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[546] Thomas to withdraw from the cedar woods, and form a line on the open ground between them and the Nashville pike, his artillery taking a position on an elevation a little to the southwest of that highway. In this movement the brigade of regulars, under Lieutenant-Colonel Shepherd, were exposed to a terrible fire, and lost twenty-two officers and five hundred and two men in killed and wounded. It held its ground against overwhelming odds, with the assistance of the brigades of Beatty and Scribner, and the batteries of Loomis and Guenther.

The position now taken by Thomas was firmly held, and enabled Rosecrans to readjust the line of battle to the state of affairs. But the dreadful struggle was not over.. Palmer's division, which held the right of the National left wing, and which had moved at eight o'clock in the morning to cover Negley's left, and successfully fought and repulsed an attack on his rear, was assailed with great fierceness on his front and right flank (which was exposed by Negley's retirement), while the new line was a forming. His right brigade, under Cruft, was forced back, when the assailants

Monument by Hazen's brigade.1

fell upon the flank of the Second, commanded by Acting Brigadier-General William B. Hazen, of the Forty-first Ohio Volunteers, who was posted on a gentle rise of ground — a cotton-field — between the Nashville pike and the Nashville and Chattanooga railway, now marked by the burial-ground of those of his command who fell on that occasion. He had but one regiment at first to protect this flank, but two battalions from the reserves soon came to its assistance. That brigade was the chief object in the way of complete victory for the Confederates, and in double lines, some in rear, some on flanks,

1 this was the appearance of the burial-ground and the monument on the battlefield of Murfreesboroa, as it appeared when the writer sketched it, early in May, 1866. it is on the spot where Hazen's brigade had its struggle — the severest part of the battle on the 31st of December. The lot is oblong, Forty by one hundred feet in size, surrounded by a substantial wall of limestone, found in the vicinity. In it are the graves of sixty. Nine men of the brigade, buried there, and at the head of each grave is a Stone, with the name of the occupant upon it. A substantial monument of the same kind of Stone is within the enclosure. The wall and the monument were constructed by Hazen's men soon after the battle. The monument, which is seen at the left of the railway by travellers going toward Nashville, is ten feet square at the base, and about the same in height, and bears the following inscriptions:

West side.--“Hazen's brigade. To the memory of its soldiers who fell at Stone River, December 31st, 1862. their faces toward Heaven, their feet to the foe.”

South side.--“the veterans of Shiloh have left a deathless heritage of fame upon the field of Stone River. Killed at Shiloh, April 7, 1862, Captain James Haughton, First Lieutenant and Adjutant T. Patton, and First Lieutenant Joseph Turner, Ninth Indiana Volunteers; First Lieutenant Franklin E. Pancoast and Second Lieutenant Chauncey H. Talcott, Forty-First Ohio Volunteers; Second Lieutenant Anton Hund, Sixth Kentucky Volunteers.”

East side.--“erected 1863, upon the ground where they fell, by their comrades, Forty-First infantry, Ohio Volunteers, Lieutenant-Colonel A. Wiley; Sixth infantry, Kentucky Volunteers, Colonel W. C. Whitaker; Ninth infantry, Indiana Volunteers, Colonel W. H. Black; one hundred and Tenth infantry, Illinois Volunteers, Colonel T. S. Casey; Cockerill's battery, company F, First artillery, Ohio Volunteers, Nineteenth brigade Buell's Army of the Ohio, Colonel W. B. Hazen, Forty-First infantry Ohio Volunteers commanding.”

North side.--“the blood of one-third of its soldiers, twice spilled in Tennessee, crimsons the battle-flag of the brigade, and inspires it to greater deeds. Killed at Stone's River, December 31, 1862, Lieutenant-Colonel George T. Colton and Captain Charles S. Todd.; Sixth Kentucky Volunteers; Captain Isaac M. Pettit, Ninth Indiana Volunteers; First Lieutenant Calvin Hart and First Lieutenant I. T. Patchin, Forty-First Ohio Volunteers; Second Lieutenant Henry Kessler, Ninth Indiana Volunteers; Second Lieutenant Jesse G. Payne, one hundred and Tenth Illinois Volunteers.”

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