Stones River Bloody Winter Tennessee
Stones River Bloody Winter Tennessee

Author: James Lee McDonough

Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9780870493737

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On December 31, 1862, some 10,000 Confederate soldiers streamed out of the dim light of early morning to stun the Federals who were still breakfasting in their camp. Nine months earlier the Confederates had charged the Yankees in a similarly devastating attack at dawn, starting the Battle of Shiloh. By the time this new battle ended, it would resemble Shiloh in other ways - it would rival that struggle's shocking casualty toll of 24,000 and it would become a major defeat for the South. By any Civil War standard, Stones River was a monumental, bloody, and dramatic story. Yet, until now, it has had no modern, documented history. Arguing that the battle was one of the significant engagements in the war, noted Civil War historian James Lee McDonough here devotes to Stones River the attention it ahs long deserved. Stones River, at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was the first big battle in the union campaign to seize the Nashville-Chattanooga-Atlanta corridor. Driving eastward and southward to sea, the campaign eventually climaxed in Sherman's capture of Savannah in December 1864. At Stones River the two armies were struggling desperately for control of Middle Tennessee's railroads and rich farms. Although they fought to a tactical draw, the Confederates retreated. The battle's outcome held significant implications. For the Union, the victory helped offset the disasters suffered at Fredericksburg and Chickasaw Bayou. Furthermore, it may have discouraged Britain and France from intervening on behalf of the Confederacy. For the South, the battle had other crucial effects. Since in convinced many that General Braxton Bragg could not successfully command an army, Stones River left the Southern Army torn by dissension in the high command and demoralized in the ranks. One of the most perplexing Civil War battles, Stones River has remained shrouded in unresolved questions. After driving the Union right wing for almost three miles, why could the Rebels not complete the triumph? Could the Union's Major General William S. Rosecrans have launched a counterattack on the first day of the battle? Was personal tension between Bragg and Breckenridge a significant factor in the events of the engagement's last day? McDonough uses a variety of sources to illuminate these and other questions. Quotations from diaries, letters, and memoirs of the soldiers involved furnish the reader with a rare, soldier's-eye view of this tremendously violent campaign. Tactics, strategies, and commanding officers are examined to reveal how personal strengths and weaknesses of the opposing generals, Bragg and Rosecrans, shaped the course of the battle. Vividly recreating the events of the calamitous battle, Stones River - Bloody Winter in Tennessee firmly establishes the importance of this previously neglected landmark in Civil War history. James Lee McDonough is professor of history at Auburn University, and author of Shiloh - In Hell before Night, Chattanooga - A Death Grip on the Confederacy, and co-author of Five Tragic Hours: The Battle of Franklin.

Battle of Stones River
Battle of Stones River

Author: Larry J. Daniel

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2012-11-05

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 0807145165

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Three days of savage and bloody fighting between Confederate and Union troops at Stones River in Middle Tennessee ended with nearly 25,000 casualties but no clear victor. The staggering number of killed or wounded equaled the losses suffered in the well-known Battle of Shiloh. Using previously neglected sources, Larry J. Daniel rescues this important campaign from obscurity. The Battle of Stones River, fought between December 31, 1862, and January 2, 1863, was a tactical draw but proved to be a strategic northern victory. According to Daniel, Union defeats in late 1862—both at Chickasaw Bayou in Mississippi and at Fredericksburg, Virginia—transformed the clash in Tennessee into a much-needed morale booster for the North. Daniel's study of the battle's two antagonists, William S. Rosecrans for the Union Army of the Cumberland and Braxton Bragg for the Confederate Army of Tennessee, presents contrasts in leadership and a series of missteps. Union soldiers liked Rosecrans's personable nature, whereas Bragg acquired a reputation as antisocial and suspicious. Rosecrans had won his previous battle at Corinth, and Bragg had failed at the recent Kentucky Campaign. But despite Rosecrans's apparent advantage, both commanders made serious mistakes. With only a few hundred yards separating the lines, Rosecrans allowed Confederates to surprise and route his right ring. Eventually, Union pressure forced Bragg to launch a division-size attack, a disastrous move. Neither side could claim victory on the battlefield. In the aftermath of the bloody conflict, Union commanders and northern newspapers portrayed the stalemate as a victory, bolstering confidence in the Lincoln administration and dimming the prospects for the "peace wing" of the northern Democratic Party. In the South, the deadlock led to continued bickering in the Confederate western high command and scorn for Braxton Bragg.

Shiloh—In Hell Before Night
Shiloh—In Hell Before Night

Author:

Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press

Published:

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9781572337671

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Colorful, dramatic, blundering, and tragic - these are some of the adjectives that have been applied to the two-day engagement at Shiloh. This battle, which bears the biblical name meaning "place of peace," was one of the bloodiest encounters of the Civil War. The Union colonel, whose words give the present book its title, foretold the losses when he told his men: "Fill your canteens Boys! Some of you will be in hell before night...." Fought in the early spring of 1862 on the west bank of the Mississippi state line, Shiloh was, up to that time, the biggest battle of American history. One hundred thousand men were involved, and major Civil War commanders such as Grant, Sherman, Johnston, Beauregard, Bragg, and Forrest participated. The battle took the life of Johnston and it left a lasting impact on the reputation of other commanders. More-over, it played a significant role in the campaign for control of the Mississippi Valley. Although hundreds of books have been written about the Civil War and its battle, questions about the disorganized struggle at Shiloh have continued to perplex historians. Why was Grant absent when his army was attacked? Why did Grant and Sherman apparently ignore evidence of a Confederate advance? What happened to Lew Wallace that he never got his division into the fight on the first day of battle? Why did it take the Rebels so long to make their way from Corinth to the battlefield? Did the Rebels really have a distinct opportunity to win the battle, as it seems in retrospect, or were they doomed from the start? Were Johnston and Beauregard working at cross-purposes? Shiloh-In Hell Before Night provides answers or clues to answers of clues to answers for these and other questions arising from this controversial engagement. The author tells his story by placing Shiloh in the larger context of the war and by exploring the very personal side of the conflict through the words of the Union and Confederate participants, officers and common soldiers alike. Touches of humor and even or romance are revealed in the midst of the carnage, but the overriding element is the specter of death. Among those who survived, the soldiers who had been eager to "see the elephant," as they commonly referred to combat, could never again feel so eager for a fight. James Lee McDonough is professor of history at Auburn University, and the author of Stones River - Bloody Winter in Tennessee, Chattanooga - A Death Grip on the Confederacy, and the co-author of Five Tragic Hours: The Battle of Franklin.

