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Anchoring the Union Line ~ Hazen's Brigade
Old Nashville Highway, Murfreesboro,
TN ,
USA
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Tennessee State
Historical Marker
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Anchoring the Union Line
Hazen's Brigade
" December 31, 1862 - Mid-afternoon "
...thousands of small arms kept up the roar equal to Niagara. Men were swept away by hundreds - trees shrubs and everything was torn up, cut off, or shivered ...
John Magee, corporal, Stanford's Mississippi Light Artillery
Veterans called this blood-soaked open ground ahead of you Hell's Half-Acre. Here a brigade of 1,600 bluecoat infantry faced wave after wave of attackers attempting to overrun them. Four times Confederate brigades charged. Four times the defenders here gave no ground.
At dawn, 43,000 Union soldiers had stretched from McFadden's Ford, one mile to the north, to the Smith farm three miles to the south. By noon, half of that huge army had folded back on itself, like a pocketknife closing, with 13,000 men dead, wounded, or captured.
Four regiments that fought so fiercely here under Colonel William Hazen were the hinge of that folding knife. From 9 a.m. to dusk, Hazen's men were the only Federals to hold their ground on the first day of battle at Stones River.
Erected by Stones River National Battlefield - National Park Service - U.S. Department of the Interior.
Last updated: 2/14/2015 15:17:00 |
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Related Themes: C.S.A., Confederate States of America, Confederacy, Union States
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