Battle of Hartsville December 7, 1862

The fight opened the Stones River Campaign. Bragg, retreating after Perryville, sent Morgan north to work along Rosecrans's lines of communication so the Union army could not forage north of Nashville. The Union brigade, made up of Ohio, Illinois and Indiana units, was taken by surprise; one account says the Confederates passed the pickets in blue uniforms, another that they posed as refugees. A Union force three times larger sat nine miles away. Joseph Johnston called it a brilliant feat, and Jefferson Davis, at Murfreesboro, promoted Morgan in person.

What the plaque says

Battle of Hartsville December 7, 1862 After marching 24 miles in four inches of snow and crossing the icy Cumberland River, Colonel John Hunt Morgan and 1,300 men attacked the Federal 39th Brigade under the command of Colonel Absalom B. Moore. Although greatly outnumbered, Morgan succeeded in capturing approximately 1,800 prisoners and recrossing the Cumberland before federal reinforcements arrived from Castalian Springs. federal losses were 2,096 while Confederate losses totaled 139.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wynnewood State Historic Site — 8.0 mi
  A National Historic Landmark log inn at the Bledsoe's Lick springs, beside a Mississippian mound center and tied to the domestic slave trade.
• Red Boiling Springs — 21 mi
  A Macon County spa town built around red sulphur springs, with five kinds of mineral water, red-painted pumps and the surviving hotels of a resort that once held more than a dozen.
• Andrew Jackson's Hermitage — 27 mi
  Andrew Jackson's cotton plantation east of Nashville, where visitors can walk to the quarters, Alfred's Cabin and the Enslaved Cemetery as well as the mansion.

More markers nearby

• Captain William Alexander — 1.2 mi
• "The Hartsville Races" — 1.5 mi
• The James DeBow Home — 2.9 mi
• Tilman Dixon — 6.5 mi