No Better Place to Die- The Battle of Stones River

by Peter Cozzens

  December had been nothing short of diastrous for the Lincoln administration and those loyal to the government and its war policy. Earlier that month two major Union offensives, launched in concert, had met with disaster. On the heights above Fredericksburg, in northern Virginia, another Federal commander went down before Robert E. Lee as Major General Ambrose Burnside lost over twelve thousand men in a series of brutal and fruitless assaults. And in Mississippi, major generals U. S. Grant and William T. Sherman floundered in the bayous and back country above Vicksburg as what was to have been a two-pronged thrust against the Mississippi River citadel degenerated into a comedy of errors. Confederate cavalry under Earl Van Dorn descended on the massive Federal supply depot at Holly Springs, destroying everything in sight and compelling Grant to abort his advance. Sherman continued downriver, only to come to grief against Rebel entrenchments along Chickasaw Bayou. Finally, in faraway Texas, John Magruder assembled a two-boat flotilla of “cottonclads” and recaptured Galveston in a surprise attack on New Year's Day, ridding the Lone Star State of Federals.

  The repeated humbling of Union arms, culminating in the defeats of December 1862, deepened Northern war weariness, particularly in the Northwest, home to most of the soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland. For a time, Republican governors Oliver P. Morton of Indiana and Richard Yates of Illinois actually feared open insurrection in their states. On 3 January 1863, before news of Breckinridge's repulse reached the Northern press, Morton wired Secretary of War Stanton from the statehouse in Indianapolis: “I am advised that it is contemplated when the Legislature meets in this state to pass a joint resolution acknowledging the Southern Confederacy, and urging the states of the Northwest to dissolve all constitutional relations with the New England states.” Morton added that “the same thing is on foot in Illinois.”

  The causes of disillusionment in the Northwest ran deeper than battlefield setbacks, although victories might allow the Republicans to contain it. As Allan Nevins has pointed out, the Democrats had “a historic ascendancy” in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, of which the election of Republican governors in 1860 represented an anomalous interruption: when the Democrats swept the legislative elections in 1862, they were simply regaining their traditional hold over these states. In addition to being antiwar Democrats, many residents of Illinois and Indiana's southern counties had only recently emigrated from slave-holding states. They had left behind their slaves, if they had them, but not their emotional attachment to the South. As the war ground on and abolitionists strove to convert it into an antislavery crusade, the transplanted grew restless. Antiwar rallies were common. The New Year opened with pro-administration Republican assemblymen and state governors confronting antiwar Democrats in the legislatures of Illinois and Indiana. Should the Democrats succeed in passing legislation aimed at reducing their states’ contributions to the war effort, a second rebellion—potentially fatal to what remained of the Union—might erupt in the Northwest.

  Then news of Rosecrans's victory, won largely by troops from the Northwest, exploded in the headlines of the Union press. “Rosecrans Wins a Complete Victory; the Enemy in Full Retreat,” announced the Chicago Tribune on 6 January as the first reports came in from the field. Stones River was “the thrilling sound, the prophet's word, which delivers their own names to fame and history forever,” the battlefield correspondent of the Louisville Journal wrote, adding that Rosecrans's name, “already famous, has now become immortal. Of all our commanding generals, he is the only one that knows how to fight a battle.” M. S. Furay of the Cincinnati Gazette echoed the praise of Rosecrans's “splended generalship,” as did the ubiquitous W. D. Bickham of the Gazette's crosstown rival, the Cincinnati Commercial, telling his readers that the Ohioan had “won a high place in the confidence and affections of his countrymen.”

  The overstated claims of the Chicago Tribune and other pro-administration dailies were effective. Pro-war mass meetings were held throughout the Northwest surpassing antiwar gatherings in militancy. Regiments held similar meetings in Murfreesboro and addressed indignant letters to wavering homefolk. Public sentiment shifted from the antiwar Democrats, who in turn backed down in the statehouses. The General Assembly of Ohio offered a vote of thanks to Rosecrans for his “glorious victory.” The General Assembly of Indiana passed a similar resolution two weeks later.

