Is Stones River Battlefield important? on The Murfreesboro Post

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Is Stones River Battlefield important?

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By: Mike West, Managing Editor

Is Stones River Battlefield important? | Battle of Stones River, Heritage, Stones River National Battlefield, Civil War

To many people these broken cannon symbolize Stones River Battlefield. (Laura Leigh Smith/TMP

Have you ever visited Stones River National Battlefield?

Or maybe it's just on your to-do list? Perhaps you wonder why you should even bother?

Experts say the park is a major resource for Murfreesboro, the state of Tennessee and the nation.

"I believe that Murfreesboro and Rutherford County need to seriously consider the wonderful asset that is Stones River National Battlefield," said David Brown, executive vice president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Brown, as chief operating officer of the National Trust, travels the nation as the organization strives to save historic places and revitalize communities with much less to offer than Murfreesboro.

Stones River Battlefield is the county's biggest tourism draw, pulling in more than 200,000 visitors annually.

"Heritage visitors stay longer, visit twice as many places and on a per trip basis spend 2½ times as much money as other visitors," Brown said. "That's important for a community that has a major Civil War battlefield at its doorstep, among other historical sites."

But many area residents don't know the historic significance of Stones River.

· About 10,500 major and minor battles were fought during the Civil War. Stones River is listed among the 45 with major national significance. Some experts rank the battle among the top 10 in importance.

· It is one of only 32 military parks or national monuments in the nation preserving aspects of Civil War history and is an important tourist resource because of that.

"But much more important than economics is what Stones River Battlefield tells us about our country," Brown said.

"Historian David McCullough – who served nine years on the Board of the National Trust – speaks eloquently about the epidemic of what he calls historical illiteracy. David describes historical illiteracy as a great danger to our democracy," he continued. "Being an American is not based on a common ancestry, a common religion, even a common culture – it's based on accepting an uncommon set of ideas — ideas that were contested at places like Stones River. If we don't understand those ideas, we don't value them; and if we don't value them, we don't protect them. A nation can never be ignorant and free, said Thomas Jefferson."

Brown, the preservation expert, first learned his love of history in his hometown – Murfreesboro.

His parents bought a simple 1880s-era home on Main Street because it had an apartment where his grandmother could live with the family. Over the course of 20 years, four generations of the Brown family lived under this roof.

"Murfreesboro has a history that was very real and very present to me as a child. I could walk four blocks to the town square, where the 1850s courthouse still had bullet holes in the columns from General Nathan Bedford Forest's 1862 raid on the city," he said.

"In a time before Murfreesboro's streets were given over completely to cars, I often bicycled the five miles out to the Stones River National Battlefield on the edge of town, because I was fascinated by the story of that terrible battle around New Years Day in 1863," Brown said.

The battle was a brutal one.

More than 83,000 troops took part in the campaign in and around Murfreesboro. There were 23,000 casualties putting the battle right there with the bloodbaths at Shiloh and Antietam. About 6,000 Union troops are buried at the National Cemetery on the Old Nashville Highway.

People who lived here at the time fought and died in the battle. Families' homes were destroyed. Their livestock killed. Murfreesboro's economy was ruined for decades to come.

But the Battle of Stones River had special significance for the nation and President Abraham Lincoln.
The late historian Shelby Foote wrote, "New Year's 1863 was for Abraham Lincoln perhaps the single busiest day of his whole presidential life, and it came moreover at dead center of what was perhaps his period of deepest gloom and perplexity of spirit."

Why was Lincoln so morose?

There were sharp divisions in his political party and even in his own family. His brother-in-law fought at Stones River – as a Confederate in a unit that was decimated. His own hand-picked generals were miserable losers who failed to give the Union a much-needed victory especially after the disastrous loss at Fredericksburg, Va. There was the ongoing debate on whether to admit West Virginia to the union. All would be topics of discussion at a New Year's reception Lincoln would play host to that day. But the biggest worry of all was a document awaiting Lincoln's signature: The Emancipation Proclamation.

The finished document was brought over from the State Department. Lincoln looked at the document, dipped his pen and proclaimed:

"I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right than in signing this paper."

And thus history was made in the aftermath of the Battle of Stones River, a conflict that recharged some political/military careers while ending others.

For one, Lincoln was pleased by the result.

"I can never forget, if I remember anything, that at the end of last year and the beginning of this, you gave us a hard earned victory, which had there been a defeat instead, the country scarcely could have lived over," Lincoln later telegraphed Gen. William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Federal Army of the Cumberland.

For people like preservationist David Brown, Stones River Battlefield has another important meaning.
"From walking the battleground at Stones River and reflecting on the ideas that were contested by 75,000 American men – one third of whom died in that conflict – we can see with our own eyes that this country has been through difficult times in the past and has survived. But it is impossible to get that sense when you are constantly distracted by truck and car traffic, or your view is marred by housing developments sitting on parts of the battlefield. This is one of the most significant places in Middle Tennessee for our citizens to understand this most important of American wars," Brown said.

