The Charge Kept Coming, Coming Like the Sea

On the first day of the Battle of Stones River, these fields saw a full afternoon of ferocious fighting as Confederates charged across open cotton fields toward the Nashville Pike under heavy Federal cannon fire. Union regiments that had been pushed back since sunrise stopped their retreat here and held their ground. Participants recalled artillery served with extraordinary speed and intensity, with repeated Confederate assaults advancing in successive waves until devastating fire broke them and drove survivors to shelter among trees, weeds, and rocks. Confederate soldiers remembered shot and shell pounding them from multiple batteries and concluded that they could not rout the enemy from its strong position, with retreat their only salvation from death or capture.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee · United States