and unwounded
and many wounded men were prisoners in the hands of the South. Arms
and ammunition by the wholesale had been captured. The Southern cavalry
under Fighting Joe Wheeler had gone behind Rosecrans' whole army and
had cut his communications with his base at Nashville, at the same time
raiding his wagon trains. Another body of cavalry under Wharton had
taken all the wagons of McCook's corps, and still a third under Pegram
had captured many prisoners on the Nashville road in the rear of the
Northern army.

Dick became aware of a great, an intense anxiety among the leaders. The
army was isolated. The raiding Southern cavalry kept it from receiving
fresh supplies of either food or ammunition, unless it retreated.

"We're stripped of everything but our arms," said Warner.

"Then we've really lost nothing," said the valiant Pennington, "because
with our arms we'll recover everything."

They had a commander of like spirit. At that moment Rosecrans, gathering
his generals in a tent pitched hastily for him, was saying to them,
"Gentlemen, we will conquer or die here." Short and strong, but every
word meant. There was no need to say more. The generals animated by the
same spirit went forth to their commands, and first among them was the
grim and silent Thomas, who had the bulldog grip of Grant. Perhaps it
was this indomitable tenacity and resolution that made the Northern
generals so much more successful in the west than they were in the east
during the early years of the war.

But there was exultation in the Confederate camp. Bragg and Polk and
Hardee and Breckinridge and the others felt now that Rosecrans would
retreat in the night after losing so many men and one-third of his
artillery. Great then was their astonishment when the rising sun of New
Year's day showed him sitting there, grimly waiting, with his back to
Stone River, a formidable foe despite his losses. Above all the Southern
generals saw the heavily massed artillery, which they had such good
reason to fear.

Dick, who had slept soundly through the night, was up like all the
others at dawn and he beheld the Southern army before them, yet not
moving, as if uncertain what to do. He felt again that thrill of courage
and resolution, and, born of it, was the belief that despite the first
day's defeat the chances were yet even. These western youths were of a
tough and enduring stock, as he had seen at Shiloh and Perryville, and
the battle was not always to