Stones River National Battlefield

Creation of the National Battlefield

The national battlefield resulted from efforts by private individuals, the Stones River Battlefield and Park Association, the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, and a 1927 act of Congress authorizing a national military park under the War Department. In the early twentieth century, the railway promoted the battlefield as a destination to increase passenger traffic, sponsored veteran reunions, and acquired parts of the battlefield. In 1906, the company erected a 31-foot obelisk marking the January 2, 1863, position of massed Union artillery.

Land acquisition ran from 1928 to 1934. In 1992, the City of Murfreesboro donated an intact segment of Fortress Rosecrans, the largest enclosed earthwork built during the Civil War. The park preserves less than a fifth of the over 3,000 acres where the battle was fought. On March 3, 1927, the site became Stones River National Military Park.

It transferred to the National Park Service on August 10, 1933, and was redesignated a national battlefield on April 22, 1960. The battlefield was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. The Good Friday tornado of April 10, 2009, damaged the park. Since 1997, the American Battlefield Trust and partners have acquired and preserved 74 acres in five acquisitions, some sold to the National Park Service.

Cemetery

Stones River National Cemetery, covering 20.09 acres, holds 6,850 burials, with 2,562 of those unidentified. The Hazen Brigade Monument, dating to 1863, stands outside the cemetery as the oldest surviving Civil War monument still in its original spot. Veterans of the Army of the Cumberland also placed the U.S. Regular Brigade Civil War Monument. Major General George H. Thomas ordered the cemetery’s creation on March 29, 1864.

The 111th Regiment United States Colored Troops, supervised by Chaplain William Earnshaw, exhumed bodies from several battlefields. Reburials ran from 1865 to 1867. In November 1867, 1,360 Union soldiers were moved here from Rose Hill Cemetery in Columbia, Tennessee. The War Department transferred the cemetery to the National Park Service on August 10, 1933.