I’m doing a summer internship at the Stones River National
Battlefield, so of course I have to do a post on the battle!
The Battle of Stones River (as the Union called it,
apparently they loved naming things after rivers, including their armies. It’s
the 2nd Battle of Murfreesboro for the Confederacy) occurred from
December 31st, 1862 to January 2nd, 1863. Those dates are
pretty important because they tell you that something weird is up with this
battle. If they can at all help it, armies don’t march in the winter. The
reason this one did has to do with a document that should be pretty familiar to
my readers, The Emancipation Proclamation.
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| A Typeset Copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln (Wikimedia) |
The EP went into effect on January 1st, 1863 and
the Union hadn’t won a battle since Lincoln had announced it. Since the EP was
issued under Lincoln’s authority as Commander in Chief of the US Army, the Army
kind of had to be winning the war for the EP to mean anything.
Lincoln also knew that the war was losing favor with the
public in the North. Midterm elections hadn’t gone well for the Republican
party and people were getting to the point where they were willing to let the
South go if it meant the war would end. Lincoln needed to win some battles to
boost Northern morale and regain support.
Finally, England and France had been making motions like
they were going to come in on the side of the Confederacy. If that happened, it
would be nearly impossible for Lincoln to reunite the country. So he also
wanted a victory to show England and France that the North would be winning the
war and there was no reason for them to get involved.
So Lincoln sent General Rosecrans and his Army of the
Cumberland (like the river, remember what I said about the Union and rivers?)
out to find the enemy, in this case, General Bragg and the Army of Tennessee.They found them just north of the town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a flat area made up of a patchwork of cedar brakes and crop fields.
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| My own picture of the Stones River Battlefield |
The Union would very nearly suffer a devastating loss on the
first day of battle. Luckily for Lincoln, they were able to hold on and over the
next couple of days make it difficult enough for the Confederates that Bragg
decided he would rather retreat than try to hold on to the field.
Thus Lincoln gets his victory, the EP goes into effect,
Northern morale goes way up, England and France stay out of it, and the
American Civil War continues for another two and half years.
Pretty important battle, right?
