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(3-95) 1995 Battlefield Tour Stop 7 (Stones River National Cemetery, 12 noon - 4 p.m., Dec 31, 1862). 1995 Tour Guide: This hillside was an open field. With the railroad at their backs, Union artillery were randomly placed from the Chicago Board of Trade Battery on your right, across this hillside to the Round Forest on your left, in an effort to support the infantry that was stretched along the Nashville Pike. After the battle, most of the dead were buried on the field. When the National Cemetery was established in June 1865, the Government disinterred the Union dead and reburied them here. Of the more than 6,100 Union burials, 2,562 were not identified. Confederate soldiers were not buried in this Cemetery, but were taken to their home towns, the nearest southern community, or buried in unmarked mass graves. The Cemetery is landscaped according to an 1892 plan |
(3-95) 1995 Battlefield Tour Stop 7 (Stones River National Cemetery, 12 noon - 4 p.m., Dec 31, 1862). Site Marker: Artillery Protects The Supply Line. From this position, Loomis' Battery (1st Michigan Light Artillery - six 2.9." Parrott rifles and Guenther's Battery Co. H 5th U.S. Artillery - six 12 pdr. Napoleons) smashed Confederate attempts to capture the Nashville Pike (background behind wall), the only supply line open to the Union army on the afternoon of December 31, 1862. Repeated charges of case shot and canister from these guns saved the day for the Union army. About 6 p.m. on the 3rd of January 1863, the supporting fire from these two batteries helped two infantry regiments from Beatty's Brigade and two infantry regiments from Spear's Brigade drive the Confederates from the field, thus securing the battlefield of Stones River for the Union Army |
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(3-95 VHS) The view is looking northwest along the old Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. The southeast section of the National Cemetery is in the background. The sign marks the approximate spot where Union Col. Julius Garesche was beheaded by a cannonball. Garesche was Gen. Rosecrans chief of staff |
(3-95)
1995 Battlefield Tour Stop 8 (Struggle for the Round Forest, 9 a.m. - 4
p.m., Dec 31, 1862). 1995 Tour Guide: This was the only Union position to
hold throughout the first day of the battle. The first Confederate attack
came at 10 a.m. across the field on the other side of the Nashville Pike and
was broken up by Union artillery. An hour later another charge carried to
within 137 meters (150 yards) of the Union line before being stopped. The
monument (background) erected in 1863 by the survivors of Col. William B.
Hazen's brigade is the Nations oldest Civil War memorial |
