Stones River National Battlefield in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, preserves the ground where one of the Civil War’s most important battles was fought from Dec. 31, 1862, through Jan. 2, 1863. Congress established the battlefield on March 3, 1927, and President Calvin Coolidge signed the legislation the same day, beginning a century of preservation and public interpretation at one of the war’s most consequential sites.
The battle came at a critical moment for the Union. As 1862 ended, President Abraham Lincoln needed a victory to raise morale after the defeat at Fredericksburg and to support the Emancipation Proclamation as it took effect on Jan. 1, 1863. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg had positioned his Army of Tennessee near Murfreesboro to block a Union advance toward Chattanooga and protect the productive farms of Middle Tennessee. On Dec. 26, 1862, Gen. William S. Rosecrans led the Union Army of the Cumberland out of Nashville to meet him.
The fighting at Stones River was among the bloodiest of the war. The Union victory was narrow, but it lifted Northern morale, reinforced the Union’s changing war aims and helped open the way for later campaigns deeper into the Confederate heartland.