End of fighting the evening of December 31, 1862 (click to enlarge)

Stop 4 on the Stones River National Battlefield Tour is located next to the park’s Visitor Center. It is from this location and extending farther northwest up the Nashville Pike (today’s Old Nashville Highway) that Union General William Rosecrans formed a defensive line of 30,000 men and 38 cannon to stop the Confederates from pushing his army back across the road and railroad behind it, which would effectively cut off the Union’s Nashville escape route. From the time the battle began on the morning on December 31, 1862, the Confederates had dominated the fighting, driving the Union right flank back three miles by the end of the day. However, when the Confederates emerged from the woods and onto the Cotton Field (Stop 3) in pursuit of the fleeing troops, Union infantry and artillery opened up on them and brought their day-long advance to a halt. To see how the battle played out up to this point, please study the Stones River Battle Maps.

Cannon at Tour Stop 4

Exhibits at Stop 4 include cannon and supply wagons, as well as an information panel on the Union’s Pioneer Brigade. This was a special engineering unit (builder of bridges, forts, trenches, etc.) comprised of the best two men from every company of every regiment. Though often fighting the war with picks and shovels, they, along with the Chicago Board of Trade Battery, were on the front line along Nashville Pike and were largely responsible for stopping the Confederate advance. Later that day and into the next, the Pioneers would dig defensive trenches to fortify the Union positions. (The Chicago Board of Trade Battery is an artillery battery that was financed and organized by the Chicago Board of Trade, the options and futures exchange. The Battery was attached to Rosecrans’ Pioneer Brigade just weeks before the Stones River battle).