Great then was their astonishment when the rising sun of New
Year's day showed him sitting there, grimly waiting, with his back to
Stone River, a formidable foe despite his losses. Above all the Southern
generals saw the heavily massed artillery, which they had such good
reason to fear.
Dick, who had slept soundly through the night, was up like all the others
at dawn and he beheld the Southern army before them, yet not moving,
as if uncertain what to do. He felt again that thrill of courage and
resolution, and, born of it, was the belief that despite the first day's
defeat the chances were yet even. These western youths were of a tough
and enduring stock, as he had seen at Shiloh and Perryville, and the
battle was not always to him who won the first day. A long time passed
and there was no firing.
"Not so eager to rush us as they were," said Warner. "It's a
mathematical certainty that an army that's not running away is not
whipped, and that certainty is patent to our Southern friends also.
But to descend from mathematics to poetry, a great poet says that he who
runs away will live to fight another day.
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