The muzzles of a hundred cannon belched forth fire, shot, and shell, and the earth and air were tremulous with the terrific vibration. – Brig. Gen. Richard W. Johnson, U.S.A.
General Richard Johnson’s Division held the extreme right of the Federal line in the battle that erupted shortly before 6:30 a.m. on the last day of 1862. The explosive Confederate wrecked the offensive battle plan devised for that Wednesday by Union army commander William S. Rosecrans. Instead General Rosecrans fought a desperate defensive battle to keep his army intact and to keep open the pike between Murfreesboro and his base in Nashville.
In this column we will hear the voices of some officers at the receiving end of the Confederate assault against the Army of the Cumberland, with emphasis on the brigades of Johnson’s division on the far right, and of the division to his left, led by Brig. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis. We will examine the writings of several brigade commanders and others, and observe from their perspective this sanguinary struggle on the first day of the Battle of Stones River.
GEORGIA’S CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS In Honor of a Fallen Nation Gould B. Hagler, Jr.
This unique work contains a complete photographic record of Georgia’s memorials to the Confederacy, a full transcription of the words engraved upon them, and carefully-researched information about the monuments and the organizations which built them. These works of art and their eloquent nation’s profound grief, praise the soldiers’ bravery and patriotism, and pay homage to the cause for which they fought.
Let’s begin with officers who took charge of Johnson’s two far right brigades when their commanders were put out of action. We will then move across the battlefield toward the Federal left.
Brig. Gen. August Willich’s brigade was the rightmost infantry unit in the Federal line. Captured at the very outset of the assault, Willich was succeeded in command by Col. William Gibson. Gibson’s report describes the brigade’s action on that hectic morning, as it was pushed from its position on the Franklin Road and driven to the Nashville Pike three or four miles to the north. Gibson states that at 6:25, “The enemy advanced upon our position with four heavy lines of battle, with a strong reserve held in mass…. His left extended a great distance beyond our extreme right, and was thrown forward, so that his lines were, to some extent, oblique to ours…. To the right of our position…he took position with an immense force of cavalry. His lines were advanced with great rapidity, and his force could not have been less than 35,000, besides cavalry.”
To Gibson’s left, Brig. Gen. Edward Kirk’s brigade collapsed at the very outset of the battle; according to Peter Cozzens, within five minutes of the opening
volley. This breakdown exposed Gibson’s left flank to the Confederate assault just as other Confederate units swept around his right.
Gibson’s report continues: “With cavalry on their right, infantry assailing them on the left, and heavy masses rushing to the assault in front, [my] regiments were directed to retire as the only escape from annihilation or capture.”
Gibson provides a graphic description of the flight of his regiments and of the entire right wing: “[W]e moved rapidly and with some disorder to the Nashville road, closely pursued by the enemy’s cavalry. Here the colors of the Thirty-ninth Indiana were captured…. A complete panic prevailed. Teams, ambulances, horsemen, footmen, and attachés of the army, black and white, mounted on horses and mules, were rushing to the rear in the wildest confusion.”
The flight was stopped when it reached a point where another brigade commander, Col. Moses
Walker, had formed a line of battle and positioned artillery. “With this assurance the tide was quite checked,” Gibson continues, “and, placing a strong guard of cavalry across the road, Colonel Walker moved his command to the front, compelling every able-bodied soldier to fall in.”
Kirk’s brigade, next in line, was commanded by Col. Joseph Dodge after Kirk was wounded early in the battle. Dodge writes that shortly after daylight the Confederates attacked “on our front and right in immense force.” Infantry and artillery failed to halt the attack. “The enemy then moved to the left oblique, or nearly, by his left flank, until his center was opposite our extreme right, changing direction to his right as he did so, so as to bring his whole force upon our most exposed point.” His men held their ground until the enemy was 20 yards distant, according to Dodge, then were “forced to retire, having no support and seeing that it was a waste of life to contend in that position with at least twenty times the number of men I then had left.”
The brigade fell back in stages, but was unable to “hold [the enemy] in check…, owing to our weakened condition and lack of all support.” The men made their way back to the Nashville Pike, where late in the day remnants of the brigade and other retreating units, curled into a roughly semi-circular line facing southwest, and held on.
