I want to start today with a little mental exercise
for you. When I say the words Civil War monument,
what is the immediate image that pops into your
head? It is a pretty distinct image for most
people, isn't it? I usually picture a town square,
maybe a courthouse lawn in Ohio or Georgia. There's
a pristine bronze statue of a general on a high
horse. Or maybe a solitary soldier standing at
parade rest looking very noble. Exactly. And
usually, if you walk up and look at the date
on the plaque, it was erected in, say, 1910 or
1920. Maybe even the 1950s. Yeah, decades later.
Yeah. Put up by aging veterans or their children.
Or sometimes even their grandchildren to remember
the glory days. Right. It is memory filtered
through time. But today, for this deep dive,
we are doing something completely different.
looking at an anomaly. A massive anomaly. A structure
that by all conventional logic shouldn't really
exist. We are heading to the Stones River National
Battlefield in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. We are
talking about the Hazen Brigade Monument. And
this does not look like a statue. No, it looks
like a small angry fortress. And here is the
kicker. It is the oldest American Civil War monument
remaining in its original battlefield location.
And that original location part is key. but the
win is even more important. Right. This isn't
a memorial place where it looked nice 50 years
later. Right. This stands on the actual ground
where the fighting happened. Built by the guys
who did the fighting. Exactly. And the mission
for this deep dive is to unpack why that matters.
We are going to look at the hell's half acre
that birthed this thing. The soldiers who built
it with their own hands during the war. Which
is just a wild concept to me. It is. And the
stream's secrets, including a potential time
capsule that they hid inside the stone. It really
is a fascinating story because it completely
changes how we view historical memory. This wasn't
a reflection on the past. It was a reaction to
immediate visceral trauma. Exactly. It is about
grief, engineering, and a very famous, very cynical
author who has a surprise role in all this. So
let's set the stage. We need to go back to the
winter of 1862, December 31st. The Battle of
Stones River. Where are we and what is happening?
Context is king here. This is New Year's Eve,
1862. The tactical situation is incredibly tense.
Right. You have the Confederate General Braxton
Bragg facing off against Union Major General
William S. Rosecrum. They are just outside Murfreesboro,
Tennessee. Now, this isn't just a skirmish. This
is a massive battle for control of Middle Tennessee.
Because if the Union loses here, Nashville probably
falls. Exactly. The stakes are maximum. And Bragg
decides he isn't going to wait around for the
new year to start. No, he does not. At the crack
of dawn, while Union soldiers are literally making
their coffee and frying bacon. It's just totally
unready. Bragg launches a massive surprise attack
on the Union right flank. When you say surprise
in the sources, we are talking about a complete
collapse. This wasn't an orderly retreat. It
was devastating. It was an absolute rout. Bragg's
forces drove the Union right wing back three
mile. Three mile. Yes. If you look at a map of
the battle at that moment, the Union line isn't
a line anymore. It has been bent nearly at right
angles. I read it described like a pocket knife
closing. A jackknife closing halfway, yes. That
is the Union army. They're being rolled up like
a carpet. It sounds like the entire army is about
to be annihilated. They were on the verge of
total disaster. But there was one spot that held.
The hinge of that jackknife. The Round Forest.
The Round Forest. It was a four -acre clump of
cedar trees. Crucial terrain. And it was located
right at the salient, the corner of that bent
line. Right. Sitting just east of the Nashville
Pike and straddling the railroad. If the Confederates
punch through here, they cut off the Union retreat
to Nashville. Game over. Game over. And the man
in charge of defending this little patch of trees
was Colonel William Babcock Hazen. That is right.
Hazen and his brigade. We were talking about
roughly 1 ,300 men. They weren't just standing
there watching the line fold. No, they were the
wall. They, along with some other union support
and a lot of massed artillery behind them, had
to hold that position at all costs. And the fighting
there, I mean, the sources describe it as an
absolute meat grinder. This wasn't long range
musketry. It was horrific. The Confederates launched
four separate assaults against this position.
Four waves. Four waves of men crashing into these
cedars. You have to imagine the noise. Thousands
of muskets. cannons firing canister shot. Which
basically turns artillery into giant shotguns.
Exactly. The trees were just being shredded.
The soldiers didn't call it the Round Forest
anymore. They gave it a new nickname almost immediately.
Hell's Half Acre. Hell's Half Acre. That name
alone gives you chills. It sounds like something
out of a horror movie, not a history book. Well,
it was earned. Hazen's regiments took 409 casualties
in that stand. Which was what, 29 % of the entire
brigade? Yes. 29%. 45 men were killed outright
in that small patch of woods. But, and this is
the real so what of the battle they held, Hazen's
resistance arguably saved the Union line from
breaking completely. They bought Rosecrans enough
time to reform his lines and survive the day.
Precisely. So you have this incredibly traumatic,
high -stakes event. Usually in war, you fight,
you bury the dead, and you move on. You march
to the next town. Right. Maybe you come back
20 years later to put up a plaque when you are
an old man. But that is not what happened here.
No. And this is where the story gets really unique.
