Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/78

 their supports steadily before them, on December 29 reached the west bank of Stone's River in the immediate vicinity of Murfreesboro', which lies on the east side of it. General Rosecrans had believed that his antagonist would retreat on his approach, but found him well concentrated, and evidently ready to accept battle, with the two corps of Generals Polk and Hardee, and a division under General Breckinridge. Unknown to each other, both commanders prepared on the 30th to attack the next morning. By an extraordinary coincidence, the plans of battle were exact counterparts. Rosecrans aimed to inflict a great defeat upon the enemy by turning his right, and Bragg was determined to try the Perryville tactics again by a flanking movement with the bulk of his army against our right, which he doubtless knew was commanded by the same general, McCook, upon whom he had tried the same game all but successfully. In this concurrence of the purposes of the two adversaries, he who struck first and heaviest would naturally have the best chance to win, and this advantage unfortunately fell to Bragg.

Thus the great battle of Stone's River, one of the bloodiest of the Civil War, came to be fought on the last day of the year 1862. Bragg, by a general wheel of his centre and left under Polk and Hardee, managed to work around our right, and to hurl upon this flank massive columns with such irresistible impetus that they swept before them, partly dispersed, and partly captured the first of our divisions encountered, and rolled back upon the centre the other two divisions. The centre, being thus exposed to determined attacks from the front, flank, and rear, was also compelled to give ground, and succeeded in staying the steady advance of the rebels from a new position only with the help of divisions from our left. For some time during the day there was the gravest peril of a general and crushing defeat of our whole army, and it may still be considered an open question whether the prevention of such a terrible catastrophe was due more to our resistance than to the