No other attacks were made on us to the east of the railroad for the rest of the afternoon, and just before dark I was directed to withdraw and take up a position along the west side of the Nashville pike, on the extreme right of our new line, where Roberts’s brigade and the Seventy-third and Eighty-eighth Illinois had already been placed by McCook.  The day had cost me much anxiety and sadness, and I was sorely disappointed at the general result, though I could not be other than pleased at the part taken by my command.  The loss of my brigade commanders—­Sill, Roberts, Schaefer, and Harrington-and a large number of regimental and battery officers, with so many of their men, struck deep into my heart:  My thinned ranks told the woeful tale of the fierce struggles, indescribable by words, through which my division had passed since 7 o’clock in the morning; and this, added to our hungry and exhausted condition, was naturally disheartening.  The men had been made veterans, however, by the fortunes and misfortunes of the day, and as they went into their new places still confident of final success, it was plain to see that they felt a self-confidence inspired by the part they had already played.

My headquarters were now established on the Nashville pike, about three miles and a half from Murfreesboro’; my division being aligned to the west of the pike, bowed out and facing almost west, Cleburn’s division of the Confederates confronting it.  Davis’s division was posted on my right, and Walker’s brigade of Thomas’s corps, which had reported to me, took up a line that connected my left with Johnson’s division.

Late in the evening General Rosecrans, accompanied by General McCook, and several other officers whose names I am now unable to recall, rode by my headquarters on their way to the rear to look for a new line of battle—­on Overall’s creek it was said—­that would preserve our communications with Nashville and offer better facilities for resistance than the one we were now holding.  Considerable time had elapsed when they returned from this exploration and proceeded to their respective commands, without intimating to me that anything had been determined upon by the reconnoissance, but a little later it was rumored through the different headquarters that while the party was looking for a new position it discovered the enemy’s troops moving toward our right and rear, the head of his columns being conducted in the darkness by the aid of torches, and that no alternative was left us but to hold the lines we then occupied.  The torches had been seen unquestionably, and possibly created some alarm at first in the minds of the reconnoitring party, but it was soon ascertained that the lights came from a battalion of the Fourth regular cavalry that was picketing our flank and happened to be starting its bivouac fires at the moment.  The fires and the supposed movements had no weight, therefore, in deciding the proposition to take up a line at Overall’s