commander, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Franklin
Cheatham, didn’t help matters. A barrel-
chested bull of a man, Cheatham was a
tough fighter whose undeniable bravery
was sadly compromised by excessive fond-
ness for the bottle. Subsequent to the battle
at Stones River, the general would be
dogged by persistent rumors that he had
been pitifully inebriated during the fighting.
The most nagging problem for Confed-
erate troops proved to be Union General
Sheridan. The scrappy little Irishman had
remained edgy since the previous evening,
and he had ordered his division under arms
well before dawn. Far from being caught
unawares, his troops, largely Midwestern
volunteers, were ready and waiting for the
enemy, and Sheridan had also bolstered his
line with artillery. The right flank brigade,
led by Joshua Sill, was formed on a ridge-
line crowned with heavy timber. Sheridan
and Sill were among the few Federal gen-erals who had actively prepared for the
Confederate attack. Paired together in the
face of impending crisis, they would prove
a formidable duo.
The grim task of assaulting Sheridan’s
position fell to the brigade led by Colonel
J.Q. Loomis, who brought his troops for-
ward roughly an hour behind schedule.
Loomis’s men, largely Alabamians, were
forced to brave a 300-yard expanse of
open ground and were badly cut up in the
process. When they neared the wood line,
panicked Federal troops from Colonel
William Woodruff’s brigade fled into the
timber on Loomis’s left. The 26th
Alabama impetuously surged into the gap
but left their own flank dangerously
exposed in the process. The troops of the
35th Illinois unleashed a deadly enfilade
fire into the Alabamians, abruptly scatter-
ing them to the rear.
Loomis’s center regiment, the 1stLouisiana, was fortunate to face the 24th
Wisconsin, a fresh regiment of greenhorns
that broke in short order. But on the Con-
federate right the two opposing lines
viciously mauled each other in a stand-up
fight that lasted half an hour. Both sides
took a heavy beating and the Rebels, in the
open and subject to artillery fire, were the
first to crack. When they fled to the rear,
the Federals counterattacked and cleared
the Rebels from the field to their front.
It had been a short but ghastly fight, and
two brigade commanders were already out
of action. Loomis was injured when artillery
fire sent a tree limb crashing on top of him;
Sill, who had ridden up and down the line
encouraging his troops, was felled when a
Minie bullet fatally struck him in the mouth
and exited the back of his head. His aide,
Lieutenant John Mitchell, found the
stricken brigadier “unconscious and alone,
bubbling out his last breaths through blood
that thickly flowed over his fair face.”
The Federals had little time to rest.
Within minutes, a fresh line of Confeder-
ates appeared in the distance, the reserve
brigade of Colonel Alfred Vaughan.
Vaughan’s troops had jeered the Alabami-
ans for retreating, and one winded soldier
had angrily pointed to the Yankees and
barked, “Yes, and you’ll find it the hottest
place that you ever struck.”
Vaughan’s men were indeed in for a rude
awakening. His troops muscled aside
Woodruff’s Federals but were quickly dri-
ven off by a counterattack. Only the hard-
driving 9th Texas, oblivious that the rest of
the brigade had fallen back, pressed for-
ward. The regiment’s leader, Colonel
William Young, repeatedly ordered his men
forward to engage the 35th Illinois but
quickly found that he had led his men into
a deadly crossfire. Trapped between the
35th and 38th Illinois, Young scorned the
notion of falling back. Dramatically lifting
the regimental colors, Young ordered a
fresh charge directly into the 35th Illinois.
His desperate gamble paid off, the Illi-
noisans broke, and Woodruff’s line came
unhinged.
Sill’s former outfit was likewise the target
of a fresh Confederate brigade, that ofABOVE: Fighting at Stones River centered on the macadamized Nashville Turnpike and the Nashville and
Chattanooga Railroad, which ran parallel to the pike. Confederate efforts concentrated on getting behind
the Union army and the two thoroughfares. OPPOSITE: Harper’s Weeklyartist William Travis, an eyewit-
ness to the battle, sketched this picture of Union troops fleeing from a Confederate attack. Firmer
troops stand fast at top left.CWQ-Sum16 Stones River_Layout 1 4/20/16 4:45 PM Page 88