On Dec. 7th John F. Tarrant got his discharge for disability. Left Shelbyville on Dec. 7th, travelled pike 6 or 8 miles and bivouaced for night. A stable made quite comfortable quarters for as many as it would hold. On Monday marched through Unionville to one and a half miles from Eaglesville and camped. Friday, Dec. 20th, Eaglesville to Murfreesboro, joining again Reserve Battalion and meeting Wick Brown just arrived with three boxes of goods from Tuscaloosa, bringing something for nearly everybody.
On Dec. 28th Capt. Lumsden started for Richmond, Va., sick, taking Corporal Sheperd with him. Lt. Cribbs was left in charge of the reserve artillery, and Lt. Ed Tarrant in command of the Battery.
On Dec. 30th the rifle section was ordered to report to Gen. Breckenridge on the extreme right of the army, facing the enemy on Stone River north of Murfreesboro. The other section was in position in yard of Mr. Spence's negro quarters but was moved nearer to the enemy later in the afternoon where it remained all next day, the 31st of Dec., 1862.
Murfreesboro
Dec. 31, 1862, most of the fighting was on the left wing when our forces drove the Federals back several miles.
The battery was first stationed on the right, near a vacated house on a hill. Here we found a barrel partly full of seconds unbolted wheat flour and a skillet and we made up some biscuit and after the first batch was cooked, the order came to move and we wrapped up the dough in a cloth and that night after crossing Stone River and throwing up some breastworks we cooked the balance on the shovels we had used for ditching.
The battery was in an open field, in front of a large brick house on a high hill where Rosecrang had massed his batteries after his right had been driven back to a right angle with its first position. This was a pivotal position and the point where the General is said to have remarked after his first day's disaster, "Bragg is a good dog, but Holdfast is better." Breckenridge made an attack on this position and as he rode into the fight, I thought him the finest looking man I had ever seen on horseback. But the position was too strong to be taken, although Bragg was in person on the field not far from us. That night at mid-night, the order came to hitch up and leave. One of the drivers reported that the horses hitched to the pole of one of the caissons, had eaten off about three feet of the seasoned oak pole. I told him to tie an extra pole under the one gnawed to a point with the halters from the horses and we marched off in retreat. The horses were almost starved as well as the men. After going a little way on the pike, the column halted and the men marched by barefooted some of them on the frozen pike, while we built up a fire and Sergt. Hargrove, standing in front of it, had half the tail of his overcoat burned off before the warmth reached his skin.
Marching all night, we met Dr. Leland next morning, muddy as if he had been on a fox hunt in "Bear Heaven" and Jim Craddock, a noted dude, with his coat neatly buttoned and his collar clean. He was said to sleep lying on his back in a tent with ten or a dozen men, and never turned or moved lest he should disorder his clothing. But he was a brave soldier. Lt. Cribbs had his horse killed and several from the battery were lost here, the breastworks were nothing but rail piles from an old fence.
For three days after the two armies faced each other and on the night of Jan. 3, 1863, Bragg's army retreated.
On Jan. 4th Confederate scouts went six miles north of Murfreesboro beyond the battle field but found no enemy. Both armies had retreated. In the evening of the 4th Federals began to advance, slowly feeling their way. Corporal James T. Searcy remained a prisoner at Murfreesboro to attend to wants of his brother Reuben, fatally wounded and left in hospital. He was exchanged at City Point near Petersburg, Va., April 12, 1863, and reached the battery at Estelle Springs, Tenn., on April 20th.