"Murfreesboro and Rutherford County need to figure out how to keep it a sacred place."

www.nps.gov/stri/
histpres.mtsu.edu/tncivwar/

Tagged under Battle of Stones River, Civil War, Heritage, Stones River National Battlefield

Member Opinions:

By: Male60TN on 10/9/06
First of all, it wasn't a "Civil War" to most residents of Murfreesboro who lived here at the time of the battle. Instead, it was known as the "War against Yankee aggression"!!! The battlefield is now nothing more than a monument to brutal conquest!
Secondly, and most sadly...those who are buried at the battlefield, are primarily Union troops. Most Confederate soldiers, (unidentified and without any honor or recognition), were buried in mass graves in and around the city.
Agreed, it was a brutal and bloody conflict. Most of the brutality was felt by the people of the South and was inflicted by Union soldiers. Homes were destroyed along with crops, livestock, fences and barns! Women were raped; children, old men and wounded (disabled)Confederates were terrorized. For the most part, the Confederate troops were not an invading force, but were instead only defending their homeland; they had every right to believe it was "lawful" to secede from the Union.
The war did prove one thing though: We were...and still are...a nation bound together by bayonets and and cannon. At no time has the Union been more divided than it is today. As for the economy, it was destroyed; it never recovered. It was replaced with the economy we are still "stuck with" today.
Why don't we send all those Yankees back up North where they came from and plant some cotton, soybeans and corn (or perhaps build a new industrial park)? Think of the money saved on "preservation"...and the money and jobs that could be created!
General Forrest was indeed a "hero"...not only to Murfreesboro, but to the entire Confederacy. At the time of surrender, General Lee was asked "who is your best general?" He replied, "A man whom I've not met; his name is Forrest!" Sadly, his good name has forever been smeared with myth and lies by Yankee muckrakers. I challenge anyone that "cares" to investigate what REALLY happened at the "Ft. Pillow massacre" or, for that matter, his REAL role in the Ku Klux Klan. He was always an honorable gentleman.
By the way, the "Post" is a great addition to our city and county; keep up the good work!

By: Male60TN on 10/9/06
May I suggest:

"FORREST OF FORT PILLOW"
April 10, 1864-April 13,1864
From Henry's book "Nathan Bedford Forrest, First with the Most"
A Great Read!!
"ATROCITIES" were not an invention of the First World War propaganda organizations. American newspapers of the Civil War period, North and South, abounded in them. Southern newspapers described the savagery of the invading armies, charging that Northern soldiers, authorized and even ordered by their officers, made theft, assault and murder a part of their regular duties. Northern papers were no less lurid in their descriptions of the dishonor, infamy and ferocity of the Southern soldiers coming to a climax in a Boston paper's description of Robert E. Lee flogging a slave girl with his own hands and then rubbing brine on her bleeding wounds.
But Fort Pillow was the "atrocity" of the war. Forrest's men stormed the fort. Incompetent and blundering command of the defense brought extraordinary losses to the defenders. Bitter local animosities and racial antipathies added to the slaughter. A Congressional committee of inquiry made the "atrocity" official. Its report, of which 40,000 extra copies were printed, became a prime campaign document in the bitter election of 1864.
Sherman's judgment of the "massacre at Fort Pillow" as expressed in his Memoirs is that:
"No doubt Forrest's men acted like a set of barbarians, shooting down the helpless negro garrison after the fort was in their possession; but I am told that Forrest personally disclaims any active participation in the assault, and that he stopped the firing as soon as he could. I also take it for granted that Forrest did not lead the assault in person, and consequently that he was to the rear, out of sight if not of hearing at the time, and I was told by hundreds of our men, who were at various times prisoners in Forrest's possession, that be was usually very kind to them."
To this _expression may be added his contemporary judgment expressed in action. "If our men have been murdered after capture," Grant telegraphed Sherman from Virginia, "retaliation must be resorted to promptly." Sherman made his own investigation, and had an opportunity to study that made by the Committee of Congress-but there was no retaliation, and General Sherman was not a man to shrink from ordering retaliation had he felt that it was justified.

I've given you the source; check it out for yourself at the "Official Ft. Pillow" site!

By: grandefille on 10/9/06
"Murfreesboro and Rutherford County need to figure out how to keep it a sacred place."

Indeed. Any place where people fight and die for their country/ies is a sacred place and should be preserved as such. Not only to honor their memories but to remind us all of the ultimate cost of war.

By: Jarhead on 7/13/10
I've been around this battlefield for a long time, bike and walk there and never really paid much attention to the history, just appreciate it as a resource-until tonight. I was a Marine and Infantry to boot. I appreciate history and respect the sacredness of the battlefield. When I walked in there this evening as twilight approached, I got a sense of just how significant it is. I also realized walking out how much of Murfreesboro is being sold off. I understand that most of the 4,000 acre battlefield is in private hands. I heard from the ranger that the City wants to annex more and Tommy Bragg avoided my question when asked. Is nothing sacred in the path of the almighty dollar? Are we just going to sit by while they trample on this history? Soldiers fought there, not Bob Parks.