Stones River Battlefield — Hazen Brigade Monument

The Battle of Stones River (December 1862–January 1863) killed or wounded over 23,000 men and left a field that witnesses at the time described as 'carpeted with the dead.' The Hazen Brigade Monument, erected in 1863 before the war ended, is the oldest Civil War monument still standing in its original location. Rangers at this undervisited battlefield document phantom cannon reports at dawn, shadowy figures moving through the cedar forest where the fighting was fiercest, and an oppressive silence in the Round Forest that visitors find deeply unsettling regardless of their beliefs.