Battle of Murfreesboro, January 2, 1863

Bragg ordered this attack over the objection of the man who led it. John C. Breckinridge protested that assaulting the Union position across Stones River would be suicidal, then went in on the afternoon of January 2. His men drove the defenders back over McFadden Ford, and massed Union artillery on the heights opened on them. Accounts count more than 1,800 Confederate casualties in under an hour. Bragg, probably convinced that Rosecrans was being reinforced, took the army south toward Tullahoma the next day. Colonel Joseph B. Palmer, one of his brigade commanders, was wounded here.

What the plaque says

Battle of Murfreesboro January 2, 1863 1/2 mile north is the hillock commanding a ford over Stones River. Here Capt. John Mendenhall, 4th U.S. Artillery, artillery oficer on Gen. Crittenden's staff, set a groupment of 58 guns which broke up the assault across the river of Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge's Confederate Division. Tablets on the spot give details.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stones River National Battlefield — 0.4 mi
  The Murfreesboro battlefield of December 1862, with a national cemetery built by Black soldiers, a Trail of Tears route and the story of the freedmen's settlement called Cemetery.
• Carnton — 24 mi
  The McGavock farm in Franklin, worked by 44 enslaved people in 1860, that became the largest field hospital of the Battle of Franklin.
• Andrew Jackson's Hermitage — 25 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.
• Henry Horton State Park — 25 mi
  A Duck River park on Governor Henry Horton's former farm in Marshall County, with a mill ruin from 1845, kayak floats and the grave of a governor the House declined to impeach.

More markers nearby

• Donelson's Brigade at Murfreesboro — 0.6 mi
• Chalmers' Brigade at Murfreesboro — 0.6 mi
• Murfreesboro/Rutherford County — 0.7 mi
• Army of the Cumberland, June 24, 1863 — 1.4 mi