Unwilling to concede middle
Tennessee to the Federals, the South continued to pursue aggressive
military plans. Confederate Generals Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby
Smith struck north into Kentucky in late summer of 1862, but Bragg’s
offensive ended in defeat at the Battle of Perryville. The Confederates
pulled back through Tennessee, stopping in Rutherford County. In July,
Forrest had taken the town of Murfreesboro (along with a thousand prisoners)
and embarked on a series of raids along the Tennessee-Kentucky line.
Forrest’s exploits, together with cavalryman Colonel John Hunt
Morgan’s resounding successes at Gallatin and Hartsville, made
Federal control of the region appear tenuous. Early in the war, cavalry
proved one of the South’s most effective weapons.
While Rebel cavalry
chipped away at the Federal occupation, Major General William S. Rosecrans
stockpiled men and supplies at Nashville. With Bragg smarting from his
Kentucky reverses and encamped only 30 miles away, a clash between the
two armies seemed imminent. After prodding from Lincoln, who always
urged his generals to carry the war to the enemy, Rosecrans moved cautiously
toward Murfreesboro. His 42,000-man Army of the Cumberland faced off
against Bragg’s 35,000-man Army of Tennessee.
On the morning
of December 31, Rebel infantry struck a hammer blow against the Union
right flank, driving part of Rosecrans’s army back on the remainder
of his force. Resistance stiffened around General Philip Sheridan’s
units, however, and the Confederate attack became piecemeal and broke
apart. Rosecrans dug in along the Nashville Pike, determined to hold
his position. Following a respite on New Year’s Day, Bragg ordered
General John Breckenridge’s division to make what proved to be
a hopeless attack that only added 1,600 more Confederate casualties.
Having wired CSA President Jefferson Davis to announce – prematurely
– a victory, Bragg now decided his army was in no shape to absorb
further punishment and retreated toward Tullahoma.
Proportionally,
the Battle of Stones River was one of the bloodiest of the entire war:
each side lost, as killed or wounded, between a quarter and third of
its troops. For the Federals, Bragg’s retreat was the only bright
news of an otherwise dismal winter. Lincoln later wrote to Rosecrans:
"You gave us a hard-earned victory which, had there been a defeat
instead, the nation could hardly have lived over."
It was
a measure of the ferocity of the Murfreesboro fight that both
armies withdrew for six months to recuperate. Rosecrans returned
to Nashville, and Bragg took up defensive positions along a ridgeline
north of Duck River. A late summer campaign saw the Union commander
dislodge the Confederates from their defensive line. With the
help of a brigade of mounted men armed with repeating Spencer
rifles, Federal columns out-flanked Bragg’s army and sent
it retreating to Chattanooga. In a relatively bloodless campaign,
Rosecrans had pushed the Army of Tennessee south of the Tennessee
River.
Mounted
infantryman of Wilder’s Brigade
The success of Confederate
raiding made the Federals tighten their grip on the civilian populace.
With Forrest’s troopers abroad, Federal garrisons were understandably
jumpy and regarded most natives as in league with the enemy. Foraging
was a serious burden on citizens, as both armies scoured the countryside
and stripped farms of food, wood, and livestock. Guerilla-style fighting
by undisciplined partisans, clan vendettas, and plain banditry produced
an ugly form of civil warfare across much of the state.
Part of this ‘behind-the-lines’
conflict involved espionage. Sam Davis, a young Confederate soldier
from Smyrna, was captured behind enemy lines with documents describing
Union troop dispositions. Although Davis was offered a pardon to divulge
the source of his information, he refused and was hanged in Pulaski
on November 21, 1863.
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Southern
refugees
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 Pulaski
was one of many outposts where Union troops kept uneasy
guard over the railroad and the townspeople. Middle Tennessee
endured enemy occupation longer than almost any other region
of the South. Another sign that there was more to civil
war than strictly military issues was the fact that, beginning
in the fall of 1863, the U. S. government began enlisting
freed slaves as soldiers. These units, commanded by white
officers, were officially designated as United States Colored
Troops (USCT). The state of Tennessee contributed nearly
21,000 African-American soldiers, 10% of the total number
of blacks mustered into service with the U. S. Army. USCT
units garrisoned towns, forts, and railroads and played
a key role in several battles in Tennessee.
USCT infantryman
"When
General Thomas rode over the battelfield and saw the bodies
of colored men side by side with the foremost, on the very
works of the enemy, he turned to his staff, saying ‘Gentlemen,
the question is settled, Negroes will fight.’ "
-Colonel
Thomas J. Morgan,
14th U.S. Colored Infantry
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