Rosecrans had been badly worsted in battle, but he was not yet beaten. His army was not demoralized, and his own determination was not impaired. He took account of his ammunition, sent detachments to protect his communications, and resolved to hold his position and renew the battle on the following day, either as the assailant of his enemy or as the assaulted, as circumstances might determine. But the next day was passed in inaction on both sides, and it was not until the second of January, 1863, that the battle was renewed. Even then it was renewed only in part and obviously with no disposition on either side to bring on a general engagement. Nevertheless there was very bloody fighting on the part of the detachments engaged, in which the Confederate general, Breckinridge, becoming involved and being subjected to a concentrated artillery fire at short range, lost nearly two thousand men. Two days later and after desultory fighting, General Bragg abandoned his position at Murfreesboro and retired to Duck river, where he fortified. He reported his losses in this battle--which is variously known as Murfreesboro, and Stone river--at 10,000 men, and declared that he had taken 6,000 prisoners. He had also captured thirty guns and lost three. On the other hand, General Rosecrans reported a loss of 8,778 in killed and wounded, and about 2,800 in prisoners lost to the enemy--a total of somewhat less than 11,000. The two reports are hopelessly at variance and irreconcilable, as to the number of prisoners taken, as was usually the case with the reports of battle losses at that period of the war. They were usually inaccurate and never trustworthy, as every historian who has honestly tried to find out the truth has learned to his annoyance. But whatever the exact losses were on either side, they were far greater than were those of many more famous battles, and about as great as those of the battles commonly accounted as of superior proportions. Thus the loss admitted by the Confederates at Murfreesboro out of a force of about 35,000 or 40,000 men, was nearly twice that which Lee, with a force of 68,000, suffered at Fredericksburg; while the admitted Federal loss at Murfreesboro, where the army numbered 43,700 men, was very nearly as great as that sustained by Burnside's army of 120,000 at Fredericksburg, including the fearful slaughter in the six terrible assaults upon Marye's Heights. Obviously the battle of Murfreesboro must be accounted one of the bloodiest struggles of the war, as well as one of the most heroically contested on both sides. Its indecisiveness has been very interestingly summed up by General Van Horne in his "History of the Army of the Cumberland" as follows: