For the weary troops of the Army of the Cumberland, there was precious little sleep to be had in the farm fields and cedar thickets northwest of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. For four days, the men had battled driving rain and ankle-deep mud as they groped their way southeast from Nashville in search of their Rebel opponents. By the evening of December 30, 1862, the Federals were miserably camped, many without tents, on sodden ground that offered little comfort from the cold night air.
Senior officers fared little better. Maj. Gen. Alexander McCook, commander of the army’s right wing, was curled up in the corner of a rail fence when he was abruptly wakened a little after 2 am by two of his subordinates, Brig. Gens. Phil Sheridan and Joshua Sill. The officers, former roommates at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, were agitated; for several hours, Sill had listened as Confederate troops moved in the darkness across his front, heading, he was certain, to strike the army’s exposed flank.
A bleary-eyed McCook listened for some time then enjoined Sheridan and Sill not to worry. The right flank would hold just fine, he announced, and he further doubted “that there was a necessity for any further dispositions.” While McCook fell back asleep, Sheridan and Sill, disappointed that they had gotten nowhere with the wing commander, returned to their troops. It was not the first time, literally or figuratively, that McCook had been caught napping.
