THE ARMIES AND THEIR LEADERS
The armies that were soon to measure strength in Middle Tennessee were not
strangers. They had raced with each other to the banks of the Ohio in the
previous fall, they had confronted each other,--at times,--in fractional
strength upon a score of fields. It was the advance division of the Army
of the Ohio, which had checked the Confederate onset on the first day at
Shiloh, where Grant was all but overwhelmed, and that command, in full
strength, had done its share in driving the gray-clad battalions from the
field the next day. The guarding of Middle Tennessee and the taking of
East Tennessee had since then been its special charge and designed
function, and in token thereof it had been named anew "the Army of the
Cumberland," after the river that traverses those regions. The army was
composed principally of soldiers from the old Northwest Territory,--a
region dedicated to human freedom in the ordinance of 1787. But while
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin furnished the bulk of the
troops, there were also regiments from Kentucky and several composed of
East Tennessee Unionists. Pennsylvania had sent a contingent, and Missouri
and Kansas were both represented. From the regular army of the United
States, there were a formidable force of artillery, a few troops of
cavalry, and a particularly fine brigade of infantry.
The Confederate Army of the Tennessee was composed largely of sons of the
Commonwealth from which it derived its name, but almost every other State
in the Confederacy was represented. A picturesque and romantic element was
the famous "Orphan Brigade" composed of Kentuckians who fought for the
South while their State adhered to the North, and who attested their
heroism on many occasions during the war. The two armies were
substantially equal in strength, for the Army of the Cumberland reported
an available present of 43,400 men, while the Army of the Tennessee, which
had the advantage of position, showed 37,700 ready for battle. The
Southern Army was greatly superior in cavalry, for this arm of the service
had not, as yet, received in the North the attention it warranted. On the
other hand, the Northern Army was greatly superior in artillery. While the
bulk of both armies was made up of veteran troops, each had considerable
percentages of raw levies.
Gen. Braxton Bragg had the advantage,--somewhat doubtful in his case,--of
long service with his Army of the Tennessee. He was a splendid organizer
and disciplinarian, thoroughly versed in the technique of his profession,
brave, honorable, devoted to his cause, and a strategist of no mean order.
But he united a high, imperious temper and a saturnine disposition with a
martinet's passion for the letter of military regulation and etiquette. As
a consequence, he was frequently embroiled with those near him in stations
of authority,--officers who did not hesitate to accuse him of finding
convenient scapegoats for his own errors. His controversies with those
under him form an interesting chapter of Confederate records. It is but
just to him to add that there were those that fought under him who
testified to warm admiration for his soldierly abilities and who
entertained high personal esteem for his qualities as a man.
Bragg's army was divided into two corps. One of these corps was commanded
by Lieutenant-General William J. Hardee, who had won a conspicuous
position in the Army of the United States before he had come to offer his
sword and talents to the Confederacy. He was the author of a book of
tactics employed in the United States Army long after the Civil War,--a
system said to have been founded on the drill regulations devised by
Napoleon. The other corps was commanded by Lieut.-Gen, Leonidas Polk, who
was Bragg's pet aversion, and who spent much of the next twelve months in
writing to Richmond about his superior and extricating himself from the
latter's orders of arrest.
General Polk had been educated at West Point, but had afterward entered
the Episcopal Ministry. When the war broke out he was Bishop of Louisiana;
but he speedily exchanged the surplice for the uniform, and attained high
rank in the Southern Army. He was a man of considerable warlike talent,
though perhaps short of first-grade.
One of Bragg's division commanders was Major-General John C. Breckinridge,
of Kentucky, who, as Vice-President of the United States, had declared the
count of the electoral vote whereby Lincoln was chosen President, and who
had left his seat in the United States Senate,--months after the outbreak
of hostilities,--to cast his fortunes with the South. Afterward, as
Confederate Secretary of War, he accompanied Jefferson Davis on his flight
from Richmond, and assisted Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in arranging the terms
for the surrender of the latter's army to William T. Sherman,--terms that
were repudiated by the Washington authorities.
Other notable figures in Bragg's army were the impetuous Gen. "Pat"
Cleburne, who was to lose his life in the wild charge on the
fortifications of Franklin two years later; Gen. John H. Morgan, the
Kentucky partisan raider, and Gen. Joseph Wheeler, the cavalry leader,
who had so managed the rear-guard in the retreat from Kentucky as to
preserve intact the rich booty of the "Blue Grass" region borne by the
retiring Confederates. Wheeler was one of the Southern generals who later
saw service under the "old flag" in the Spanish-American war, commanding a
division in Shafter's Army before Santiago.
