Auto Tour Stop 5 - Hell's Half Acre

Union infantry and artillery beat back four Confederate attacks here to secure a Union visctory.

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Location:

Murfreesboro, TN

Significance:

The fighting here anchored the new Union line that turned the tide of battle at Stones River.

Designation:

National Park, National Register of Historic Places.

Amenities

4 listed

Audio Description, Cellular Signal, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto

On December 31, 1862, the men of Colonel William B. Hazen’s brigade found themselves at a crucial point. They held the Union line between the Nashville Pike and Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, in an area known as the Round Forest. The Confederates attacked four times that day, and after each attack their casualties only grew.

J. Morgan Smith, of the 32^nd Alabama, described the Confederate loses:

We charged in fifty yards of them and had not the timely order of retreat been given — none of us would now be left to tell the tale…Our regiment carries two hundred and eighty into action and came out with fifty eight.

The carnage left in the wake of the Hazen Brigade's defiant stand lent the place a new name: Hell's Half Acre.

Colonel Hazen’s Brigade was the only Union unit not to retreat on December 31. Their stand served as the anchor point in the line that held the Nashville Pike and secured a Union victory.

Learn more about the deadly events in Hell's Half acre by watching this video from our friends at the American Battlefield Trust.

• Auto Tour Stop 5 - Audio

  
  

  Listen to a description of the critical fighting at Hell's Half Acre and the stand of Col. William B. Hazen's brigade against four Confederate attacks.
  Audio Transcript

  Hundreds of men fought and perished on the piece of land that you are standing on. Some of the fiercest fighting at the Battle of Stones River happened here. The carnage was so great that the men who survived the battle named this place, “Hell’s Half Acre.”

  The fighting that occurred here on “Hell’s Half Acre” was some of the most intense fighting that occurred between the two armies. Colonel William B. Hazen’s Brigade defended the Nashville Pike from this location, called the Round Forest. The brigade did not lose any ground to the Confederate Army on that day. They were the only unit of the Union line who held their position during against four Confederate charges. The attacks against the brigade began at mid-morning. Several Confederate brigades charged this Union position. Corporal Magee from Mississippi described the wild and chaotic scene afterwards, stating, “Then commenced the most terrible cannonading I ever witnessed, [the] canon[s] were belching forth their deadly contents at once, while thousands of small arms kept up a roar equal to the falls of Niagara. Men were swept down by hundreds- trees, shrubs and everything [were] torn up, cut off, or shivered.” Hazen’s men repulsed every Confederate attack and became the anchor point of the Union line that halted the Confederate tide before it reached the Nashville Pike.

  The men of the Colonel William B. Hazen’s Union brigade constructed this monument after the Battle of Stones River to commemorate their fight in Hell’s Half Acre. The Hazen Brigade Monument is the oldest, intact Civil War monument in the nation.