Rosecrans, headquartered in Nashville by early November, was extremely concerned about supplying his army during a sustained offensive campaign. He was also aware that the main Confederate Army in the theater was only 30 miles away. Halleck, however, grew more impatient with each passing day. 'I cannot prevent your removal,' he telegraphed Rosecrans. An enraged Rosecrans replied: 'I need no other stimulus to make me do my duty than the knowledge of what it is. To threats of removal or the like I must be permitted to say that I am insensible.'

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Finally, on the day after Christmas, Rosecrans divided his command into three wings under the leadership Maj. Gens. Alexander McCook, George H. Thomas and Thomas Crittenden, and ordered the Army of the Cumberland to advance on Murfreesboro. The Union movement was harried almost continuously by Rebel skirmishers who contested every ridge and ford. Cavalry forays led by 26-year-old Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler resulted in spectacular successes against Rosecrans' supply trains. In 48 hours, Wheeler's troopers rode completely around the Federal Army, their crowning achievement being the capture of McCook's immense train of 300 wagons. At midday on December 30, Wheeler fell upon the lightly guarded train near the town of LaVergne. The Rebels either carried off or destroyed nearly $1 million in supplies and captured and paroled 800 prisoners.

The men of Colonel M.B. Walker's brigade of Thomas' corps happened upon the scene during the night, and one observer described the incredible sight: 'The turnpike as far as the eye could reach was filled with burning wagons. The country was overspread with disarmed men, broken-down horses and mules. The streets were covered with empty valises and trunks, knapsacks, broken guns, and all the indescribable debris of a captured and rifled army train.'

At 2 a.m. on December 31, Wheeler rode up on the left flank of Bragg's army, having wrought confusion in the Union rear, destroyed vast stores of supplies, acquired new mounts for many of his troopers and captured enough equipment to outfit an entire brigade.

Rosecrans' left, under Crittenden, had advanced toward Stones River via the Murfreesboro Pike, while Thomas' corps, which formed the center, marched down the Franklin Pike to Brentwood, then eastward to the Murfreesboro Pike. McCook, with the Union right, struck out along the Nolensville Pike and took backroads to the Murfreesboro area. Due to the stiff Confederate resistance encountered and the varied routes of approach to the area, the Army of the Cumberland did not reach the battlefield in force until late on December 29. Both commanding generals spent the next day positioning their troops and forming a plan of attack for the coming engagement, Bragg with 37,712 effectives and Rosecrans with 43,400.

The Confederate commander had pulled together his scattered forces two miles north of Murfreesboro, where the only distinct advantage offered was that his lines of battle would cover the main southerly routes of approach and the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. The terrain, cluttered with large boulders, outcroppings of limestone and thick glades of Tennessee red cedar, 'offered no peculiar advantages for defense….The country on every side was entirely open and accessible to the enemy,' Hardee stated in his report.

Stones River, which meanders northward toward a junction with the Cumberland near Nashville, divided Bragg's troops; the general placed Polk's corps to the west of the stream with the division of Maj. Gen. Jones M. Withers in front and that of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Franklin Cheatham a few hundred yards behind. Hardee's corps was placed east of the river just outside Murfreesboro, with Breckinridge in front and the veteran division of Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne in close support. McCown's division was reserved in the center, while the cavalry brigades of Wheeler and Brig. Gen. John Wharton covered the left and right flanks respectively.

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