Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: July 21, 1861

This morning, at two o'clock, I was rattled up by a sentinel, who had come to camp in hot haste to inform me that he had seen and fired upon a body of twenty-five or more men, probably the advance guard of the enemy. He desired me to send two companies to strengthen the outpost. I preferred, however, to go myself to the scene of the trouble; and, after investigation, concluded that the guard had been alarmed by a couple of cows.

Another lot of secession prisoners, some sixty in number, passed by this afternoon. They were highly pleased with the manner in which they had been treated by their captors.

The sound of a musket is just heard on the picket post, three-quarters of a mile away, and the shot is being repeated by our line of sentinels. * * * The whole camp has been in an uproar. Many men, half asleep, rushed from their tents and fired off their guns in their company grounds. Others, supposing the enemy near, became excited and discharged theirs also. The tents were struck, Loomis' First Michigan Battery manned, and we awaited the attack, but none was made. It was a false alarm. Some sentinel probably halted a stump and fired, thus rousing a thousand men from their warm beds. This is the first night alarm we have had.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 33

Artillery Protects The Supply Line: Stones River National Battlefield

From this ideal position, Loomis’ Battery (1^st Michigan Light Artillery – six 2.9” Parrott rifles and Guenther’s Battery Co. H 5^th U. S. Artillery – six 12pdr. Napoleons) smashed Confederate attempts to capture the Nashville Pike, the only supply line open to the Union Army, on the afternoon of December 31, 1862.  Repeated charges of case shot and canister from these guns saved the day for the Union Army.  About 6 p.m. on the 3^rd of January 1863, the supporting fire from these two batteries helped two infantry regiments from Beatty’s Brigade and two infantry regiments from Spears’ Brigade drive the Confederates from the field, thus securing the battlefield of Stones River for the Union Army.

SOURCE:  Interpretive marker to the right of the cannon.