(June 2013) Enlarge McFadden Farm Artillery Monument
 
The last "official" stop is the area where Rosecrans' chief of artillery, John Mendenhall gathered some 57 Union cannon to blast the final Confederate attack, that of John C. Breckinridge's Division, at 4 PM the evening of Jan. 2, 1863. Fearing the effort a waste of lives, Breckinridge remonstrated with Bragg, then finding him unmovable, postponed the attack as late as possible in the short winter day. Predictably, after startling initial success, the massed Union guns turned the attack into a debacle and Stones River into an important Union victory in the dark days following Fredericksburg
 
Courtesy of James Neel

(5-03) McFadden's Ford
 
Panorama: McFadden Farm Artillery Monument

(3-95) McFadden's Ford, Old Tour Stop 9. View looking west across rise above McFadden's Ford. As Union soldiers crouched here behind breastworks of stone and rail, a battered advance division fled back across the river pursued by Gen. John C. Breckinridge's hard-driving Confederate brigades. Union batteries firing from the rise above McFadden's Ford halted Breckinridge's pursuit with shot, shell, and canister. Some 1,800 Confederates were killed or wounded in less than an hour in this final action of the battle

(5-03) McFadden's Ford
 
Interpretive Marker: Union Artillery Information
Interpretive Marker: Artillery Saves the Day, January 2, 1863