Col. Philemon Baldwin commanded the Third Brigade of Johnson’s Division. Held in reserve, it was ordered forward when the Confederates attacked. In his report Baldwin states that, as he was deploying, “the enemy, in immense masses, appeared in my front at short range, their left extending far beyond the extreme right of my line.” Baldwin’s infantry and an artillery battery “poured a destructive fire into their dense masses, checking them in front, but their left continued to advance against my right.”
The brigade fought for half an hour, but retired when “the enemy flanked…my right and were pouring in an enfilading fire. Had my line stood a moment longer it would have been entirely surrounded and captured.” The brigade pulled back gradually and “succeeded, after making several short stands in the woods, in forming…near the railroad.”
Were there 35,000 Confederates in the assaulting force against the Union right, as Gibson and Johnson both say in their reports? Rosecrans’s recent biographer, David Moore, could count only 11,000. Did Dodge face odds of twenty to one? Certainly not, but the exaggerated numbers indicate the fury of the assault and confusion it created on the Federal right.
As the brigades of Johnson’s Division pulled back to avoid being trapped, the division to their left, under Brig. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis, also faced a fierce attack.
In his report Davis states that when the Confederates attacked Kirk’s and Willich’s brigades at sunrise, “These troops seemed not to have been fully prepared for the assault, and with little or no resistance, retreated from
their position, leaving their artillery in the hands of the enemy.” This retreat, adds Davis, “left my right brigade exposed to a flank movement, which the enemy was now rapidly executing, and compelled me to order Post’s Brigade to fall back and partially change its front.”
Davis recognizes gades’ “veteran courage” as they clashed in a fight that was “fierce in the extreme on both sides.” They get lower marks for their behavior later in the day, when, after retreating to a point near the Nashville Pike, Davis attempted “to form my lines and resist [the enemy’s] further advance.” Few regiments responded to the order, Davis reports, and some “skulk[ed] like cowards.”
The accounts of Davis’s brigade commanders read much the same as the reports of officers leading brigades to their right. As the Federal line lost its integrity, each commander pulled back when his men found themselves fired upon from two or even three directions. The report of Col. William Carlin is especially noteworthy.
Shocked by the suddenness and force of the assault, Carlin quickly sent a message to the commander of his reserve regiment to bring his unit forward. “To my surprise,” Carlin writes, “I received a reply from Colonel
July 27-28, 2019
January 4-5, 2020
• Swords & Knives • Antique Firearms • Dug & Non-dug Relics • Civilian Items & Jewelry • Bottles & Stone Artifacts • Art, Photos, & Books • Militaria & Americana • All Eras to WWII • Metal Detectors • Awards & Prizes
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 left the ground.” Carlin’s men, like the others, fell back precipitately 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 fell 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 vigorous 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 of Sheridan’s brigade commanders, but here the Union forces fought more effectively than the units further to the right. Rosecrans’s
Looking southwest from the Nashville Pike, terrain crossed by Confederates in the assault on Federal lines.
(Gould Hagler) biographer gives much credit to Sheridan, who in his view “fought one of the great fighting retreats of the entire war,” as does Cozzens, who describes at length Sheridan’s stubborn 90-minute stand near the Wilkinson Pike.
Buying and Selling the Finest
This division too ended the
Confederate, Obsolete and
day in the new line along the Nashville Pike, a line bolstered
Southern States Currency
by units shifted from the left as
Since 1978
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
Civil War Catalog Featuring a large assortment of Civil War and Indian War autographs, accoutrements, memorabilia, medals,
insignia, buttons, GAR, documents, photos, & books. the very limit, but ultimately did not break.
Next month we will take a look at the reports and other writings of the Confederates who led this attack at what they named the Battle of Murfreesboro.
Several websites contain excellent maps showing troop movements at different stages of the battle. Most useful are the sites of the American Battlefield Trust, the National Park Service, and Wikipedia.
Peter Cozzens, No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River, University of Illinois Press, 1990 R.W. Johnson, In Peace and War: Reminiscences.
Books, published in 1886) David G. Moore, William S. Rosecrans Union Victory: A Civil War Biography, 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, Sidney Post, and William Woodruff
Soldier’s Big Byte (Originally