Battle of Parker's Crossroads
Tour Stop 7
Old Split-Rail Fence
December 31, 1862
At approximately 11:00 a.m., Colonel Dunham's Brigade positioned themselves behind a split-rail fence located a few feet behind this area running east and west to the Lexington/Huntingdon Road. By afternoon, and under fire at this position for two hours, many of the men were killed or wounded by rails splintered by the Confederate shelling. Private Joseph Hotz, 50th Indiana, later wrote his wife, "a shell hit the fence near which I stood and the rail struck me down."
Showing great courage, Dunham's men unsuccessfully charged out into the crossfire coming from the Confederate encirclement located on the sandy rise to the northeast, north and northwest.
Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Alonzo Napier led a counterattack on the Union left flank and fell mortally wounded while waving his men on from atop the fence. On the following morning the Union commander ordered that Union troops killed during the previous day's fight be buried on the knoll near the east end of the Union line. Recent archaeological excavations confirmed the location of a number of gravesites.
Marker is on Federal Lane, on the right when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
