Below this spot stand 30-foot-tall columns of stone where bone-tired Confederates of the 2nd Missouri Brigade took shelter amid rocky dens after the first day's hard marching and fighting. What first seemed a good natural defense became a deathtrap when, as the second day's fighting began, 21 Union cannon in Cox's field below fired a punishing barrage toward the mountainside. Artillery projectiles, rock fragments, and timber splinters tore through the infantrymen posted near here, and after 30 minutes of slaughter, General Earl Van Dorn ordered a withdrawal back toward Elkhorn Tavern.