KILL ZONE

Braxton Bragg seemed satisfied as a bloody day of combat wound down outside Murfreesboro, Tenn., on December 31, 1862. The Army of Tennessee commander was confident that when dawn broke on New Year’s Day, his opponent, Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, would be gone. Although the Confederates could not claim outright victory that first day of the Battle of Stones River, they had enjoyed the advantage after an early morning attack on Rosecrans’ unsuspecting Army of the Cumberland (known at the time as the 14th Army Corps). Rosecrans, Bragg assumed, would pull his army back toward Nashville overnight rather than risk its inevitable annihilation.

Bragg’s contentment on that New Year’s Eve would ultimately cost him the battle. As the general waited to see how Rosecrans would act, he did little to improve his odds, choosing not to draft further plans or to reposition his forces. Rosecrans, however, got busy very quickly. The Union general saw a line of flickering torchlights in the distance during an early morning reconnaissance that he believed signaled another pending Confederate attack. Though he was mistaken, Rosecrans began strengthening his lines. Critically, he also ordered Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden, the Left Wing commander, to reoccupy the high ground above McFadden’s Ford, on the east bank of Stones River.

January 1 would pass with some troop realignment by the opposing forces but no meaningful fighting. Finally, on the afternoon of January 2, Bragg decided to move, ordering Maj. Gen. John Breckinridge to lead a 4 p.m. attack with his division, part of Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee’s Corps, on the Union left. Bragg believed that an assault launched an hour before sunset, if successful, would thwart any possibility of a Union counterattack. Breckinridge objected, sure the attack was a mistake, but followed orders.

Breckinridge’s troops succeeded in quickly forcing Crittenden’s men off the high ground in front of McFadden’s Ford, but a burst of manmade thunder soon reverberated across the landscape, as 12 Union batteries (57 cannons