Saving the Slaughter Pen at Stones River from Development

The tangle of rock that both helped and hindered troops in the fighting. Credit: National Park Service, Stones River National Battlefield.

The battle

After an evening spent listening to both armies' bands playing into the night, Confederate and Union soldiers outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee, woke on the morning of December 31, 1862, knowing a battle was coming. Generals on both sides had planned to attack, but the Confederates moved first, sweeping around the unprepared Union right flank in a massive assault.

At the place that came to be called the Slaughter Pen, three brigades under Union General Philip H. Sheridan took heavy losses as they fought to slow the Confederate advance and give the rest of the Union army time to shift into stronger defensive positions. The price of that delay was enormous. Sam Watkins of the First Tennessee Infantry recalled: "I cannot remember ever seeing more dead [Union] men, horses, and captured cannon all jumbled together, than that scene of blood and carnage."

Despite those losses, the Battle of Stones River went on for two more days and ended in a Union victory, won by determined defence at places like the Slaughter Pen.

Protecting the ground

Today the Town of Murfreesboro is working to preserve part of that key terrain permanently. With a Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant, it will protect more than 30 acres of the battlefield from commercial development through a conservation easement. Preserving the land will also help control stormwater runoff and give the community quiet space for recreation. The town plans to look at turning the property into a small park, with interpretive signs in future.

The grant program

Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants, from the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program, help preservation partners across the country acquire and protect threatened battlefields of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The program also funds related work through Battlefield Interpretation Grants, Battlefield Restoration Grants and Preservation Planning Grants, encouraging community-led care of historic places at the state, tribal and local levels.

Sources

Based on "Defending the 'Slaughter-Pen' from Modern Development at Stones River," published by the National Park Service, American Battlefield Protection Program; rewritten in hubnx's own words.