  None were more grateful for the defeat of Bragg than members of the beleaguered Lincoln administration. A month earlier, Secretary of War Stanton had upbraided Rosecrans for his endless requests for more rifles, more horses, more everything; now he assured the Ohioan that “there is nothing you can ask within my power to grant to yourself or your heroic command that will not be cheerfully given.” President Lincoln agreed. “God bless you, and all with you. Please tender to all, and accept for yourself, the nation's gratitude for your and their skill, endurance, and dauntless courage.” Time and subsequent reverses would not diminish Lincoln's sense of gratitude. Eight months later, on the verge of Rosecrans's thrashing at Chickamauga, the president wrote him of his continued belief in the importance of Stones River to the Union cause: “I can never forget, whilst I remember anything, that about the end of last year and the beginning of this, you gave us a hard-earned victory, which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over.”6

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BRAGG'S ARMY? HE'S GOT NONE

  “NO cheer salutes him as he passes…. No terror of his discipline or executions is felt by the brave soldiery he leads. We obey but do not tremble, and enter action without hope of honor or renown and retreat with sullen indifference and discontent.” So wrote William Preston of Bragg and of the Army of Tennessee as it trudged toward Shelbyville and Tullahoma, and the grumbling grew louder with each passing mile.

  Outside the army, disappointment over the results of Stones River was as great as that following Perryville. And as with the Kentucky campaign, criticism of Bragg's handling of the Murfreesboro campaign by the Southern press was severe and unrelenting. Some of this Bragg brought on himself. In dispatches written from the battlefield on the night of 31 December, he had assured the Southern public that victory was all but guaranteed. The press accepted Bragg's assurances at face value: the Augusta Chronicle told its readers that the gains of the thirty-first were so decisive as to be irreversible, and the normally critical Chattanooga Rebel announced that Stones River would place Bragg in a new light. When the truth became known, the press railed at the apparent deception. The Augusta Chronicle suggested that Bragg had lied to the public in his dispatches. The Chattanooga Rebel went further. In a series of scathing editorials, the Rebel asserted that Bragg had lost the confidence of the army and of its generals. It stated categorically that Bragg had ordered the retreat from Murfreesboro against the advice of his lieutenants and added that he soon would be relieved of command.1

  The Rebel editorials were more than Bragg could bear. Already troubled by rumors that he was about to be replaced by Beauregard or Kirby Smith, he assembled his staff on 10 January and asked them if he had lost the confidence of the army and ought to resign. Yes, they replied, he had lost the army's confidence; all things considered, he should resign.

  Bragg would not resign, but neither would he let the matter rest. He was determined to uncover and, if possible, crush whatever opposition to his leadership might exist within the high command of the Army of Tennessee.

  Ironically, it was Bragg himself who finally released the latent hostility of his generals. On 11 January, he sent Hardee, Breckinridge, Cleburne, and Cheatham what was perhaps the most incredible document addressed by a commander to his lieutenants during the war. It was a circular letter, in which Bragg solicited their views on the propriety of the retreat from Murfreesboro and (although there was doubt among its recipients as to whether the intent of the note was to raise this second issue) Bragg's fitness for continued command of the Army of Tennessee. A similar letter was mailed to Polk, then on leave at his home in North Carolina. Havin
g in effect placed his fate in the hands of his subordinates, Bragg awaited their reply, naively confident that such discontent as might exist was limited to a handful of corps and division staff officers and to those few “who have felt the sting of discipline.”

  Bragg miscalculated. At first, Hardee and his division commanders were not sure just what issue they were being asked to address. All but one sentence of the circular letter dealt with the advisability of the retreat; it was on this sentence, however, that the generals ultimately focused. Bragg had concluded the letter with a reference to Kirby Smith's recall to Richmond—he went, “it is supposed, with a view to supersede me”—and had assured his lieutenants that “I shall retire without regret if I find that I have lost the good opinion of my generals, upon whom I have ever relied as upon a foundation of rock.”

