Near here, four Confederate regiments from Kentucky charged for over a mile in a late afternoon assault on Federal troops guarding the other side of Stones River. The attack came at a stunning cost: more than 430 of the 1,200 men in the ranks were killed, wounded, or captured. These Kentucky soldiers called themselves the "orphans" of the Army of Tennessee because they had hoped their home state would leave the Union, but Kentucky never voted to secede. Unlike soldiers from Alabama, Tennessee, or Mississippi, they had little chance of receiving supplies, mail, or even new socks from loved ones, because their homes lay behind Union lines. Just six years before this battle, Kentucky's John C. Breckinridge had been Vice President of the United States.