Digging In!

As battle noise faded with the setting sun on December 31, both armies spent the next two days piling up dirt, rocks, and trees for protection. The Union army's Pioneer Brigade used their skills and tools to build the berms and trenches still visible there, and their work survived decades of weathering. Hastily built lines of earthworks and trenches froze most of both armies in position, and on January 2 the focus of fighting shifted to the banks of Stones River. The fortifying of this battlefield marked a significant change in tactics, as the war ground on and generals and soldiers increasingly chose the spade over the rifle. Trench warfare came to dominate the war's later campaigns. Soldiers assigned to the Pioneer Brigade wore patches with crossed axes sewn on their left sleeves.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee · United States