Dick revived later. He talked more freely with those about him, and he gathered from the gossip which travels fast, much of what had happened. The Union army, so confident in the morning, was in a dangerous position at night. Nearly thirty of its guns were taken. Three thousand unwounded and many wounded men were prisoners in the hands of the South. Arms and ammunition by the wholesale had been captured. The Southern cavalry under Fighting Joe Wheeler had gone behind Rosecrans’ whole army and had cut his communications with his base at Nashville, at the same time raiding his wagon trains. Another body of cavalry under Wharton had taken all the wagons of McCook’s corps, and still a third under Pegram had captured many prisoners on the Nashville road in the rear of the Northern army.
Dick became aware of a great, an intense anxiety among the leaders. The army was isolated. The raiding Southern cavalry kept it from receiving fresh supplies of either food or ammunition, unless it retreated.
“We’re stripped of everything but our arms,” said Warner.
“Then we’ve really lost nothing,” said the valiant Pennington, “because with our arms we’ll recover everything.”
They had a commander of like spirit. At that moment Rosecrans, gathering his generals in a tent pitched hastily for him, was saying to them, “Gentlemen, we will conquer or die here.” Short and strong, but every word meant. There was no need to say more. The generals animated by the same spirit went forth to their commands, and first among them was the grim and silent Thomas, who had the bulldog grip of Grant. Perhaps it was this indomitable tenacity and resolution that made the Northern generals so much more successful in the west than they were in the east during the early years of the war.
But there was exultation in the Confederate camp. Bragg and Polk and Hardee and Breckinridge and the others felt now that Rosecrans would retreat in the night after losing so many men and one-third of his artillery. Great then was their astonishment when the rising sun of New Year’s day showed him sitting there, grimly waiting, with his back to Stone River, a formidable foe despite his losses. Above all the Southern generals saw the heavily massed artillery, which they had such good reason to fear.
Dick, who had slept soundly through the night, was up like all the others at dawn and he beheld the Southern army before them, yet not moving, as if uncertain what to do. He felt again that thrill of courage and resolution, and, born of it, was the belief that despite the first day’s defeat the chances were yet even. These western youths were of a tough and enduring stock, as he had seen at Shiloh and Perryville, and the battle was not always to him who won the first day. A long time passed and there was no firing.
“Not so eager to rush us as they were,” said Warner. “It’s a mathematical certainty that an army that’s not running away is not whipped, and that certainty is patent to our Southern friends also. But to descend from mathematics to poetry, a great poet says that he who runs away will live to fight another day. I will transpose and otherwise change that, making it to read: He who does not run away may make the other fellow unable to fight another day.”
“You talk too much like a schoolmaster, George,” said Pennington.
“The most important business of a school teacher is to teach the young idea how to shoot, and lately I’ve had ample chances to give such instruction.”
It was not that they were frivolous, but like most other lads in the army, they had grown into the habit of teasing one another, which was often a relief to teaser as well as teased.
“I think, sir,” said Dick to Colonel Winchester, “that some of our troops are moving.”
He was looking through his glasses toward the left, where he saw a strong Union force, with banners waving, advancing toward Bragg’s right.
“Ah, that is well done!” exclaimed Colonel Winchester. “If our men break through there we’ll cut Bragg off from Murfreesborough and his ammunition and supplies.”