Tennessee Battlefield Tour Day 10 : Stones River

Those faithful few who have made this far will be glad to know we are near the end and if you hadn’t twigged from the geography my final day involved the drive back North to Nashville via the Stones River battlefield at Murfreesboro. Like Kennesaw locates not far from a major city the park was busier than the more remote locations, it is also not a huge park as the town of Murfreesboro has encroached somewhat on the original battlefield, as I chose to walk it it still took a good three hours to get around....but then it was another lovely cool but sunny day.

Historically the battle took place over New Year 1862/63 with the confederates under Bragg as so often managing to snatch defeat from victory under Gen Rosecrans.

Another good visitor centre although the introductory film was a bit short and didn’t really give a proper run through of the battle

Some nice artillery on display with caisson for a change, nicely set up as I assume they would have been in battle

A shot from the other view these union cannon would have defended against the onslaught in the afternoon of day one

Looking across the cotton field to the south east

Rebels had pushed the union forces two miles back and reached this end of the cotton field before being held back but union troops on the Nashville Pike, 

Looking from the edge of the field, the Nashville pike is directly in the distance where the ground rises up

One of ces the Union Forces held out longest the slaughter pen, a very extraordinary and quite moving place, Union Forces held here for a long time before being pushed back, the cover in the rocks of course very good

Looking roughly south west out side the slaughter pen confederates attacking form the trees in the distance and from the left

McFadden’s lane, many Union troops had encamped along here prior to the first day remember it was the 30 December and very cold

Some good info signs across the battle field

More initial union deployments McFadden Lane in the background

Ok this has no particular historical significance but I am after all a Wargamer,  if you look carefully you can see four different types of fencing ! I have some more terrain to build

Moving over the Nashville Pike we have Hell’s Half Acre and to the left the Round Forest, this area formed the hinge where the union line had been pushed back on itself, but despite numerous assaults Hazen’s Brigade held out here. The accounts of the battle describe a grim scene with the whole area being literally covered in confederate dead at the end of day one !

The Hazel Brigade Monument, I hadn’t realised this was constructed in 1863 by survivors of the Brigade, to commemorate their fallen comrades, this is apparently the oldest civil war memorial obviously constructed well before anybody knew what the outcome would be.

I then walked north to the McFadden Farm

Some of the field preserved on the farm

The location of the ‘grand battery’ which put pay to the confederate assault on the second day of the battle.

The artillery monument on the farm 

Stones River itself by the McFadden Ford

Back on the Nashville Pike, the final defence line of the union forces

And finally I don’t normally photo cemeteries but this is a period location where they have a shot of the cemetery being created back in 1866, of course only Union troops historically confederates were buried in mass graves and not then relocated to National Cemetries.

So that was the end of the battlefields and I headed back to Nashville for a night out, highly recommended if you get the chance 😀

I plan to do one more summary blog of the trip.