Battle of Stones River

An extended lull fell over the western armies following the Battle of Perryville in the fall of 1862. Although victorious, Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell lacked the initiative to follow up on his victory and was soon relieved of command by President Abraham Lincoln. Major General William S. Rosecrans assumed command of the Army of the Ohio and reconstituted it as the Army of the Cumberland. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and the president expected his generals to bring home as many victories as possible by January 1, 1863—when he would officially sign the act—to give this new measure backbone.

The day after Christmas 1862, Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland departed Nashville with 44,000 men, marching toward Confederate general Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee at Murfreesboro, 30 miles to the south. The overly cautious and plodding Rosecrans left some 40,000 men in and around the Tennessee capital to guard his communication and supply routes, an advantage for Bragg.

Rosecrans and Bragg’s forces clashed at Stones River as 1862 ended. Mistakes on the Confederate side led to a tactical Union victory, but casualties were high, and it was months before Rosecrans’s Federals would be battle-ready again.