Battle at Stones River

Stones River National Battlefield preserves key portions of the ground where two great armies of Americans, some 81,000 men, clashed in a bitter three-day struggle that erupted on New Year's Eve 1862. This place was the second headquarters of General Bragg. West Point graduate Braxton Bragg was 45 years old when he received command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee in April 1862. After six months of campaigning in eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, Bragg ordered his men to set up winter quarters in Middle Tennessee. When the Federals unexpectedly marched out of Nashville, Bragg's 38,000 Confederates, then spread out over a 50-mile-wide front, had to be brought into battle lines outside Murfreesboro. It was here that Bragg ordered General Breckinridge's doomed attack on January 2, 1863.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee · United States