Streetwise Professor

New Years Eve day will be the 155th anniversary of one of the forgotten battles of the Civil War–Stones River (styled Murfreesboro by the Confederates). The battle was actually fought over two days–31 December, 1862 and 2 January, 1863. It resulted in almost 25,000 casualties, but was overshadowed by other events. The Union disaster at Fredericksburg on 13 December and the subsequent Mud March fiasco in January–these events took place much closer to the political capital and media centers of the North–attracted far more notice. The destruction of Grant’s supply depot at Holly Springs on 20 December, and his subsequent retreat from northern Mississippi (thereby terminating his first attempt at Vicksburg) and the nearly simultaneous bloodying of Sherman at Chickasaw Bluffs outside of Vicksburg also detracted attention from the battle in middle Tennessee. The indecisive nature of the combat also helped doom the battle to obscurity: there was no real victor, and no major strategic outcome from all the bloodletting.

The 25,000 combined casualties ranks only 6th on that grim list for the Civil War. But it was the bloodiest major battle in proportion to numbers engaged–the percentage loss on both sides was almost one-third of the troops that fought there. In contrast, the loss rate at Gettysburg was about 28 percent. Absolute casualties were larger at the Wilderness, but more than twice as many men fought in that 1864 Virginia battle.

Yet Stones River is obscure. This is unfortunate, and a slight to those who fought there. And fight they did.

Stones River was the middle of three gruesome battles fought between the Army of the Ohio/Cumberland and the Army of Mississippi/Tennessee between 8 October, 1862 (Perryville) and 19-20 September, 1863 (Chickamauga). All three battles demonstrated the offensive prowess of Bragg’s Confederate army. At Perryville, a Rebel offensive pulverized McCook’s corps. At Stones River, the Southern assault wrecked McCook’s Corps again, and did considerable damage to Crittenden’s as well. At Chickamauga, the Confederate onslaught crushed both. Only when Union troops fought behind fortifications were they ever able to withstand an attack by the Army of Tennessee, until that attack was spent.*

But the battles also illustrated the limits of the offensive. The casualty toll suffered by the Confederate attackers, and the disorganization, physical and emotional exhaustion, and chaos resulting from even  successful assaults, made it impossible to sweep the battered Union armies from the battlefield. In each case, it was easier for the defenders to retreat and form a coherent defense than it was for the winded and bloodied attackers to regroup for a final decisive charge.

Moreover, in each battle, stalwart defenses by relatively small Union commands delayed and disrupted the Confederate attacks sufficiently to allow the Union troops to rally sufficiently to avoid annihilation. At Perryville, Starkweather’s brigade performed this vital task. At Stones River, Sheridan’s division held long enough in the cedars to permit Rosecrans to form a final line at the Nashville Pike. Further, Hazen’s brigade held the Round Forest against repeated attacks. At Chickamauga, the stand around Horseshoe Ridge anchored by Harker’s and Vanderveer’s brigades plus the detritus of many Union regiments permitted Thomas to extract the Union army from its parlous position.

And in all three battles, the failure to achieve decisive victory despite driving Federal troops from position after position, set off bitter recrimination’s in Bragg’s army. After Stones River, Bragg and division commander Breckenridge (former Vice President of the US, and eventual Secretary of War for the Confederacy) engaged in a vicious argument over responsibility for Breckenridge’s disastrous assault on 2 January. In the rest of the army there was grave dissatisfaction over the failure to achieve victory. The poisonous atmosphere hamstrung the army for the remainder of Bragg’s unhappy tenure as commander.

The performance of Confederate troops during this and the other two battles is all the more remarkable given the utterly dysfunctional command structure that ordered and led them into battle.

So take a moment to remember this forgotten contest. Those who fought and bled there do not deserve the obscurity that has characterized the battle almost since the day it was fought. It demonstrates the remarkable qualities of the private soldiers and many of the field grade and company officers on both sides–and the extreme limitations of their commanders. It was a soldier’s battle par excellence, and those soldiers deserve recognition for their stalwart performance on two wintery days in middle Tennessee.

*To this I should add the Army of Mississippi’s assaults on the first day at Shiloh, which almost succeeded in driving Grant’s Army of the Tennessee into the river from which it took its name. Van Dorn’s Army of West Tennessee smashed Rosecran’s Army of the Mississippi on the first day of the Battle of Corinth (3-4 October, 1862), and its assaults on the second day pushed back Rosecrans’ right wing into the town: the Union left was heavily fortified, and this allowed it to hold off the attack on its sector.  Some units of Van Dorn’s army, notably Moore’s Texas Brigade and the Missouri  Brigade fought with the Army of Tennessee during the Atlanta and Nashville campaigns. The counterattack of Bowen’s Division at Champion Hill, which almost brought Grant’s army to ruin in that decisive battle, is another example of the striking power of Confederate troops in the Western Theater. Most of the Confederate attacks on the first day at Chickamauga, with the exception of Cheatham’s Division’s assaults in the Brock Field Area, were initially successful, but ultimately indecisive because of the inevitable loss of impetus due to casualties and disorganization. Breckenridge’s attack on 2 January at Stones River also succeeded in smashing the Union left flank across the river, only to be repelled by the massed artillery battery (57 guns firing on the Confederate  front and flank)  assembled by Captain John Mendenhall.

No other army on either side mounted so many successful frontal attacks. (Many of the Army of Northern Virginia’s successful attacks, e.g., Second Manassas, Chancellorsville, were flank attacks, while others such as on Barlow Knoll the first day at Gettysburg or against the Emmitsburg Road on the second day involved a numerically superior force attacking badly positioned Union defenders.)

What accounts for the great shock effect of Confederate infantry attacks in the West? Sheer aggressiveness and elan has to be part of it: even attacks against breastworks that failed (e.g., Franklin, the Battle of Atlanta) were pressed with extreme vigor. (Peachtree Creek and to some degree Ezra Church and Jonesboro were exceptions). I would also surmise that the difference in performance in attacks on unfortified and fortified defenders demonstrates that the attackers’ fire was particularly accurate and heavy. Inflicting heavy casualties while advancing a defending force increased the odds of success. Entrenchments or barricades largely eliminated the ability of the advancing force to render large numbers of the defenders hors de combat.