Photo: A wooded area with a floor of low, flat rocks, covering a low rise from the foreground to its crest. The rocks are more or less rectangular and separated by narrow gaps, perhaps 10 inches wide and 12-20 inches deep, with a few dried brown leaves collected with twigs in them. It is a tricky space to move through. You have to watch your step. The trees are deciduous and their leaves still on them are still green. Most of the rocks and trees have moss growing on the side facing the camera, so you can assume we're seeing them from their north side. These are the Slaughter Pens. Union troops under the command of Generals Philip Sheridan and James Negley fought a delaying action here that permitted Generals William Rosecrans and George Thomas to reconfigure reserves and regroup retreating troops to form a battle line that ultimately denied Secessionists access to the Nashville Pike. "The cost of this delaying action was enormous. … All three of Sheridan’s brigade commanders were killed or mortally wounded and many Federal units lost more than one-third of their men. … Union soldiers recalled the carnage as looking like the slaughter pens in the stockyards of Chicago. The name stuck." – National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/stri/learn/historyculture/slaughterpen.htm For more on the Battle of Stones River (31 December 31 1862 – 2 January 2 1863): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stones_River 29 September 2024 Stones River National Battlefield, Tennessee TG-6: ƒ/3.2, 1/60, 9.01mm, ISO200
The Slaughter Pens
29 September 2024
#StonesRiver #NationalBattlefield, #Tennessee
#NPS #NationalParkService #CivilWarHistory
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