National Parks:
Stones River National Battlefield

Murfreesboro, Tennessee -- In October 1862, Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Confederates retreated from Kentucky after their defeat at Perryville, ending hopes of bringing that state into the Confederacy. Bragg’s Army of Tennessee then went into winter quarters at Murfreesboro. Union forces under Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans followed Bragg from Kentucky as far as Nashville.

On December 26, Rosecrans led the 43,000-man Army of the Cumberland from Nashville, intending to sweep aside Bragg’s 38,000 Confederates and then drive on to Chattanooga. December 30th found the armies encamped half a mile apart with lines stretching for three miles through fields and cedar thickets, along the Stones River and across both the Nashville Pike and the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. From December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, the two armies engaged in a fierce battle resulting in more than 23,000 casualties on both sides. Bragg’s Confederates retreated to Shelbyville and Tullahoma, Tennessee, leaving the Union army to control middle Tennessee and boosting northern morale after its defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia, just three week earlier. Lincoln later wrote to Rosecrans, "I can never forget [...] you gave us a hard-earned victory, which had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over."

DID YOU KNOW

• Stones River National Battlefield was established in 1927 as a national military park managed by the War Department. In 1933, the park was transferred to the National Park Service, and in 1960 it was redesignated as Stones River National Battlefield.
• The 650-acre National Battlefield includes Stones River National Cemetery, established in 1865, with more than 6,000 Union graves and 1,000 other graves for those who served in later wars.
• The Hazen Brigade monument, built in 1863, is believed to be the oldest, intact Civil War monument still standing in its original location.
• The National Battlefield includes portions of Fortress Rosecrans, constructed by Union troops after the battle as a supply depot. The 200-acre earthen fort was the largest enclosed earthen fortification built during the Civil War.
• Stones River manages an innovative natural resource program as a means of preserving battlefield resources. Earthworks at Fortress Rosecrans are being preserved by planting native grasses with deep root systems to help prevent erosion. The cedar glades at Stones River, which caused problems for troop movements during the battle, are being protected through an intensive effort to eradicate exotic plants.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PRIORITIES

On September 18, 2004, Stones River dedicated its newly renovated and expanded visitor center. This event ended an intensive but highly rewarding effort by park and regional staff and the Service’s Harpers Ferry Interpretive Design Center, which had been sparked by the completion of the park’s General Management Plan in 1999.

The original visitor center, administrative headquarters and exhibits were completed in 1963 and were no longer adequate for increased levels of visitation and protection of the park’s museum collection. Utility and life safety systems no longer met codes, requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or National Park Service standards.

The new structure, which contains 10,200 square feet of new and renovated space, allows battlefield visitors to begin their tour of Stones River in a state-of-the-art facility with four museum galleries with all new exhibits and media and a fully stocked bookstore. The building also houses improved office space for park staff and a curatorial storage facility for park archives and artifacts. The building echoes the surrounding landscape with stone walls similar to the park’s entrance gates and cemetery walls and a metal roof similar in color to the cedar trees so prevalent on the battlefield. Although it has been open for only a few months, the completed visitor center is proving to a major asset for the battlefield and its visitors and for the community as well.

Source: National Park Service