Maj.-Gen. William S. Rosecrans was one of the contradictions of the war. A
graduate of West Point, he had resigned from the army and was practising
his profession of engineering, when the outbreak of hostilities called him
to arms again. He had achieved considerable success in 1861, when, having
taken up a work left unfinished by McClellan, he cleared the Confederates
out of West Virginia, thereby placing in temporary eclipse the military
reputation of Robert E. Lee. His assignment to the command of the Army of
the Cumberland was chiefly due to his defense of Corinth during the fall,
though he was criticised by Grant,--then his immediate superior,--for not
having achieved greater results in this engagement. As a strategist
Rosecrans was of the first order; indeed, one of his campaigns still
stands as a model for the study of professional soldiers. But brave,
warm-hearted, and impulsive, he was prone to lose his poise in battle, as
the melancholy outcome of Chickamauga was later to prove.
Rosecrans had divided his army into right wing, centre and left wing,--for
convenience designated as corps. The centre was commanded by Maj.-Gen.
George H. Thomas, the idol of the army, and probably the most complete
soldier that the Union produced. It was said of him that he never made a
mistake. At Mill Springs he had given the Union cause its first generous
beam of hope by his crushing defeat of Zollicoffer. In the recent campaign
in Kentucky it was his soldierly instinct that had penetrated the plans of
the enemy; his counsel, which followed, led to success,--which
disregarded, led to failure. It was he who below Chattanooga was to gather
around him the fragments of a broken army, the commander of which had fled
the field, and fighting on, was to win lasting fame as the "Rock of
Chickamauga." It was he who, at Nashville,--waiting amid a storm of
criticism, abuse, and threats from those higher in authority,--sallied
forth, when all was ready, to win the most complete victory of the four
years' struggle.
The right wing of the Army of the Cumberland was under command of
Maj.-Gen. Alexander McDowell McCook, a native of Ohio, and one of the
"Fighting McCooks," so-called, because so many of his family fought for
the Union. The left wing was commanded by Maj.-Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden,
scion of a noted Kentucky family, which, with great liberality and rare
impartiality, contributed stalwart representatives to both sides of the
war. Among the division commanders was Philip H. Sheridan, who later was
to defeat Early in the Valley of the Shenandoah, and, by throwing his
columns across the line of Lee's retreat from Richmond, was to furnish the
prelude for the final scenes of the war drama at Appamatox.
Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, had, after the Battle of Shiloh, been
occupied as a secondary base by the Army of the Cumberland, and had been
heavily fortified. Distant 150 miles from Louisville,--the primary
base,--with lines of communication frequently interrupted by the
ubiquitous Morgan and other Confederate raiders, it was difficult to
accumulate sufficient supplies for a campaigning army; but by December
ample stores were in hand. Murfreesboro, where the headquarters of the
Army of the Tennessee had been established, was an important military and
strategic place as it was the converging point of a large number of
unusually good wagon-roads and by reason of its location on the Nashville
and Chattanooga Railroad. Its facilities gave it dominance over a wide
stretch of country, rich in supplies and recruits for the Confederates,
and its possession was the first requisite in that movement for the relief
of East Tennessee and its harassed Unionists,--a movement that had been so
constantly urged by President Lincoln upon the Federal commanders in that
region.
The hearts of those in authority in the Confederate Government never beat
so high with hope as during those December days of 1862. Mr. Davis and his
Cabinet, as they surveyed the situation, might well have felt that they
had reason for confidence. The principal army of the Northern foe had been
repeatedly and seriously defeated, and was about to suffer the awful
reverse of Fredericksburg. In Tennessee and Mississippi,--while fortune
had not been so uniformly kindly,--there were all the facilities,
resources, and spirit for successful aggressive work. While much ground
had been lost in the Trans-Mississippi Department, word had lately come
that Hindman had succeeded in raising a fresh army in Arkansas,--a force
that was expected to begin the task of redeeming that State and recovering
Missouri. Pemberton confronted Grant with temporarily superior forces near
Vicksburg. Confederate diplomatic efforts were at length promising to bear
fruit, and the _Alabama_ and other vessels were driving Northern commerce
from the high seas. New Orleans had fallen; but Mobile, Charleston,
Wilmington, and Savannah held out, to offer refuge for the blockade
runners, which brought the precious military stores into the South.
It was under the spell of sentiment, inspired by such conditions, that the
Confederate President paid a visit to his generals and their forces in
Tennessee and Mississippi. Bragg felt so certain of himself and his ground
that he readily fell in with the suggestion of Mr. Davis to detach some
10,000 troops to Pemberton, though Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who was in
command of the whole department, advised against this course. The presence
of their President roused the enthusiasm of the soldiers at Murfreesboro
to a high pitch, and many official and social ceremonies served to vary
the festivities planned for the Christmas season. There were balls,
receptions, theatrical entertainments, and one evening, in the presence of
a brilliant throng, General Morgan took unto himself a wife,--the ceremony
being performed by Bishop-General Polk,--and immediately left for Kentucky
on another of the raids that did so much to harass, impede, and annoy the
Union armies.
