"Decisive Charge Upon Byrne's Confederate Battery, By The Seventy-Eight Pennsylvania and Twenty-First Ohio Volunteers, at the Battle of Murfreesboro', January 2d 1863," Harper's Weekly, 1892

As 1862 drew to a close, the Confederacy was on the verge of scoring a major victory that had the potential to drive Union forces from Middle Tennessee. On the morning of December 31, Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee met Union General William Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland northwest of Murfreesboro. Bragg's early morning attack caught the Union troops on Rosecrans' right wing by surprise and quickly drove them back. Rosecrans' men, however, were able to repulse further Confederate attacks for the rest of the day.

Both sides spent New Year's Day resting and attending to their wounded. Fighting resumed in the afternoon on January 2, 1863, when Bragg attacked Rosecrans' left flank. The Confederate attack pushed Union troops back across the Stones River, but then stalled as it ran into the massed Union artillery at McFadden Ford. In less than an hour, the Army of Tennessee suffered over 1,800 casualties. As Rosecrans began receiving reinforcements and supplies on January 3, Bragg retreated back to Tullahoma.

Nearly 29% of the approximately 81,000 troops from both sides were either killed, wounded, or captured during the battle, giving the Battle of Stones River the highest casualty rate of any major engagement during the Civil War.