We move to the summer of 1863. The war is still
raging. Right. In fact, the Union Army of the
Cumberland is in the middle of the Tullahoma
campaign maneuvering against Bragg again. But
amidst all that active campaigning, members of
Hazen's brigade are detailed ordered essentially
to go back to Stones River. They went back to
the scene of the crime, so to speak, while the
war was still happening around them. They went
back to the cemetery where they had buried their
friends. Their goal was to build a monument.
Not after the peace treaty, but while the guns
were literally still hot in the distance. They
wanted to commemorate the heroism of the brigade
and memorialize the comrades they had lost just
six months prior. That is such a different mindset
from the usual monuments. It is not nostalgia.
It is grief. It is raw. It feels possessive almost,
like they were staking a claim to the land and
saying, we paid for this ground. I think that
is a great way to put it. It was a statement
of fact. So they didn't hire a contractor. This
was built by the soldiers themselves. A construction
detail led by a Lieutenant Edward Crebin. They
were Hazen's men. They were building this for
their friends. Let's talk about what it looks
like. Because, as we mentioned, this isn't a
statue of a guy on a horse. If you stumble upon
it today, it looks ancient. It is stark. A Union
Army captain at the time described it as a quadrangular
pyramidal shaft. Quadrangular pyramidal shaft?
That is a mouthful. It is very technical. Think
of a shorter Squatter Washington monument, but
made of rough Hand -hewn limestone blocks. It
has a 10 -foot square base and rises about 11
feet high. It is not polished. It is heavy. It
has real weight to it. And it is surrounded by
a wall, right? Yes, a dry stack stone wall, meaning
they didn't use mortar, just carefully fitted
stones. It is about four feet high and two feet
thick. It encloses both the monument and the
brigade cemetery. Honestly, it looks like a fortification.
It looks like it was built by men who were used
to building defensive works to stop bullets.
Exactly. I can just picture them hauling those
massive stones in the Tennessee summer heat.
That is brutal work. Oh, there are the inscriptions.
These weren't machine cut. No, in 1864, two experienced
stonecutters from the regiment guys who probably
cut gravestones back home before the war carved
the inscriptions by hand. They listed the names
of the officers killed at Stones River, and they
even included officers from the earlier Battle
of Shiloh. There is a quote inscribed on the
South Face that I think is one of the most powerful
things I have read in these sources. It really
captures the spirit of that stand in the Round
Forest. It does. It reads, to the memory of his
soldiers who fell at Stombs River, December 31st,
1862. Their faces towards heaven, their feet
to the foe. Their feet to the foe. That is such
a vivid image of defiance. They didn't run, they
died facing the enemy. It sends a message, doesn't
it? It is a declaration of pure stubbornness.
We stood here, we didn't back down. It is not
rest in peace. It is we did our job. Absolutely.
Now here is where it gets really interesting
for the bookworms out there. Because this monument
isn't just connected to military history. Right.
It has a connection to a very famous name in
American literature, someone who was actually
there. This is one of those small world historical
moments that just blows your mind. We are talking
about Ambrose Bierce. The author of the Devil's
Dictionary and an occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
The master of the macabre, the guy who wrote
some of the darkest, most cynical stuff in American
history. But before he was a famous cynic and
writer, he was a young staff officer. Specifically,
a topographic engineer in the 9th Indiana Volunteers,
which was part of Hazen's brigade. So he knew
Hazen. He was part of this unit. He knew Hazen
very well. And because he was a topographic engineer,
his job was to understand the landscape. He had
to map it. He survived the fighting at Stones
River unscathed, but he saw the carnage at Hell's
Halfacre firsthand. And he certainly saw the
monument when it was completed in 1863. And he
didn't just forget about it. He came back, didn't
he? He did. Years later in 1907, so we're talking
more than 40 years later, Beers visited the monument
for a second time. And that visit actually sparked
a story. Right. In 1908, he published a story
called A Resumed Identity. It is an eerie psychological
tale. The main character is a veteran who is
disoriented, wandering the battlefield, thinking
he is still young and the war is still going
on. Without spoiling the story too much for anyone
who hasn't read it, though it has been over 100
years, the monument is the reality check. The
twist ending relies on it. Bierce describes the
monument in the story as brown with age, weather
-worn at the angles, spotted with moss and lichen.
Between the massive blocks were strips of grass.
You can really see the passage of time in his
description. It had become part of the landscape.
And the character sees the monument and finally
realizes how much time has passed. There is also
a little detail about Bierce's sense of humor
that came up in the research. It is a bit dark,
but it fits him perfectly. It is very dark. Some
scholars suggest that during the construction,
or perhaps during a visit, his macabre sense
of humor led him to create a fake gravestone
in the Brigade Cemetery. A fake grave. For a
soldier named A. Louse. A. Louse. Like the bug.
Exactly. Like the body lies that tormented literally
every soldier in that war. That is fantastic.
Amidst all this death and solemnity, you have
this bit of dark soldier's humor. A gravestone
for a louse. It reminds you that these were real
people coping with terrible conditions in very
human ways. It wasn't all marble and glory. It
was bugs, dirt, and trying to stay sane. It adds
such a layer of humanity to those stone blocks.
