As soon as possible after the Confederate retreat I went over the battle-field to collect such of my wounded as had not been carried off to the South and to bury my dead.  In the cedars and on the ground where I had been so fiercely assaulted when the battle opened, on the morning of the 31st, evidences of the bloody struggle appeared on every hand in the form of broken fire-arms, fragments of accoutrements, and splintered trees.  The dead had nearly all been left unburied, but as there was likelihood of their mutilation by roving swine, the bodies had mostly been collected in piles at different points and inclosed by rail fences.  The sad duties of interment and of caring for the wounded were completed by the 5th, and on the 6th I moved my division three miles, south of Murfreesboro’ on the Shelbyville pike, going into camp on the banks of Stone River.  Here the condition of my command was thoroughly looked into, and an endeavor made to correct such defects as had been disclosed by the recent battle.

During the engagement there had been little straggling, and my list of missing was small and legitimate; still, it was known that a very few had shirked their duty, and an example was necessary.  Among this small number were four officers who, it was charged, had abandoned their colors and regiments.  When their guilt was clearly established, and as soon as an opportunity occurred, I caused the whole division to be formed in a hollow square, closed in mass, and had the four officers marched to the centre, where, telling them that I would not humiliate any officer or soldier by requiring him to touch their disgraced swords, I compelled them to deliver theirs up to my colored servant, who also cut from their coats every insignia of rank.  Then, after there had been read to the command an order from army headquarters dismissing the four from the service, the scene was brought to a close by drumming the cowards out of camp.  It was a mortifying spectacle, but from that day no officer in that division ever abandoned his colors.

My effective force in the battle of Stone River was 4,154 officers and men.  Of this number I lost 1,633 killed, wounded, and missing, or nearly 40 per cent.  In the remaining years of the war, though often engaged in most severe contests, I never experienced in any of my commands so high a rate of casualties.  The ratio of loss in the whole of Rosecrans’s army was also high, and Bragg’s losses were almost equally great.  Rosecrans carried into the action about 42,000 officers and men.  He lost 13,230, or 31 per cent.  Bragg’s effective force was 37,800 officers and men; he lost 10,306, or nearly 28 per cent.