June 24, 2010

June 24, 2010

A few miles south in Murfreesboro,TN is Stones River National Battlefield. While Grant and his army were sailing up the Tennessee River and taking Corinth (and fighting off a counterattack at Shiloh), another army was going up the Cumberland. Nashville was taken without a fight. In late 1862 this Army of the Cumberland started marching from Nashville toward the rail junction in Chattanooga. Thirty miles southeast in Murfreesboro, they ran into the Confederate army and prepared for battle. Unfortunately the Union army seems to keep forgetting the fundamental dictum of war (Get there firstest with the mostest). In this battle, the Confederate army awoke earlier and started the attack while the Union was still drinking their first cup of coffee. A rout ensued and the North fell back in panic. Only stubborn resistance by a few units allowed a stalemate to result. When the Rebels retreated south a few days later, the North claimed victory. This battle was another bloodbath worse than Shiloh. One third of all troops were casualties. We did the auto tour of the battlefield and attended a ranger talk but both were uninteresting.

From Murfreesboro we drove to the northwest part of the state to Fort Donelson National Battlefield. The battle here set the stage for Shiloh and Stones River. Working closely with the Navy and their river gunboats, Grant planned to take control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Before Grant could get in position, the gunboats had forced the Rebels to surrender Fort Henry guarding the Tennessee. When they attacked Fort Donelson on the Cumberland the gunboats lost and Grant was forced to lay siege. In a matter of days the Rebel general surrendered 13,000 troops. This was not only the North’s first big victory of the Civil War but they had their first winning general in Grant.


Just as we were heading out of the Visitor Center a huge thunderstorm hit and we waited it out for an hour and a half. When it slowed down to a slow drizzle we made a mad dash on the auto tour route. Fort Donelson was an earthworks fortress and is mostly still intact. It is also in a very hilly region. Grant is probably lucky the idiots in charge surrendered so fast.