The Stones River and Tullahoma Campaigns
The Stones River and Tullahoma Campaigns

Author: Christopher L. Kolakowski

Publisher: Civil War

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781596290754

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Middle Tennessee represented one of the most strategically important pieces of land in the Civil War. Both armies recognized the value of its central location, and it became one of the war's most bitterly contested battlegrounds. From November 1862 to July 1863, hard fighting and heavy losses characterized the Stones River and Tullahoma Campaigns. Though these engagements have been largely overshadowed by other, more famous operations elsewhere, they had major implications for the war's outcome. By percentages, Stones River saw the war's heaviest casualties, while the battles at Tullahoma proved to be significant turning points for increasing Union mobility, ultimately hastening the end of the war. Author and military historian Christopher Kolakowski gives a definitive look into the dramatic proceedings that defined these important campaigns and the legendary commanders who presided over them. Book jacket.

Force of a Cyclone
Force of a Cyclone

Author: Caroline Ann Davis

Publisher: Savas Beatie

Published: 2023-07-15

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1611216400

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All of Middle Tennessee held its breath when the new year dawned in 1863. One day earlier on December 31, Braxton Bragg’s Confederate Army of Tennessee faced off against William Rosecrans’s Federal Army of the Cumberland just outside Murfreesboro along Stones River. The commanders, who led armies nearly equal in size, had prepared identical attack plans, but Bragg struck first. His morning attack bent the Federal line back upon itself. The desperate fighting seesawed throughout the day amid rocky outcroppings and cedar groves. The Federals managed to avoid a crushing defeat and hold on until dark as the last hours of the old year slipped away. The cold and exhausted soldiers rang in the New Year surrounded by the pitiful cries of the wounded punctuated by cracks of skirmish fire while the opposing generals contemplated their next moves. With the fate of Middle Tennessee yet to be determined, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863. The president had signed the proclamation back in September of 1862, but he needed battlefield victories to bolster its authority. The stakes being gambled outside Murfreesboro were enormous. Determined to win the battle outright, Bragg launched another large-scale assault on January 2. The fate of the Army of the Cumberland and the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation hung in the balance. In Force of a Cyclone: The Battle of Stones River, December 31, 1862–January 2, 1863, authors Caroline Davis and Bert Dunkerly explore a significant turning point of the Civil War, and one that had the highest percentage of casualties on both sides of any Civil War battle. Lincoln himself would often look back on that fragile New Year’s Day and ponder all that was at stake. “I can never forget whilst I remember anything,” he told Federal commander Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, “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.”

No Better Place to Die
No Better Place to Die

Author: Peter Cozzens

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1991-07

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780252062292

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A mere handful of battlefields have come to epitomize the anguish and pain of America's Civil War: Gettysburg, Shiloh, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga. Yet another name belongs on that infamous list: Stones River, the setting for Peter Cozzens's No Better Place to Die. It was here that both the Union and Confederate armies lost over one-quarter of their forces in battle casualties. The Confederacy's defeat at Stones River unleashed a wave of dissension that crippled the army's high command and ultimately closed Tennessee to the South for two years. The loss deterred the British and French from coming to the aid of the South in the Civil War, with tragic effects for the Southern cause. In the 126 years since the guns fell silent at Stones River, few books have examined the bloody clash and its impact on the war's subsequent outcome. No Better Place to Die recounts the events and strategies that brought the two armies to the banks of this central Tennessee river on December 31, 1862. Cozzens re-creates the battle itself, following the movements and performance of individual regiments. A series of maps clarifies the combat activity. Cozzens frequently lets the men who fought the battle speak for themselves, through letters, diaries, memoirs, and battlefield communications. Here we learn about such critical moments as General Philip Sheridan's gallant defense along the Wilkinson Pike, one of the war's most tenacious stands against overwhelming odds, and the bravery in battle exemplified by Brekenridge's attack on the Union left, a doomed assault with the poignancy of Pickett's charge. Over twenty thousand Union and Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured in the bloody New Year's battle of Stone's River. The impact of their struggle extended far beyond the thousands of shattered human lives, ultimately imperiling the fortunes of the Confederacy. No Better Place to Die pays tribute to the heroes, the scoundrels, the mistakes, the bravery, and the grief at Stone's River.

The Fall of the House of Dixie
The Fall of the House of Dixie

Author: Bruce C. Levine

Publisher: Random House Incorporated

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 1400067030

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A revisionist history of the radical transformation of the American South during the Civil War examines the economic, social and political deconstruction and rebuilding of Southern institutions as experienced by everyday people. By the award-winning author of Confederate Emancipation.

Cuban Confederate Colonel
Cuban Confederate Colonel

Author: Antonio Rafael De la Cova

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13: 9781570034961

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In doing so, de la Cova sheds new light on the connections between Southern and Cuban society, the workings of coastal defenses during the Civil War, and the vicissitudes of Reconstruction for a Cuban expatriate."--Jacket.