As I travel around the United States, my tradition has become to visit

different battlefields. Not only are they of great historical significance, they
are a reminder of the lives that were given for the right to be free. They tell
the story of passionate people performing extraordinary feats to preserve
their deepest beliefs.

Over the years I have visited the battlefields at Gettysburg, Yorktown,

Antietam, Guilford Courthouse, Alamance, Cowpens, Moore’s Creek Bridge,
Ft. Sumter, The Alamo, Ft. Fisher, Shiloh (a.k.a. Pittsburgh Landing),
Vicksburg, Appomattox, and most recently Stone’s Creek in Murfreesboro,
Tennessee.

All of these battles were fought and lives given to win for us the right to
live a life of freedom and self-rule. They were fought for the people of this
nation, not on foreign soil to protect other nations, but here on American soil
for our very existence.

The American Revolution and Civil War were fought for somewhat
different principles but aimed at the same goal. They were to win and
protect the right of a people to be free. These wars provided us occasion to
live without harassment or heavy-handedness from a tyrannical
government. The dedication of the men who fought won the opportunity for
us to exist with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Stone’s Creek was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. It occurred
right after the North’s defeat at Fredericksburg. The North desperately
needed a victory and Stone’s Creek provided it. It affirmed the Emancipation
Proclamation which had recently been published. The cost in lives was high.
Three thousand dead and twenty thousand wounded in two days of fighting.
That was one-third of the men that fought there.

Early on this bright August morning I walked the battlefield of Stone’s

Creek. There is a cool breeze drifting over me as I walk on the paved path. I
don’t think this path was here on December 31, 1862, as the two armies
faced one another, eighty-one thousand strong. The dew was glistening on
the blue-green grass of these tranquil Tennessee fields and woods. This
tranquility preceded the battle one-hundred and forty-seven years ago, and
it endures to this day.

The sun is peaking over the trees, much as it would have on that cold
December morning. The Union army was preparing its breakfast and its
weapons. They were not aware that at that moment the confederates had
begun to make strategic movements preparing for the first attack. Even in
the tenseness of pre-battle there was a quiet calm. The Union soldiers were
talking together with an easy camaraderie, attained by fighting side-by-side
and back-to-back in previous actions.

The trees stand almost impenetrable to my gaze in the misty gloom of the
early morning. In my mind’s eye I saw men moving through the woods like
ghostly shadows hiding behind whatever boulders and trees were available
to give them cover.

I crossed the road that separates the cemetery from the rest of
battlefield. Although there are numerous headstones and monuments I have
read that the men who died here were buried in mass graves. It’s staggering
to me that so many men would be buried in such a small plot of land.
Approximately six-thousand men were buried in this twenty acre internment.
Of this number, over two-thousand five-hundred are unknown. The 111th
United States Colored Infantry was assigned the task of locating the bodies
of fallen Union soldiers around the Murfreesboro area. They began their work
in October, 1865, and ended it a year later. No confederates were buried
here, they having been moved to small town cemeteries in the area.

Just to the east of the cemetery I approached the Hazen Brigade

Monument located on a small hill called “Hell’s Half Acre”. The most intense
action of the first day of battle occurred at this location. The Confederates
attacked this Union position four times that first day. The 32nd Alabama
Infantry was engaged in this action. Of the two-hundred and eighty men of
the regiment, only fifty-eight survived. Standing here on this relatively small
patch of land I had a sensation of the incredible intensity of the Southern
attack and the determined tenacity of the Union defense. The monument
that stands here is the oldest intact monument of the Civil War, having been
erected in early 1863 by the men of the Hazen Brigade.

Walking across the fields and through the woods on this ethereal morning
I heard the voices of the combatants talking around the fire on that New
Year’s Day of 1863. Both sides chose not to fight on New Year’s Day. Instead
they spent the day around their fires, resting and talking. In the evening the
bands of both sides strike up the music, playing the tunes of their
persuasion. Sometime during the evening the Confederate band began to
play Home Sweet Home. Voices stilled as the Union band began to play in
time with their opponents. It was a gentle interlude in the middle of chaos.

The song was a tender reminder that in this defining conflict, brother
fought against brother, fathers fought against children, families against their
own. There were several secessionist states that had entire divisions fighting
for the north and the south.

