Gen. Philip Sheridan in the right center of the line prevented a total collapse, and the Union assumed a tight defensive position backing up to the Nashville Turnpike.

Repeated Confederate attacks were repulsed from this concentrated line, most notably in the cedar "Round Forest" salient against the brigade of Col. William B. Hazen.

Bragg attempted to continue the assault with the division of Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge, but the troops were slow in arriving and their multiple piecemeal attacks failed.

Fighting resumed on January 2, 1863, when Bragg ordered Breckinridge to assault a lightly defended Union position on a hill to the east of the Stones River.

During a visit by Confederate president Jefferson Davis on December 16, Bragg was ordered to send the infantry division of Maj. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson to Mississippi to assist in the defense of Vicksburg.

[9] On the Union side, President Abraham Lincoln had become frustrated with Buell's passivity and replaced him with Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, victor of the recent battles of Iuka and Corinth.

Until January 5, Carter's men destroyed railroad bridges and fought a few skirmishes, including a serious one on December 28 at Perkins's Mill (also known as Elk Fort).

[11] The Army of the Cumberland marched southeast the day after Christmas in three columns, or "wings", towards Murfreesboro, and they were effectively harassed by Wheeler's Confederate cavalry along the way, which delayed their movements.

Although Rosecrans had reported his army to have 81,729 effectives in Nashville, his force on the march was barely more than half of that since he needed to protect his base and supply lines from the harassment of the Confederate cavalry.

Wood, John M. Palmer, and Horatio P. Van Cleve) took a route that was parallel to the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, passing through La Vergne and south of Smyrna.

[12] Murfreesboro was a small town in the Stones River Valley, a former state capital named for a colonel in the American Revolutionary War, Hardy Murfree.

It was located in a rich agricultural region from which Bragg planned to provision his army and a position that he intended to use to block a potential Union advance on Chattanooga.

On December 29, Wheeler and 2,500 of his men rode completely around the Union army, destroying supply wagons and capturing reserve ammunition in Rosecrans's trains.

[15] Bragg's forces were situated with Leonidas Polk's corps on the west side of the river, and William J. Hardee's men on the east.

This was the third major battle, after Fort Donelson and Shiloh, in which an early morning attack caught a Union army by surprise.

[19] Although meeting stiff resistance, Hardee drove the Union troops back three miles (5 km) to the railroad and the Nashville Pike by 10:00 a.m., where Johnson was able to rally them.

As Rosecrans raced across the battlefield directing units, seeming to be ubiquitous to his men, his uniform was covered with blood from his friend and chief of staff, Col. Julius Garesché, beheaded by a cannonball while riding alongside.

At about that time, Bragg received a false report that a strong Union force was moving south along the Lebanon Turnpike in his direction.

Repeated attacks on the left flank of the Union line were repulsed by Col. William B. Hazen's brigade in a rocky, 4-acre (16,000 m2) wooded area named "Round Forest" by the locals; it became known as "Hell's Half-Acre".

[23] Bragg planned to attack the Union left, a portion of the oval line facing southeast, manned by Hazen's brigade.

[24] Bragg's plan had had a fundamental flaw: although his objective was to cut Rosecrans's line of communication (the Nashville Pike), his attack drove the Union defenders to concentrate at that point.

Bragg's biographer, Grady McWhiney, observed: Unless the Union army collapsed at the first onslaught, it would be pushed back into a tighter and stronger defensive position as the battle continued, while the Confederate forces would gradually lose momentum, become disorganized, and grow weaker.

Convoys of wounded had to travel under heavy escort to be protected from the cavalry, and Wheeler interpreted these movements as preparations for a retreat, and he reported such to Bragg.

[29] At 4:00 p.m. on January 2, Bragg directed Breckinridge's troops to attack Beatty's division, which was occupying the hill on the east side of the river.

Late that evening, Thomas attacked the center of the Confederate line with two regiments in reaction to constant enemy sharpshooting against troops in his division under Lovell H. Rousseau.

[5] Considering that only about 78,400 men were engaged,[4] this was the highest percentage of casualties (3.8% killed, 19.8% wounded, and 7.9% missing/captured) of any major battle in the Civil War, higher in absolute numbers than the infamous bloodbaths at Shiloh and Antietam earlier that year.

[35] Four brigadier generals were killed or mortally wounded: Confederate James E. Rains and Roger W. Hanson; Union Edward N. Kirk and Joshua W.

Bragg received almost universal scorn from his Confederate military colleagues; only the support of Joseph E. Johnston and President Jefferson Davis's inability to find a suitable replacement saved his command.

The battle was very important to Union morale, as evidenced by Abraham Lincoln's letter to General Rosecrans: "You gave us a hard-earned victory, which had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over."

The Confederate threat to Kentucky and Middle Tennessee had been nullified, and Nashville was secure as a major Union supply base for the rest of the war.