Col. John M. Harrell, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 10.2, Arkansas
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[341] loss in killed and wounded. Then followed Bragg's memorable retreat out of Kentucky, covered by Gen. Joe Wheeler, who, in protecting the retiring army, encountered the pursuing enemy twenty times. The Confederate army did not get out of the State too soon, for the wet season came on to swell the streams and render the roads impassable. The retreat under these disadvantages would have been disastrous. The enemy concentrated again at Nashville under Rosecrans, who had superseded Buell, and Bragg took position at Murfreesboro.

Christmas festivities, to which many had abandoned themselves, were hardly over, when the advance of Rosecrans developed the Confederate line on both sides of Stone's river—Lieutenant-General Hardee's corps (Cleburne's and Breckinridge's divisions) on the east bank, Lieutenant-General Polk's (Withers' and Cheatham's) on the west bank, McCown's division in reserve on the right of Hardee. The little river at its shoals is fordable; the banks above and below are shelving limestone; the land undulating with rocky upheavals and covered with cedar glades. On the 29th, to protect his left flank, Bragg put McCown out in an extension of his line westward, and on the 30th Cleburne's division was moved across the river to the same position, and Hardee was put in command of the two.

At Murfreesboro the Arkansans (except Capt. J. H. Wiggins' battery with Gen. Joseph Wheeler) were under Cleburne, commanding a division of Hardee's corps, and under McCown, whose division was sent from east Tennessee to reinforce Bragg. Cleburne's division embraced his old brigade, under L. E. Polk, promoted to brigadier, Liddell's Arkansas brigade, Bushrod Johnson's Tennessee brigade, Wood's Alabama and Mississippi brigade. Polk's brigade—First Arkansas, Col. John W. Colquitt; Thirteenth and Fifteenth Arkansas; Fifth Confederate, Second and Fifth Tennessee; Helena battery, Lieut. T. J. Key. Liddell's brigade—Second Arkansas, Col.