The Battle of Hartsville was fought on December 7, 1862, in northern Tennessee at the opening of the Stones River Campaign the American Civil War. Hartsville Battlefield is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Stones River Campaign started in early November 1862 when Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans moved his Army of the Cumberland southeast from Nashville, Tennessee, toward Murfreesboro. Confederate General Braxton Bragg, commanding the Army of Tennessee, had retreated there after his defeat at the Battle of Perryville. Bragg ordered Colonel John Hunt Morgan to move north with his cavalry and operate along Rosecrans's lines of communications, to prevent him from foraging for supplies north of Nashville. The action at Hartsville, a crossing point on the Cumberland River about 40 miles upstream from Nashville, north of Murfreesboro, was an incident in Morgan's raid to the north, before Rosecrans had the bulk of his infantry forces on the move.
Guarding the river crossing at Hartsville was the 39th Brigade, XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland, consisting of the 106th Ohio Infantry, 108th Ohio Infantry, 104th Illinois Infantry, and 2nd Indiana Cavalry. The brigade was commanded by Col. Absalom B. Moore. Under the cover of darkness, Morgan crossed the river in the early morning of December 7, 1862, with about 1,300 men, mainly Kentuckians, outnumbered by about 1,000 troops by the Union brigade. Another Union force, three times that size, was encamped nine miles away at Castalian Springs, close enough to hear the guns, but too far away to take part.
Morgan's attack took the Union camp by surprise. One account indicates that the Confederates were able to get past the picket line by wearing blue uniforms, while another says they wore civilian clothes and posed as refugees. The attack began at 6:45 a.m. with a simultaneous artillery bombardment and an infantry attack, while the cavalry struck the flanks and rear. One of Moore's units broke and ran after an hour, which caused confusion and helped force the Federals to fall back. By 8:30 a.m., the Confederates had surrounded the Union soldiers, convincing Col. Moore to surrender.
The Union 75th Indiana regiment was camped about 8 or 9 miles away at Castalian Springs. They marched to Hartsville after hearing cannons firing in the distance. Their advance was hesitant because they may have encountered the rear guard of Morgan's cavalry.
They reached the battlefield to find Union and Confederate casualties abandoned in the snow. The Union forces had already been defeated by the Morgan's combined light infantry, light artillery and cavalry. Some of Morgan's men were barefooted and inadequately clothed. They helped themselves to the Union supplies of shoes and filled several wagons with supplies. Reports gave the number of dead and wounded as about 200 combined.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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