OK, so we have the battle. We have the construction.
We have the literary connection. But the monument
had one more surprise waiting for us. Fast forward
to 1985. 1985. The monument is over 120 years
old. It needs repairs. The National Park Service
is doing some much needed restoration work. And
as they are carefully dismantling parts of the
core to stabilize it, they start finding things
inside the fill of the monument. Inside the limestone
and soil packed between the outer walls. At first
it just seemed like trash, right? Just battlefield
debris? Basically. In the general fill, they
found debris that you would expect from a battlefield
or a construction site. Two bullets, some buck
and ball shot, a lead disc. They even found a
freshwater mussel shell, some bone fragments,
and six horse teeth. Horse teeth! Just mixed
in with the dirt. Likely just scooped up with
the soil when they were filling the core of the
monument. The battlefield was littered with carcasses,
unfortunately. Archaeologists think that stuff
was purely accidental. Just the detritus of war.
But then they looked higher up, and the story
changed. About five feet above the ground, the
nature of the artifacts changed completely. What
did they find? They found a collection of items
all placed at a single level. Two 12 -pound cannonballs.
One 6 -pound cannonball. Three rifled artillery
shells. Two rifled musket barrels. And a cedar
staff. Okay, hold on. You don't accidentally
shovel a 12 -pound cannonball five feet up into
a wall you were building. Precisely. That takes
effort. That takes intention. The National Park
Service believes this was purposeful. It was
a time capsule, or perhaps a votive offering.
A time capsule from 1863. Think about that. While
the war is still undecided, while they are actively
campaigning, they took the tools of their trade,
the cannonballs, the muskets, and sealed them
inside this stone pyramid. It is fascinating
because there is no note, right? No letter saying,
dear future people, here is what happened. Just
the weapons. It is ambiguous. Were they burying
the weapons of war? Were they preserving them?
We don't know the exact meaning, but the intent
is undeniable. They wanted something of their
reality to survive inside that stone. It feels
almost ritualistic to me. Like they were building
a reliquary for the violence they survived. It
adds such a mystery to the structure. It is not
just a marker. It is a container. A container
for their memories and their tools. Exactly.
So what happened to the monument after the war?
Did it just sit there in the woods? For a while,
yes. The site, which is about 0 .84 acres, was
acquired by the War Department in 1875. For a
long time it was managed by the superintendent
of the Stones River National Cemetery. But, like
many things, it went through periods of neglect.
It suffered some deterioration prior to 1930.
The walls started to crumble a bit. Nature started
taking it back. But in 1930, the administration
of the Hazen Memorial and the National Cemetery
was consolidated into the Stones River National
Military Park. Then in 1933, the whole thing
was transferred from the War Department to the
National Park Service. And that is who takes
care of it today. Correct. And thanks to that
stewardship and that 1985 restoration we talked
about, it remains standing as the oldest surviving
Civil War monument in its original location.
So let's unpack this. We have gone through the
history, the literature, the archaeology, but
why does this specific pile of rocks matter so
much? Why are we spending this time talking about
it? If we connect this to the bigger picture,
it is all about authenticity. Most monuments
tell us what people wanted to believe about the
war 50 years later. They are polished, heroic,
idealized. They are about myth making. They smooth
over the rough edges. Right. The marble acts
like a filter. It makes it look noble. Exactly.
But the Hazen Brigade monument, this is raw.
It is a coarse, immediate reaction to a near
-death experience. It was built by the survivors
for the friends they had just dragged off the
field. It is not about glory in the abstract
sense. It is about specific men, a specific piece
of ground, and the fact that they survive when
others didn't. It feels much more personal. It
is. It is a tombstone. a fortress, and a shout
into the void all at once. It captures the trauma
of the Civil War in a way that a statue in a
town square never could. I cannot get the image
out of my head. Soldiers stacking those stones,
sweating in the Tennessee summer heat knowing
that the war wasn't over. They were building
a memorial. but they knew they might be the next
ones to die. That is the haunting part. Their
faces towards heaven, their feet to the foe.
They were writing their own epitaphs just in
case, they were saying. If we die tomorrow, at
least we left this. That is the difference between
a polished marble statue in a town square and
a rough stone pyramid built in a cedar forest.
One is a story we tell ourselves. The other is
the scar left behind. And that brings me to a
final thought for you to chew on today. We talked
about how those soldiers hid their literal tools
of war, their muskets and cannonballs, inside
that stone fortress as a raw, unfiltered message
to the future. A time capsule of trauma. Exactly.
So I want you to think about this. If you were
forced to build a monument to your own survival
today, not decades from now when the memory is
soft, but right in the messy middle of it all,
what rough stones would you stack? And more importantly,
what unseen truth would you seal up inside the
walls for someone else to find a century later?
There's always more to the story if you look
inside the walls. That is it for this deep dive
into the Hazen Brigade Monument. Next time you
see a memorial, take a closer look. Check the
date and ask yourself, was it built to remember
or was it built to cope? Thanks for joining us.
See you on the next deep dive.