McFadden's Ford

As Union soldiers crouched behind stone-and-rail breastworks at McFadden's Ford, a battered advance division retreated back across the river, pursued by General John C. Breckinridge's Confederate brigades. Union artillery on the rise above the ford stopped the pursuit with shot, shell, and canister, and some 1,800 Confederates were killed or wounded in less than an hour in the final action of the Battle of Stones River. W.J. Worsham of the 19th Tennessee Infantry later recalled an earlier winter evening before the fighting, when bands from both armies, posted among the cedars, rocks, and banks of Stone River, took up "Home, Sweet Home" one after another until all were playing it, creating a deeply emotional pause in which soldiers on both sides thought of wounds, death, and whether they would ever see home again.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee · United States