Hartsville

On December 7, 1862, forces clashed at Hartsville in northern Tennessee as the Stones River Campaign of the American Civil War got underway. The site of that engagement, Hartsville Battlefield, now holds a place on the National Register of Historic Places.

Background

In early November 1862, Union forces under Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans set out from Nashville, Tennessee, pushing southeast toward Murfreesboro in what would become the Stones River Campaign. Facing them was Confederate General Braxton Bragg, whose Army of Tennessee had pulled back to that area following its loss at Perryville. Seeking to disrupt Rosecrans's supply lines, Bragg dispatched Colonel John Hunt Morgan and his cavalry northward, hoping to keep Union troops from gathering provisions in the region above Nashville. It was during this northern raid, and before Rosecrans had put the bulk of his infantry into motion, that fighting broke out at Hartsville, a Cumberland River crossing situated roughly 40 miles upstream from Nashville and north of Murfreesboro.

Battle

At Hartsville, the task of holding the river crossing fell to the 39th Brigade of the XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland, made up of the 106th Ohio Infantry, 108th Ohio Infantry, 104th Illinois Infantry, and 2nd Indiana Cavalry, all under Col. Absalom B. Moore. In the predawn hours of December 7, 1862, Morgan slipped his roughly 1,300 men, most of them Kentuckians, across the river under cover of night, even though the Union brigade facing him held a numerical edge of about 1,000 soldiers. Nine miles off at Castalian Springs sat a Federal force three times larger, near enough to catch the sound of cannon fire yet far too distant to lend any help.

The Confederates caught the Union encampment completely off guard. Accounts differ on how they slipped past the sentries: one version holds that they donned blue coats to pass as Federal troops, while another claims they dressed as civilians and posed as refugees fleeing the war. At 6:45 in the morning, artillery fire opened up in tandem with an infantry advance, while horsemen swept around to hit the flanks and rear. About an hour into the fighting, one of Moore's regiments gave way and fled, sowing chaos that pushed the rest of the Federal line into retreat. Surrounded on all sides by 8:30 a.m., Moore saw no option but to surrender his command.

Aftermath

Stationed roughly eight or nine miles off at Castalian Springs, the Union 75th Indiana regiment set out for Hartsville upon hearing distant cannon fire. Wary of stumbling into the rear guard of Morgan's cavalry, the regiment advanced cautiously.

When the Indiana troops finally reached the field, they found Union and Confederate dead and wounded left behind in the snow. By then Morgan's combined force of light infantry, light artillery, and cavalry had already overwhelmed the Union defenders. Many of Morgan's soldiers lacked shoes and proper clothing, so they took Union footwear and other supplies, loading several wagons in the process. Combined casualties on both sides were estimated at around 200.

Basil W. Duke, commanding Confederate troops in the field, later noted that fifteen Confederates, "frozen so stiff," had to be abandoned along with additional wounded men. Union wounded were likewise left behind, and the 2,004 captured Union soldiers were marched southward toward Lebanon.

According to Duke, the Confederates were well aware of Union troop numbers and positions beforehand. As a safeguard, Morgan positioned Quirk's Scouts and Cluke's regiment to slow any Union pursuit. The retreating Confederates quickened their march, and at points some Union prisoners were made to cross the Cumberland River or nearby smaller streams on foot.

In the end, Morgan's forces suffered 139 casualties while inflicting 58 on the Union side, and they withdrew with 1,844 Union prisoners along with a wagon train packed full of seized supplies and equipment. Joseph E. Johnston, then overseeing Confederate operations across the Western Theater, praised the engagement as a "brilliant feat" and urged that Morgan receive an immediate promotion to brigadier general. Jefferson Davis, who happened to be nearby in Murfreesboro, personally promoted Morgan once he arrived there.

This clash at Hartsville anticipated the cavalry campaigns soon to follow: Nathan Bedford Forrest's raid into West Tennessee between December 1862 and January 1863, and Morgan's own raid into Kentucky across that same period. Not long after, on December 29, Rosecrans reached Murfreesboro, laying the groundwork for what would become the Battle of Stones River.