoc terrible.  The enemy retreated more rapidly than they had advanced.  In forty minutes they lost 2,000 men.

By the 3rd January, with the Union Army still facing him, and believing from captured documents taken from McCook’s HQ that the Federals were some 70,000 strong, Bragg decided to withdraw to Tullahoma.  The retreat began at 10am in heavy rain, freezing temperatures, low rations and no clear idea of where they were retiring to.  This allowed Rosecrans to occupy Murfreesboro.  While the outcome of the battle was to some extent a ‘draw’, with a little over 10,000 Confederate casualties and some 13,000 on the Federal side it was the Confederates who withdrew and the Federals who moved into the town of Murfreesboro.  Bragg also suffered from comments made against him by his commanders. This feeling of discontent would revisit him at Chickamauga.

Soon after the failed Breckinridge advance some of his commanders wrote to him “....in our judgement, this army should be promptly put in retreat....”  Bragg read this at 2 a.m. on the morning of the 3rd.  His response was “....we shall maintain our position at every hazard.” But when he rose in the morning, as mentioned above, he revised his view and withdrew.  This letter to Bragg was to be the subject of an exchange of letters later. Polk expressed his view of Bragg to Jefferson Davis; “My opinion is, he had better be transferred.”

While he had his differences with his commanders, Bragg wrote appreciatively of the private soldiers in his report;

“To the private soldier a fair meed of praise is due; and though it is so seldom given and so rarely expected that it may be considered out of place, I cannot, in justice to myself, withhold the opinion ever entertained and so often expressed during out struggle for independence.  In the ebsence of the instruction and discipline of old armies, and of the confidence which long association produces between veterans, we have had in a great measure to trust to the individuality and self-reliance of the private soldier.  Without the incentive or the motive which controls the officer, who hopes to live in history; without the hope of reward, and actuated only by a sense of duty and of patriotism, he has, in this great contest, justly judged that the cause was his own, and gone into it with a determination to conquer or die; to be free or not to be at all. encomium is too high, no honour too great for such a soldiery, however much of credit and glory may be given, and probably justly given, the leaders in our struggle, history will yet award the main honor where it is due - to the private soldier, who, without hope of reward, and with no other incentive than a consciousness of rectitude, has encountered all the hardships and suffered all the privations. Well has it been said, “The first monument our Confederacy rears, when our independence shall have been won, should be a lofty shaft, pure and spotless, bearing this inscription, ‘To the unknown and unrecorded dead.’”