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JANUARY 1 1863, Stones River Battlefield. After one day’s fighting James B. Mitchell of the 34th Alabama Regiment of Infantry noted the grim aftermath of battle in his journal:

There was a great deal of pilfering performed on the dead bodies of the Yankees by our men. Some of them [Federals] were left as naked as the day they were born, everything in the world they had being taken from them.

I ordered my men to take their fine guns and canteens if they wished, but nothing else. The only thing I took was fine canteen which I cut off a dead Yankee who was lying on his face in our path as we marched along.

Thomas Jefferson Walker, a Haywood County native and member of Company C of the 9th Tennessee Infantry left this horrifying anecdote about the Battle of Stones River: While we were lying in the rear of our first line of battle, a soldier was shot, and in his death struggle it sounded just like the death squeal of a hog that had been struck in the head with an ax! Our whole line burst out into a great roar of laughter, although men were being shot and killed every few moments in our own ranks!