In the state of Tennessee, on the outskirts of a city known as Murfreesboro, rests a quiet little park which stretches out from the edge of Old Nashville Highway. From the highway, one can see a vast field of tall, yellow grass rippling in the autumn breeze. Surrounding the field is a roughshod fence made of old wooden planks arranged on top of one another in a zigzag formation. This fence weaves along by itself for a while until it meets a giant stone gateway. The gateway is composed of two towering pillars capped by huge, black pyramids made of cannonballs—easily the most imposing objects in this otherwise unimposing scene. Welcome to Stones River Battlefield.

The pillars guard the parking lot of the welcome center, which in appearance is somewhere between a cabin and a castle. It is a relatively small one-story building with gray stone walls against a Lincoln-green roof which bleeds into the deep blue sky. Out in front rests an iron cannon set up to greet the tourists. Through the doors, the lobby is equipped with the bare essentials: a welcome desk, a gift shop and a small museum.

Everyone here speaks in whispers.

The sound of a few kids playing with their action figures might as well be a choir of angry lions, and their parents quickly put a stop to it. Even the rangers giving tours to those visiting the center speak in hushed tones, but they can be heard nonetheless. The silence isn’t exactly a solemn one. It is just there, as if the place itself banishes any idea of raising one’s voice.

“The Civil War is—I would argue—the most important single event in American history,” says Jim Lewis, a park ranger whom staffers refer to as The Historian. “More so, even, than the American Revolution . . . because it really made us into a country. We really hardly were one prior to the Civil War. We had the states-versus-the-federal-government issue, we still had the issue of slavery hanging over our heads—so there was, you know, [the question] how does that jive with the Declaration of Independence? I mean, before the Civil War, most people didn’t even associate themselves with the country. If you said, ‘Where are you from?’ they might not even say their state, they might say their county. Because, you know, most people grew up, lived, and died inside that little spot.”

Entering the museum, one is immediately struck by how well constructed everything is. The colors, the lighting, the illustrations, they’re all perfect. In one corner, you can see a life-sized Confederate mannequin propped up on one knee as he writes to his family by candlelight. Not content to simply give visitors facts and anecdotes about the titular battle, the exhibit is arranged to pull you into an ongoing story which begins the moment you enter through the doorway.

On Dec. 31, 1862, eighty-one-thousand soldiers meet on the fields around Stones River. On one side, Braxton Bragg commands the Confederate army. These are early days, so many of them are dressed in civilian clothing—wide-brimmed hats, gray jackets, brown boots. On the other side, William S. Rosecrans commands the Union army, all of which are clad in the standard pale-blue duster worn for the cold winter months. These two groups are meeting over the matter of a valuable supply line: the railroad located here has been providing the Confederates with weapons, ammunition, medical supplies and food, among other things. Rosecrans and his commanders intend to take it and cut off the umbilical cord to the South.

After a long, cold night in camp, the Union soldiers awaken to make themselves some breakfast before the inevitable battle. However, their coffee cups spill out over the ground as the Confederates launch the first salvo at the federal camp. The Union soldiers scramble into position and dig in for a long, hard fight.

“Early in the battle,” Lewis explains, “The Confederates smash the Union right wing, and all that actually happens outside the boundaries of the park—down near where Interstate 24 intersects 96. So the Confederates are wheeling ’round the end of the Union line, kind of driving them. . . . Kind of ‘jackknifing’ them.”

The right flank gathers its artillery and finds cover in a wooded area supplied with a cluster of natural limestone trenches. The soldiers settle down into the crags and take cover. Here they intend to pick off the advancing Confederate hoard one by one from relative safety.

“Two groups of men—the divisions of Generals James Negley and Philip Sheridan—holed up for about two hours, entangled with nearly half the Confederate army, slowing them down long enough to allow this new line back along the Nashville Pike to form and later stop the Confederates on the afternoon,” continues Lewis. “A very bloody affair, though, hence the reason the soldiers gave it its nickname. Particularly Negley’s men got in this clump of trees and this big limestone outcropping which made—at first—an excellent fortification.” The historian pauses at the irony. “But when Sheridan’s lines to their right broke, then they were essentially trapped. They got torn apart pretty good.”

Once the Confederates break the Union lines, sniping from afar is no longer an option. The Southerners sound the piercing “rebel yell,” their famous battle cry. Negley’s men begin to retreat, but it is icy and wet. Those trenches which had protected them become a death trap as they try to scramble over the slippery limestone to safety. All the Confederates need to do is stand above the trenches and fire down at the now immobile Yankees floundering among the ice and the rocks. The Union soldiers come to call this place “the slaughter pen.”

