Fields of Fire

At the end of 1863, more than fifty cannon stood ready to defend Fortress Rosecrans, and five, including one 8-inch siege howitzer, were assigned to Lunette Palmer. The lunettes of Fortress Rosecrans were primarily artillery platforms, and the ground in front of the fort was cleared of trees while every battery commander carefully sighted each gun on a variety of likely targets. From Lunette Palmer, gunners selected potential targets nearly a mile away, well beyond Stones River and modern Route 96. No Confederate troops ever came within range of Fortress Rosecrans's cannon. A Union engineer's diagram showed some of the targets selected by the batteries in Fortress Rosecrans, including the county courthouse in Murfreesboro, 1,770 yards away, which one battery near Lunette Thomas chose as a target as the Federals threatened to shell the town if the Confederates attacked the fort. Artillerymen at Lunette Palmer performed drill with equipment similar to that shown in a photograph taken at Stevenson, Alabama.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee · United States