Federal Troops on the Square - Murfreesboro, TN
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 35° 50.761 W 086° 23.503
16S E 554929 N 3967040
Courthouse lawn, or square, was full of Union troops and that did not go well in this far south city.
Waymark Code: WM192EQ
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 11/14/2023
Views: 0
County of marker: Rutherford County
Location of marker: Public Square, courthouse lawn, Murfreesboro
Marker erected by: Rutherford County Historical Society
This view of the square looks to the west and depicts several wood and canvas "shebangs" that sheltered the Federal troops guarding the Provost Marshal's Office downtown.
The soldiers constructed these makeshift shelters from all kinds of salvaged materials - random planks served as rough flooring, interior walls were covered with the illustrated pages of weekly papers, and crude chimneys were laid up from the bricks taken from the wall that surrounded the courthouse. Some type of shade, either from trees or cut woven branches, was highly desirable.
At the top left of the photograph [see gallery] the Old City Hotel, then owned by D.H.C. Spence. Officers usually found quarters in boarding establishments or private houses. The upper story windows provided protected firing platforms for Union riflemen to defend themselves against Forrest's raid in the summer of 1862. After several hours of fierce fighting, gray-clad cavalrymen captured Brig. Gen. Thomas T. Crittenden, briefly the commander of the Murfreesboro post, at the Spence Hotel.
When the battle was over, the prisoners were taken to McMinnville, where they were soon paroled. The task of caring for the wounded of both sides fell to the citizens of Murfreesboro. Federal casualties went to the field hospitals that had been established earlier, while the Confederates were taken into private houses and cared for by the townspeople. The dead of both sides were buried honorably in soldiers' graves.