  But the rock was fissured. Yes, Hardee replied, he had concurred with Bragg's decision to abandon Murfreesboro, but had not advised it. Then came an admission for which Bragg was wholly unprepared. “I have conferred with Major General Breckinridge and Major General Cleburne…and I feel that frankness compels me to say that the general officers, whose judgment you have invoked, are unanimous in the opinion that a change in the command of this army is necessary. In this opinion I concur.”

  Breckinridge's reply followed. While Hardee admitted only to having concurred with Bragg's decision to retreat, the Kentuckian actually acknowledged having played a leading role in advising it. Aside from this, however, he was in agreement with his corps commander: For the sake of the army, Bragg should resign. Breckinridge then took the matter a step further. He showed the circular letter to his brigade commanders, whom he told Bragg were in agreement that the general should yield command of the army. Three days later, Cleburne responded. The Irishman recommended only that Bragg resign, evading the issue of the withdrawal from Murfreesboro altogether.

  To Bragg, these replies could have but one meaning: A conspiracy to supplant him existed in Hardee's corps, with Breckinridge at the center and Hardee the heir apparent to the army command.

  Despite these convictions, Bragg initially was too stunned and humiliated to retaliate. Instead, he prepared for what he thought would be his imminent dismissal. To a note from Davis in which the president apologized for his inability to reinforce the Army of Tennessee, which “would enable them to crown the recent victory,” Bragg replied by explaining his reasons for abandoning Murfreesboro and, perhaps to save face, offering to resign so that Davis might be spared the political costs of standing by him. With the responses to his circular letter before him, Bragg warned Davis that “influences will be brought to bear, both political and military,” in favor of his removal. Bragg was careful, however, to understate the extent of such feelings within his army, claiming that they were limited to a few “new men under new officers.”2

  Davis responded much as he had after Perryville, although this time he ordered Joseph Johnston to Tullahoma with absolute authority to take any action necessary to restore the Army of Tennessee, to include assuming command, rather than go himself. Referring to the circular letter, Davis mused: “Why General Bragg should have elected that tribunal and have invited judgment upon him is to me unexplained. It manifests, however, a condition of things which seems to me to require your presence.”

  Johnston went reluctantly. In spite of a distaste for his present duties as theater commander, Johnston had no desire to fill Bragg's shoes. He was unwilling—or so he told Davis—to “deprive an officer, in whom you have confidence, of the command for which you have selected him.”

  So Johnston, averse to taking the field in the troubled West, downplayed the discord within the Army of Tennessee. He limited his conversations on the subject to Bragg, Polk, Hardee, and Governor Isham Harris of Tennessee, a frequent guest at headquarters and a man with whom Bragg's disaffected lieutenants felt they could speak freely. Either Hardee, Polk, and Harris were less than candid with him or, more likely, Johnston heard only that which he wanted to hear, because he came away convinced that any disaffection or want of confidence in Bragg that might exist stemmed largely from the Kentucky campaign and was actually on the wane. He sensed nothing of this among the troops, who were “well clothed, healthy, and in good spirits.” There was no indication, he assured Davis, that the men considered themselves any less able to beat the Yankees in battle than they had before Stones River.

  As for Polk, the Army of Tennessee's master of intrigue was on unusually good behavior during most of Johnston's visit. Noting his anger at the responses of Hardee, Breckinridge, and Cleburne, Polk had asked Bragg to clarify his letter of 11 January: Did he really mean to invoke the judgment of his subordinates regarding his fitness to command? Certainly not, Bragg replied. His enemies within the army had “grossly and intentionally misrepresented” the intent of his letter in order to injure him; he simply had wished to record his lieutenants’ views of the retreat from Murfreesboro.

  Polk was delighted. By compelling his silence, Bragg allowed Polk to reap the benefits of a change of commanders without having to implicate himself in what inevitably would be seen as an unseemly effort to discredit a superior officer. And so Polk ignored the circular letter and parried Johnston's questions, arguing that his recent leave of absence prevented him from commenting on the present state of affairs within the army.

