Miracle at the Three-Mile Marker, Now a Lake at Stones River
ECW welcomes back guest author Daniel A. Masters.
About a mile northwest of the visitors’ center at Stones River National Battlefield along the Old Nashville Pike rests a simple marker denoting the location of Gen. William S. Rosecrans’ headquarters. What most visitors do not realize is that just behind the fence at this location is the site of one of the most important turning points of the battle on December 31, 1862, an event that I call the Miracle at the Three-Mile Marker. Unfortunately, the ground itself is long gone and today features a pair of deep lakes, the remnants of an old limestone quarry.
The “miracle” occurred that afternoon. Since dawn, the Union army had been driven back from successive positions, the most recent fight being between three Federal brigades and Gen. Patrick Cleburne’s division near Asbury Road. The Federal line broke again, and as Cleburne’s troops chased the fleeing survivors of Col. Charles G. Harker’s brigade, they spied an important tactical goal almost within their grasp: the Nashville Pike, Rosecrans’ lifeline to his supply base at Nashville. If the Confederates could seize control of this road, Rosecrans would be boxed in with few tactical options except retreat. Victory lay within the Confederacy’s grasp.
Rosecrans saw Cleburne’s line approaching and fully recognized the peril. He was conferring with Gen. Alexander M. McCook to devise defensive measures when a small column of dusty and bedraggled soldiers approached along Nashville Pike. Colonel Luther Bradley rode at their head, leading about 400 men of the 27th and 51st Illinois regiments, part of Gen. Phil Sheridan’s division, which performed much hard fighting that morning trying to hold the line along the Wilkinson Pike. The Illinoisans were considerably roughed up and had just three rounds of ammunition per man, but as events would show, they still had plenty of fight left in them.
Rosecrans rode up to the column and inquired, “Who commands these troops?” Colonel Bradley, newly elevated to brigade command after Col. George W. Roberts was mortally wounded that morning, stepped forward and said, “I do.”
“Send your regiments quickly into yonder thicket and stop the advance of the Rebels,” Rosecrans directed. “Quick, quick, lose not a moment, colonel. This battle must be won.” Bradley saluted, told Rosey that his men were nearly out of ammunition, but gamely said, “we will drive them with the bayonet.”[1]
Lieutenant Otis Moody of the 51st Illinois wrote that Bradley’s line initially ventured into the field, but found it a bad job. “We advanced to the edge of the thicket and endeavored to hold a position there but we didn’t have half a chance as the fire was so hot from the unseen enemy that we had to fall back to the pike. General McCook then came up furious and said the pike had to be held as the safety of the whole army depended upon it,” wrote Moody.[2]
Chastened, Col. Bradley wheeled his men around and, after advancing for a clip, he ordered them to lie down and wait for Col. Charles G. Harker’s men to clear away from their front. William Ranson of the 27th Illinois noted that the men in the ranks “became impatient and yelled out Charge! The whole length of the two regiments scaled the hill, yelling at the top of our voices, firing and loading as we went. The enemy soon became confused and began to break ranks and scatter before us. On we went, not forgetting to keep up the yell.” Lieutenant Moody noted that “both regiments charged into the thicket with a shout and a yell that ought to have been heard all over the Southern Confederacy. It was really the most brilliant thing I saw the whole day.”[3]
The charge, unordered and uncontrolled, miraculously turned the tide for the Federals. Wilbur Hinman of the 65th Ohio of Harker’s brigade admired the spectacle with unbounded joy as Bradley’s men “charged bayonets upon the surprised Rebels with a cheer that seemed to rend the skies. The Secesh broke and ran in the wildest confusion, throwing away guns, cartridge boxes, and whatever else impeded them in their flight. Cheer after cheer went up from the brave ‘Suckers’ as they pursued the flying enemy across the fields. The fate of the day was decided- the right wing was saved.”[4]
The steam had been taken out of the Confederate drive, “but I wished for spoils,” confessed John McBride of the 51st Illinois. “I ran on about 20 rods and found eight Rebels hidden in a cave in the rocks. When I came up, one of them was going to shoot me but I stepped behind an oak tree and was going to fire when they threw up their hands and they were mine.” The Illinoisans eventually captured nearly 200 Confederates, among them men from the 13th Tennessee of Col. Alfred Vaughan’s brigade, a regiment that the 27th Illinois had fought once before at the battle of Belmont in November 1861.[5]
Blowing the bugle to sound the rally, Bradley corralled his excited troops and, with his prisoners in tow, retired to safety behind the new defenses along Nashville Pike. General Rosecrans was delighted with the result and was so effusive in his praise to Maj. William Schmitt of the 27th Illinois that the major later said “he would rather be major of the 27th than President of the United States!”
Bradley’s surprise foray halted Cleburne’s division long enough for generals Rosecrans, McCook, and Thomas to finish organizing a stout new line along positions just east of the Nashville Pike. Eventually, most of the survivors of McCook’s wing, assisted by four brigades from Crittenden’s wing and Col. Moses Walker’s newly arrived brigade, would man this new line. By the time Cleburne’s men had recovered from Bradley’s counterattack, reorganized, and moved forward, they found a Federal line that would not bend, and the Confederates suffered heavily when they made one last push to take the Nashville Pike that afternoon. Rosecrans’ lifeline to Nashville was secure, and it was Bradley’s “Miracle at the Three-Mile Marker” that made that possible.[6]
Despite its importance to the outcome of Stones River, the site of the “miracle” lay unmarked and later was mined for its rich limestone deposits during the early 20th century and today is two deepwater lakes, fenced off from the surrounding countryside and lost to history like so many stories at Stones River.
Dan Masters holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toledo and has been actively engaged in Civil War research for more than twenty-five years. Dan lives in Perrysburg, Ohio with his wife and four of their six children, while his oldest son is currently serving in the U.S. Air Force. His work has been featured in America’s Civil War, Maryland Historical Magazine, The Western Tennessee Historical Society Papers, and Northwest Ohio History. Dan is the author of eleven books about the Civil War, the latest being Hell by the Acre: A Narrative History of the Stones River Campaign published recently by Savas Beatie.
Endnotes:
[1] Daniel A. Masters, Hell by the Acre: A Narrative History of the Stones River Campaign, November 1862-January 1863. El Dorado Hills: Savas Beatie, 2024, 473
[2] Diary of First Lieutenant Otis Moody, Co. K, 51st Illinois, https://51stillinois.org/moody_st_river.html
[3] Letter from Private William H. Ranson, Co. K, 27th Illinois, Jacksonville Herald (Illinois), January 29, 1863, 2; Moody Diary.
[4] Letter from Wilbur Hinman, 65th Ohio, Western Reserve Historical Society.
[5] Private John McBride, Co. D, 51st Illinois, https://www.51stillinois.org/mcbrideletters.html, retrieved Jan. 12, 2023
[6] Masters, op. cit., 474-475
Great Post. I just received your book in the mail and it has moved to the front of my “To Read” pile. It’s the least I could do for a fellow Buckeye.
Excellent story. But why were they referred to as “Suckers”? Clearly there is a meaning behind that term that is not derogatory.
Great work, Dan!
Wonderful narrative. I was not aware of the details of this “miracle.” Anytime General Cleburne is stopped is indeed a miracle.