drumming the cowards out of camp. It
was a mortifying spectacle, but from that day no officer in that
division ever abandoned his colors.

My effective force in the battle of Stone River was 4,154 officers
and men. Of this number I lost 1,633 killed, wounded, and missing,
or nearly 40 per cent. In the remaining years of the war, though
often engaged in most severe contests, I never experienced in any of
my commands so high a rate of casualties. The ratio of loss in the
whole of Rosecrans's army was also high, and Bragg's losses were
almost equally great. Rosecrans carried into the action about 42,000
officers and men. He lost 13,230, or 31 per cent. Bragg's effective
force was 37,800 officers and men; he lost 10,306, or nearly 28 per
cent.

Though our victory was dearly bought, yet the importance of gaining
the day at any price was very great, particularly when we consider
what might have been the result had not the gallantry of the army and
the manoeuvring during the early disaster saved us from ultimate
defeat. We had started out from Nashville on an offensive campaign,
probably with no intention of going beyond Murfreesboro', in
midwinter, but still with the expectation of delivering a crushing
blow should the enemy accept our challenge to battle. He met us with
a plan of attack almost the counterpart of our own. In the execution
of his plan he had many advantages, not the least of which was his
intimate knowledge of the ground, and he came near destroying us.
Had he done so, Nashville would probably have fallen; at all events,
Kentucky would have been opened again to his incursions, and the
theatre of war very likely transferred once more to the Ohio River.
As the case now stood, however, Nashville was firmly established as a
base for future operations, Kentucky was safe from the possibility of
being again overrun, and Bragg, thrown on the defensive, was
compelled to give his thoughts to the protection of the interior of
the Confederacy and the security of Chattanooga, rather than indulge
in schemes of conquest north of the Cumberland River. While he still
held on in Middle Tennessee his grasp was so much loosened that only
slight effort would be necessary to push him back into Georgia, and
thus give to the mountain region of East Tennessee an opportunity to
prove its loyalty to the, Union.

The victory quieted the fears of the West and Northwest, destroyed
the hopes of the secession element in Kentuc