January 2013 Rear Ranks Entry

From the Rear Ranks:  

 

Greetings Members!

 

I hope everyone enjoyed the Christmas and Holiday season!   I apologize that this is slightly late coming out but after an extended period without internet connectivity as well as several fire-drills at work, that’s how it is.  This month we are having a traditional roundtable meeting which will involve discussion topics.  I have listed out the topics I received below but if anyone has other ideas I would more than welcome them.  This month 150 years ago saw several milestones in the War of the Rebellion.  Two of the most important was the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation as well as the critical western Battle of Murfreesboro.  Below is a description of the battle from the New York Times published on January 3, 1863.  I look forward to seeing you all on January 2nd.

 

Respectively,

Chip Crowe
President,
Brandywine Valley Civil War Round Table

The Battle in Tennessee.

January 3, 1863

The last day of the old year went out in quiet all over the great theatre of military operations excepting in Middle Tennessee. But there, on that day, one of the greatest, and we judge it will prove to be the very greatest battle yet known in the Southwest, was fought. The only other Southwestern battle that equals it in the magnitude of the forces engaged, was the battle of Pittsburgh Landing -- and that only on the second day, after the arrival of BUELL's column. The army of Gen. ROSECRANS comprises the greater part of the magnificent force so long drilled and manoeuvred by Gen. BUELL in Kentucky and Tennessee, and which was transferred to Gen. ROSECRANS after BUELL had failed, in Northern Kentucky, to destroy with it the same rebel army which it has now again met near Murfreesboro. The opposing rebel force is, next to the army at Fredericksburgh, the largest rebel army in the South. It was recently reviewed by JEFF. DAVIS; and in the account of the review published in the Chattanooga Rebel, the columns of Polk, Bragg, Hardee, Breckinridge, Cheatham and others were mentioned as being present. The whole, we believe, was under the immediate command of Gen. BRAGG, who handled the same army during the campaign in Kentucky. For, although Gen. JOSEPH JOHNSTON is the Commander of the Department, it was said when he took command that he was only to be a sort of closet strategist or Generalissimo, and not to lead in the field. We judge it would be a fair estimate to put each of the armies at at least eighty thousand men.

It was on Friday of last week that ROSECRANS moved out from Nashville to attack the rebel, army. By next day, he was in the vicinity of Murfreesboro' and had some sharp skirmishing. He remained quiet on Sunday, but on Monday morning, his army, divided into three bodies, moved by different roads upon the enemy's position. On Tuesday he occupied the city, the rebels retiring some distance South, though not, we judge, as far as Tullahoma, as is asserted in one of the dispatches. He came up with the enemy's main body on Wednesday, and gave it battle. Concerning the engagement of that day, we have a dispatch from Gen. BOYLE, which comes from Murfreesboro on New-Year's Day, asserting that the battle had been a terrible one, and that the losses were reported to be enormous, but that things looked favorable for us at noon. Another dispatch, dated on the afternoon of the battle, said that the enemy had been driven a mile, that his intrenchments were in our hands, and that we were then advancing our whole line. But the reports are as yet extremely meagre and unsatisfactory, and for what we know of the further progress of operations, we shall have to refer our readers to the telegraphic columns, where will be found everything received up to the moment of going to press.

(Source New York Times)