Stones River National Battlefield Stones River National Battlefield , a park along the Stones River in Rutherford County , Tennessee , three miles ( 5 km ) northwest of Murfreesboro and twenty - eight miles southeast of Nashville , memorializes a key battle of the American Civil War that took place on December 31 , 1862 and January 2 , 1863 , which resulted in a strategic Union victory . Creation of the National Battlefield . The national battlefield was established through the efforts of both private individuals , the Stones River Battlefield and Park Association , the Nashville , Chattanooga and St . Louis Railway ( in 2011 , part of CSX Transportation ) , and by a 1927 act of Congress authorizing a national military park under the jurisdiction of the War Department . During the early years of the twentieth century , the railroad used the battlefield to increase passenger traffic . It promoted veteran reunions and acquired parts of the battlefield as points of historical interest . In 1906 , the company erected a obelisk to commemorate the January 2 , 1863 , position of massed Union artillery used to repel a Confederate assault on Union troops across the river . The Stones River Battlefield and Park Association was chartered on April 28 , 1896 , after the establishment of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park increased interest in preserving significant Civil War battlefields . The association secured options on property connected with the battle , reportedly by June 1897 . Association members erected wooden signs to mark and interpret battlefield locations . In 1912 , the Association lobbied to have Congress “ establish an accurate system of markers , " but the measure failed , in part because of the testimony of former congressman and Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park Commissioner Charles H . Grosvenor , who believed the landmarks had been " entirely obliterated . " Land acquisition began in 1928 and was completed in 1934 . In 1992 , the park accepted a donation from the City of Murfreesboro of an intact segment of Fortress Rosecrans , the largest enclosed earthwork built during the Civil War . The park preserves less than a fifth of the more than three thousand acres ( 12 km ) over which the battle was fought . The site was established as Stones River National Military Park on March 3 , 1927 . It was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service on August 10 , 1933 , and redesignated a national battlefield on April 22 , 1960 . As with all historic areas administered by the National Park Service , the battlefield was listed on the National Register of Historic Places ( October 15 , 1966 ) . On April 10 , 2009 , the Good Friday tornado damaged the battlefield park . Cemetery . Within park boundaries is Stones River National Cemetery , 20 . 09 acres ( 81 , 300 m ) with 6 , 850 interments ( 2562 unidentified ) . Just outside the cemetery proper is the Hazen Brigade Monument ( 1863 ) , the oldest surviving American Civil War monument standing in its original location . The 32nd Indiana Monument at Cave Hill National Cemetery in Louisville , Kentucky is a year older . An even earlier monument was erected after the First Battle of Manassas in Virginia but is no longer extant . The cemetery was established on March 29 , 1864 by the order of Major General George H . Thomas . Under the supervision of Chaplain William Earnshaw , the 111th Regiment United States Colored Troops disinterred bodies from the battlefields of Stones River , Murfreesboro , Franklin , Shelbyville , Tullahoma and Cowan . Reburials began in 1865 and were completed by 1867 . The cemetery was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service on August 10 , 1933 . Most of the Confederate dead were taken to their towns or to the nearest southern community . Some , however , were buried in a mass grave south of town and later reinterred in another mass grave , Confederate Circle in Evergreen Cemetery in Murfreesboro . In November 1867 , 1 , 360 bodies were removed from Rose Hill Cemetery in Columbia , Tennessee , where a national cemetery had earlier been planned .