It was perhaps natural that the outcome was thus viewed in the two sections, for it is in the light of what it might have been,—rather than what it was,—that Stone’s River must be judged. Union victory upon that field did not, it is true, reveal results of transcendent importance, but Confederate victory,—at one time so near,—would have been followed by the weightiest and most far-reaching consequences. Had Bragg been able to drive his infantry across the Nashville pike on the last day of 1862, or had he been able to crush the Union left on the second of January, 1863, the capture or destruction,—whole or partial,—of his enemy would have been one of the least of these consequences. For the way to the Ohio would then have been open, and Cincinnati and other opulent Northern cities would have been at the mercy of Confederate arms. Vicksburg would not have been an historic name, for overwhelming forces could have been turned against Grant to crush him, or drive him from Mississippi. Tennessee,—second State in population below Mason and Dixon’s line, and first in such food as armies consume,—would have been held to furnish the vital recruits and supplies to the Confederacy. East Tennessee would have waited in vain for the relieving Northern forces. Kentucky and Missouri might have been wrested from Union control, and Arkansas freed from the presence of the invader. Finally, Europe’s recognition, with the manifold complexities for the North that must have ensued therefrom, could have been no longer logically denied to the Richmond government.
After Stone’s River, Bragg’s battered battalions retired 30 to 40 miles away,—to the line of Duck Diver,—and there maintained an attitude of defiance for 6 months. It took that period for Rosecrans to restore the ravages of battle in his army. Wheeler, Morgan, and Forrest,—the cavalry chieftans,—meanwhile, kept up a series of raids upon Rosecrans’s long line of communications,—raids that sorely tried that commander, pestered as he was by constant injunctions from Washington to move forward. But in June, 1863, having at length accumulated sufficient supplies, the Army of the Cumberland started the campaign that was to drive the Army of the Tennessee out of the State from which it took its name. Then came another halt; but in September the Union forces again advanced and the Confederates again retired.
At Chickamauga the Army of the Tennessee, reinforced by Longstreet and Buckner, turned, and, inflicting a bloody defeat upon the Army of the Cumberland, locked it up in the fastness of Chattanooga. But Bragg was unable to gather substantial fruits from his victory. At Missionary Ridge, in December, the Army of the Cumberland led in the movement that broke the battle-front of its historic adversary. Thenceforth the Army of the Tennessee,—fighting bravely at every turn,—was obliged by the weight of opposing numbers to retire further and further into the South. At Resaca, at Dalton, at Kenesaw Mountain, at Atlanta, and at a score of other places it showed the qualities of valor and endurance that had already won it deserved renown. But it never looked to the North again until the latter days of 1864, when Hood summoned it for its last great adventure,—that desperate leap past Sherman, which was to end in utter rout before the ramparts of Nashville.
The Army of the Cumberland lost in the Stone’s River campaign 1,730 killed, 7,802 wounded, 3,717 captured and missing; a total of 13,249.
The Army of the Tennessee lost 1,294 killed, 7,945 wounded, 1,027 captured or missing; a total of 10,266.