e Northern army was practically united the next day,
but so great was the exhaustion of the troops that Rosecrans did not
deem it wise yet to attack his foe. He was fully aware of the quality
of the Southern soldiers. He remembered how they had turned suddenly
at Perryville and with inferior numbers had fought a draw. Now on the
defensive, and in such a deep and sticky soil, they would have a great
advantage and his generals agreed with him in waiting.

Dick spent much of this day in riding with Colonel Winchester along
their lines. There was some talk about Bragg retreating, but the boy,
a veteran in everything but years, knew the ominous signs. Bragg had no
notion of retreating.

In the night that followed Colonel Winchester himself and some of his
young officers, accompanied by the brave and skillful Sergeant Whitley,
scouted toward Stone River. In the darkness and with great care, in
order to avoid any sound of splashing, they waded a deep creek and came
out upon a plateau, rolling slightly in character, and with a deep clay
soil, very muddy from the heavy rains. A part of the plateau was cleared
of forest, but here and there were groves, chiefly of the red cedar,
and thickets, some of them so dense that a man would have difficulty in
forcing his way through.

Colonel Winchester and his little group paused at the edge of the creek,
and then dived promptly into a thicket. They saw further up the plateau
many fires and the figures of men walking before them and they saw
nearer by sentinels marching back and forth. They were even able to make
out cannon in batteries, and they knew that it was not worth while to go
any further. The Confederate army was there, and they would merely walk
directly into its arms.

They returned with even greater caution than they had come, but the next
day the whole division crossed the creek at another point, and as it
cautiously felt its way forward it encountered another formidable body
of Southern pickets hidden in the woods. There was sharp firing for a
quarter of an hour, and many of the Ohio men fell, but the pickets were
finally swept back, and at sunset the half circle that Rosecrans had
intended to form for the attack upon the Southern army was complete.

All the movements and delays brought them up to the night before the
last day in the year. The Winchester regiment with the Ohio division lay
in a region of little hills and rocks, covered with forest, with which
its officer