July 27-28, 2019 Camp J 323 Camp East AAABBB LOWCOUNTRY CIVIL WAR & ARTIFACT SHOW January 4-5, 2020 Omar Sh 176 Pat Mt P
• • • • Both shows • Open to Public: • Saturday: 9-5 • Sunday: 9-3 •
Swords Antiqu Dug & Civili Bottle Art, P Milita All Er
Alexander that he was already so hotly engaged that he could not come forward. The startling intelligence was also at this moment communicated to me…that all our forces on our right had l the ground.” Carlin’s men, like the others, fell back precipitate toward the pike and the railroad. Col. William Woodruff, commanding another brigade in Davis’s Division, describes the scene as his regiments’ retreated. “The ammunition of the regiments now entirely failing and a perfect rout appearing to have taken place, the brigade fel back to the ground occupied on the morning of Tuesday. At this time the whole wing was in the utmost confusion, and I used every endeavor to rally and organize them, but without avail…. Reaching the Murfreesborough pike, a stampede or panic commenced in the wagon-train, but… it was stopped, and, by a vigorou charge of cavalry, saved from the enemy.” The Confederate assault on the Federal line also came close to breaking through on Davis’s left, where Brig. Gen. Philip Sheridan’s Division fought. The fighting here was fierce, as evidenced by the deaths of all three Sheridan’s brigade commanders, but here the Union forces fought more effectively than the units further to the right. Rosecrans’s w lly! ame
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oldest and largest ompetitors shoot or carbines and revolv targets in a timed even compete with c mortars. Each team specific Civil War wears the uniform t
years ago. Dedicate history, period fir the camaraderie of
biographer gives much credit to Sheridan, who in his view “fought one of the great fighting retreats of the entire war,” as doe Cozzens, who describes at length
Sheridan’s stubborn 90-minute stand near the Wilkinson Pike. This division too ended the day in the new line along the Nashville Pike, a line bolstered by units shifted from the left as those on the right bought time with their fighting retreat. Day one of the Battle of Stones River ended here, near the intersection of the pike and rail line leading to Nashville, three or four miles northwest of Murfreesboro. It was a very hard day for the Army of the Cumberland, as the brigade commanders’ reports bear witness. However, the Confederates suffered great losses as well, with casualties over 30% (according to Moore). In the end Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Confederate army failed to cut the Nashville Pike and trap the Federals. The initial attack was, for time, a stunning success,
but the fight exhausted the attackers’ strength. The panic was halted; Bragg’s forces were at the end of the day repulsed; the Union army was intact. January 1 was quiet. On the 2nd Bragg ordered an assault on the Union left, which failed. Believing that Rosecrans would be reinforced, Bragg withdrew toward Tullahoma. The writings of these Federal officers paint a vivid picture of the battle. We see the shocking impact of the attack; we see men confused and dismayed as they are assailed from several directions at once. We see officers trying to rally their men, failing and failing again, but ultimately succeeding, at one point aided by the bayonets of a fresh regiment. Frangas, non flectes is a wellknown motto. Flectas, non franges would be more appropriate for the Army of the Cumberland on Dec. 31, 1862. It bent, and bent to
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Next month we will take a look at the reports and other writing of the Confederates who led this attack at what they named the Battle of Murfreesboro.
Sources: • Peter Cozzens, No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River, University of Illinois Press, 1990 • R.W. Johnson, In Peace and War: A Soldier’s Reminiscences. Big Byte Books, 2014 (Originally published in 1886) • David G. Moore, William S. Rosecrans and the Union Victory: A Civil War Biography, McFarland & Company, 2014 • Phillip H. Sheridan, The Personal Memoirs of P.H. Sheridan, Charles Webster & Company, 1888 • O.R. Series I, Volume XX, Part I, Reports of Philemon Baldwin, William Carlin,
Jefferson C. Davis, Joseph Dodge, William Gibson, Sidney Post, and William Woodruff
Several websites contain excel lent maps showing troop movements at different stages of the battle. Most useful are the site of the American Battlefield Trus the National Park Service, and Wikipedia.
Gould Hagler is a retired lobbyi living in Dunwoody, Ga. He is a past president of the Atlanta Ci War Round Table of Atlanta and t author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. Hagler speaks frequently on this topic and others related to different aspects of the Civil War and has been a regular contributor to CW since 2016. He can be reached at