  Polk's ploy may have succeeded, had Johnston been inclined to remove Bragg. But because he was not, Polk had to act, and act fast. In a final conversation with Johnston just prior to his departure, Polk played his hand: Bragg had lost the confidence of the army, or at least of Polk's corps, and should be replaced immediately, preferably by Johnston himself. Simultaneously, Polk took the issue directly to Davis. Forwarding to him copies of Cheatham and Withers's note of 3 January, his endorsement, Bragg's circular letter, his note requesting an explanation of the letter, and Bragg's reply, Polk bluntly advised the president to replace Bragg with Johnston, the sooner the better, as “the state of this army demands immediate attention, and…could find relief in no way so readily as by the appointment of General Joseph E. Johnston.”

  Polk had erred again. Davis simply reiterated his decision to leave the matter in Johnston's hands.

  But Johnston would have none of it. After his conversation with Polk, he presented Davis with his own recommendation. It was true that many of Bragg's generals lacked confidence in him, but morale within the army was improving. And, although Hardee and Polk had suggested that he supersede Bragg, “the interests of the service require that General Bragg should not be removed.” Besides, Johnston added, his sense of personal honor would not permit him to replace one whose departure he in any way had helped orchestrate. Davis told Johnston that no one thought his honor tarnished and that, in any event, such considerations should not prevent him from taking any action that might be in the best interest of the army and of the nation. But Johnston remained unmoved. Replying to Davis on 2 March, he came out strongly for Bragg's retention, citing both the improved state of the army—the feelings of certain generals to the contrary notwithstanding—and the likelihood of an early Federal offensive, which made familiarity with the area of operations, and by implication continuity in command, absolutely imperative. Polk tried again in late March to convince Davis to remove Bragg, but the president once more deferred to Johnston's judgment, and by mid-April the matter was closed.3

  Now it was Bragg's turn. Having been sustained, he took the offensive against his defamers. “He hopes to crush out the officers here, after invoking our opinions,” wrote William Preston, an outspoken member of the anti-Bragg clique. Bragg was “down on the political generals” (a reference to Breckinridge, Preston, and Palmer) and intended to “wipe ’em out.” Nevertheless, Preston regretted nothing: “I have always shown him respect, but was heartfully willing to give him my opinion that we have no confidence in him. I have used no means to pull Bragg down, but when the facts warrant me in commending the chalice to his own lips, I do not feel any compunction or pity
for his situation.”

  Hardee and Polk were too powerful to confront directly, so Bragg went after their subordinates. Cheatham was the first to feel his wrath—and with reason. There can be no denying that he was dilatory in attacking on 31 December, and little doubt that he was drunk. Distressed at the sight of the Tennessean's brigades going individually into action instead of simultaneously and in conjunction with his own attack, it was Hardee who first brought Cheatham's drunken condition to Bragg's attention. Bragg referred the matter to Polk, who admitted that others had told him the same. (Years later, Bragg wrote friend and former staff officer E. T. Sykes that “in the battle of Murfreesboro, Cheatham was so drunk on the field all the first day, that a staff officer had to hold him on his horse.”)

  The Tennessean's drunkenness was an open secret in the officer corps. The subject came up during a visit paid Liddell at Wartrace by the army chaplain, the Reverend Doctor Charles Quintard. Quintard alluded to the drunken state of some officers at Stones River. Liddell quipped that Cheatham in particular seemed to have been on his “high horse” during the battle. “Yes, I am sorry to say, he was on his low horse too,” Quintard replied. “How so, doctor?” Liddell asked, knowing full well the answer. “Why, he fell, he went under,” said Quintard.

  Cheatham's condition was apparent to his troops as well. In a letter to the state librarian of Tennessee years after the war, Private John Johnston of the Sixth Tennessee recalled Cheatham's behavior as he led—or tried to lead—his men forward: “While his troops were standing in line waiting for orders to move, General Cheatham rode out in front and in attempting to make an appeal to his ‘Tennesseans,’ rolled off his horse and fell to the ground as limp and helpless as a bag of meal—to the great humiliation and mortification of his troops. This was told to me by a personal friend, a lieutenant in Company K, Sixth Tennessee Infantry, who was present and witnessed it.”