Considering the different emotional aspects of what occurred here I was

reminded that each man, whether Confederate or Yankee believed deeply in
what they were fighting for. It is interesting that as strong as the feelings
were about the reasons for the war, both armies relied largely on conscripts
(the modern day draft) rather than volunteers. The feelings about the use of
the draft were as strong as the ones over the war itself.

One thing that struck me in a most powerful manner as I stood on this

hallowed ground is the sense that the America we know today would be very
unfamiliar to these men. I don’t mean this only in an industrial or technical
sense, or even a social sense. They were fighting for a way of life.

You see, the Civil War was not about slavery, although many try to teach
that it was. Simply put, the South had a more genteel way of life. It was
basically respectful and treated women with deference. Life was lived with
honor and a strong emphasis on tradition. It was an agricultural economy.
Family honor was of tremendous importance.

In the North there was an emphasis on industrialization. Family was

strong but in a different way from the South. Much of the family orientation
was determined by the nationality one came from, as the Northeast was a
great melting pot for those coming to America. Socialization was determined
more by “neighborhood” than family.

Still there were threads of similarity between both and eventually those
threads would help in knitting the fabric of what we know as America today.

As I mull this over in my mind it seems that the vision of America these
men were fighting for is not what we have today. I think the selfish greed of
this country would disgust the men that fought on this field. Most of them
were common people, farmers and factory workers.

“The rich in both North and South could buy their way out of
service through exemption and commutation clauses
allowing propertied men to avoid service, thus laying the
burden on immigrants and men with few resources.
Occupational, only-son, and medical exemptions created
many loopholes in the laws. Doctors certified healthy men
unfit for duty, while some physically or mentally deficient
conscripts went to the front after sham examinations.”[1]

Well, I suppose in that regard maybe things aren’t so different.

 In many ways, though, this country is vastly different from the one they
were fighting for. Today we seem to be totally self-absorbed. People are
greedily clutching for “possessions” and “position”. Accomplishment is no
longer measured by how our children turn out and our contribution to the
community, but by what objects we have and social or vocational stature. I
know that these are common to each generation to different degrees, yet the
strength to which they occur varies in its intensity and impact upon each
generation. This generation seems to be consumed with having. In the
process of having our society in general has become selfish, greedy and self-
absorbed.

Continuing to walk across the battlefield I come to Stones River itself. On

the east side of the river the Union forces made their final stand. The Union
forces occupied a hill overlooking McFadden’s Ford. The Confederates
attacked along a line that slowly drove back Union troops, pushing them into
the river. As the Confederates continued their pursuit the fifty-four cannon of
the Union battery opened fire. The twenty-four pound shot took a terrible toll
on the Rebels.

General Crittendon wrote,” “Van Cleve’s Division of my command was retiring down
the opposite slope, before overwhelming numbers of the enemy, when the guns … opened upon
the swarming enemy. The very forest seemed to fall … and not a Confederate reached the
river.”[2]

In a forty-five minute period eighteen-hundred Confederates were killed

or wounded. Not a single Confederate crossed the river to attack the high
ground controlled by the Federal forces. Union forces counterattacked,
driving the Rebels back to Wayne’s Hill. This action ended the battle of
Stones River. Two days later the Confederate Army of the Tennessee
conceded the field, broke camp and began their retreat.
 The Union controlled the “Nasheville Pike” for the rest of the war.
Confederate cavalry forces harried the Federal supply trains but did no
serious damage. This costly Union victory gave the Union an important
supply line to its forces fighting along the Mississippi River and in Mississippi,
Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama.

The sun rises high in the sky as I approach the visitor center. The
quietness is broken by visitors arriving to see the battlefield. People are
laughing as they exit their vehicles to walk in and view history. Some are
talking about their next stop as they travel. My prayer for them is they find a
deep realization of what occurred here and not just another place to add to
their list of tourist attractions visited.

As I drove away from the Park I took one long last look at those hallowed
grounds where such tremendous sacrifice had been made. I perceived that
this place had become a part of me. My experience there had taken
residence in my soul and renewed my desire to unearth the America we
seem to have lost sight of.

[1] "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" Edited by Patricia L. Faust
[2] http://www.nps.gov/stri/historyculture/breckinridge.htm