The very audacity of this step was its success. It is probable that the Confederates believed Miller to be leading an overwhelming force, for they stopped, fired a few shots, and then began to retreat. With fixed bayonets, Miller's men pursued, and now, with quick perception of the opportunity, other Union commands joined in the charge. Perhaps a half mile had been traversed when the Confederates showed signs of rallying. But as their lines were halted and rearranged, the missiles of death from half a hundred cannon,--drawn hastily together by Major Mendenhall, Crittenden's chief of artillery, and posted on a hill which commanded the whole field,--suddenly fell among them. They fled again, leaving on the ground 2,000 dead and wounded,--the fruit of an action of less than an hour. This ended the battle of Stone's River. For another twenty-four hours the two armies confronted each other with no fight of importance. During the night of January 3, Bragg retreated unmolested. He reported having received information that Rosecrans was being reenforced, but in this again he may be suspected of a euphemism. As a matter of fact, the retreat had been advised at a council of his principal generals, two of whom,--Withers and Cheatham,--united in the blunt statement over their own signatures that he had only three reliable divisions left and that these were, to a certain extent, demoralized. Most of his officers also assured him, with equal frankness, that he ought to give up the command of the army,--advice that he did not heed; and Polk, for writing to this effect to the Confederate President, was placed under arrest; but he was afterward released. CHAPTER VII WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN,--AND WHAT WAS The Battle of Stone's River produced profound disappointment both in the North and in the South. Claimed as a victory by both sides, the first fruits fell to the Army of the Cumberland, which had not only held the field but had compelled the retirement of its adversary and the relinquishment by the latter of strategic positions and domination over considerable areas. But as the weeks passed without developments of other striking results, the Northern people felt that the victory had been little more than technical, and that the battle was another of the practically indecisive contests so frequent at that period.