Time has long since washed away the blood which trickled down the sides of the limestone walls. The last echo of the cannons died out over a century ago. Otherwise, the place has been perfectly preserved. That clump of trees is still here, and the gray crags in which the Union soldiers took cover are still etched into the terrain, with green moss crawling up the sides. Perhaps most interesting are some brown silhouettes cut out and erected at the place. They are kneeling there and aiming their muskets—like ghosts reliving the violent conflict in hope of a better outcome. A cool breeze can be heard dancing through the tall trees overhead, but all else is silence.

A little window in the wall of the exhibit reveals a diorama of miniature Union soldiers being shot down out in the open on a plowed field. One stands tall, sword drawn, calling out orders to the rest who are either shooting or getting shot; one man lies dying. A white button beneath the window invites a deep voice to explain the horrors being depicted. The sound of the guns crash out of the speakers as the voice tells us the name of this place: “Hell’s Half-Acre.”

When asked, Lewis is ready with an account of this stage of the battle. “There’s fighting going on there from ten o’clock in the morning until nightfall, on Dec. 31. That position is held by Union Colonel William B. Hazen’s brigade, and they are the only Union soldiers that do not take a step backwards. They are the anchor of the new line here along the pike that will stop the Confederates. They will fight off four successive Confederate attacks from the morning to the afternoon, and never give an inch of ground.”

Both sides are pounded constantly by barrage after barrage of cannon and musket fire. The rebels send wave after wave of soldiers to meet them, but the now shattered Union line refuses to back down. At one point, the fighting gets so intense that some begin stuffing their ears with wads of unharvested cotton to block out the noise.

Despite the bravery of Hazen’s brigade, the Union army takes huge losses and are all but defeated during this bout. The fighting finally stops at nightfall, when it is too dark to see one’s targets. Those Union soldiers still alive return to camp and await the next day of fighting. On the Confederate side, General Bragg is convinced the battle is over, and he has won a great victory for the south.

Today, Hell’s Half Acre is said to look essentially the same as it did then, without the dead bodies or the deafening noise. There isn’t a sound to be heard except the distant hum of a freight train traveling the railroad for which this whole battle was fought. You can reach out and touch the ground where the fighting took place, but the horror is gone. If this land had not been preserved from development, it would be a nice spot to set up a house or a business. Hell has left this place, hopefully never to return.

On the morning of Jan. 1, Bragg and his men awake to find that the federals still occupy the area. This time, neither side attacks. They allow New Year’s Day to pass without incident as both sides set about collecting the countless fallen. Citizens of the surrounding villages are allowed on the field to look for the bodies of lost relatives. Many are never recovered.

Early the next day, Bragg orders a new attack on the Union left flank. They charge straight at the Yankees, firing off salvo after salvo into the Union lines. The Federals are forced into a retreat across the Stones River itself. The Confederates give chase, splashing out into the middle of the river to fire into the backs of the fleeing soldiers. But this is a curse in disguise for the Southerners, as the pursuing troops are blown to pieces by 57 Union cannons which await on the other side. Not one Confederate soldier ever makes it across the river.

“I think the most important point is this here,” says Lewis. “This is the stand that stops the battle from being a Confederate victory—which is what it was looking like for most of the morning on the 31st—into, ultimately, a Union victory. I mean, this is where it happens, right out here in these fields. And the great thing is, it pretty much looks just like it did at the time of the battle. I mean, once you get out there, this is pretty much the scenery that the soldiers saw.”

At the end of this clash, the rebels are forced to retreat. General Sheridan declares the battle a victory for the United States. When the final toll is taken, the Battle of Stones River is recorded to have the highest percentage of deaths in the history of the American Civil War.

Going back and standing by those two gray pillars, you can see Stones River National Cemetery across the street. The road separates the cemetery from the battlefield, but the two are still inextricably linked. Like a checkerboard of monuments, the white stones stand straight in the shadow of a patchy forest, forming a vast expanse of graves. It is hard to tell where one memorial ends and the other begins. Each grave is perfectly identical, well kept and in strict formation with the others. They stretch out as far as the eye can see, with a patch of sunlight here and there breaking through the trees and illuminating one or two of the stones. Looking up, the deep blue sky can be seen through the green leaves.

At the end of the exhibit, there is a tiny screen which displays a short video when prompted by another white button. In it, one ranger talks to an interviewer as he stands beneath the trees in the cemetery, “You walk around the park now, and it is peaceful, and it is tranquil. It is filled with people seeing the park and seeing the various historical sites within the park. It really . . . somehow seems fitting that a place that was . . . so terrible for three days is now so peaceful. And it really is a way of coming full circle from the events that took place.”