Rosecrans had learned of the detachment to Pemberton, of Morgan's
departure, and also had been informed that Wheeler had been sent on a
raid. He rightly concluded that the time to strike Bragg was when the
Confederate cavalry was absent, and his three corps set out from Nashville
on separate roads the day after Christmas. It soon developed that, if
Wheeler had been ordered away, he had been recalled; for his troopers gave
ample notice of the advance of the Union Army, and Bragg had plenty of
opportunity to perfect a plan of resistance.
Thomas and Crittenden, however, encountered little difficulty on the
march. McCook found Hardee in his path, and had to do some heavy
skirmishing before he got up. But the evening of December 30 saw the Army
of the Cumberland in position about three miles from Murfreesboro. In some
way Rosecrans got the impression that Bragg had fallen back, and gave
orders for entering the town. In the darkness some of Crittenden's troops
began a movement,--a movement that must have resulted disastrously, if
pushed; and shots had already been exchanged with the Confederate pickets,
when the mistake was discovered and the order recalled. Though it had
rained for several days, and though the night was bitter cold, the men of
the left and centre were forbidden to light fires,--even for
cooking,--lest they might betray their whereabouts. But fires were kindled
all along the front of McCook's corps and far to the right thereof; for
Rosecrans hoped to deceive Bragg as to his exact position. It may be
conjectured that this hope was illusive, for Bragg had exceedingly
accurate sources of information.
Each commander decided to attack on the morrow. Rosecrans planned to
deliver battle from his left flank, crumpling up the right of his enemy,
and taking up the attack with his centre in such a way as to enfilade and
crush Bragg's entire army. McCook was instructed to resist strongly, but
not to attack, except by way of diversion.
The position taken by McCook's corps had given Rosecrans much concern, and
the night before the battle, at a conference with his principal officers,
he had made several suggestions about it to the Ohio warrior. In
conformity with the order of battle, McCook's right was strongly
refused,--that is, bent back,--but, in general it was too near where the
enemy were supposed to be to suit the commanding general. McCook, however,
evinced such reluctance about giving up ground for which his men had
already fought,--and which presented elements of natural strength that
were not to be found further back,--that the matter was at length left to
his own judgment. He, therefore, placed the bulk of his corps in
conformity with the rest of the army, which was aligned upon a
north-and-south line, threw back the right brigades of Willich and
Kirk,--of Johnson's division,--so that they, with their artillery
supports, faced almost directly south, and placed, as a reserve, in the
corner thus formed Baldwin's brigade of the same division. The rest of the
battle front, while presenting in general an eastern face on a
north-and-south line, was here advanced, here retired, as inequalities of
ground or patches of forest seemed to offer favorable position. The whole
Union Army was west of Stone's River, though the extreme left of
Crittenden's left wing touched that stream at a ford.
Bragg's plan of battle called for a heavy concentration of force on his
left flank, which was to take the initiative in an attack upon the Union
right, and by a grand wheel, with the centre as a base, would take the
invaders in flank and rear. Each unit was to take up the movement as the
battle reached it, and it was hoped that by a rapid, spirited, and
sustained attack it would be possible to force Rosecrans back of the
Nashville pike,--his sole line of supply and retreat,--and hurling his
commands one upon the other, accomplish the capture or destruction of the
whole Union Army. In furtherance of his plan, Bragg placed almost
two-fifths of his infantry at his left under Hardee, to whom was entrusted
the initiation of the movement. But one division was left, under
Breckenridge on the right, and separated from the rest of the army by the
river.
The Confederate battle front,--could it have been viewed in its
entirety,--would have presented a much more symmetrical appearance than
that of its adversary; as the comparatively open and level country that it
momentarily occupied permitted a more orderly alignment. McCown's division
occupied the extreme left,--except for some cavalry,--and Cleburne's heavy
columns were massed almost immediately in the rear.
Thus, it will be observed, the rival commanders had, with practically
similar conditions to encounter, hit upon practically similar plans of
battle. Could each plan have been carried out, the two armies would have
presented the appearance of revolving upon a common axis, the right in
each case retiring before the attack of the enemy's left. As it was,
however, a great advantage,--as must be apparent,--was to attend that army
which should first strike the enemy with its heavy masses in battle array.
And the contingencies of the conflict ordained that that advantage should
be gained by the Confederates.