Slaughter in the Rocks
March 8, 1862 - Morning
Below you here stand 30-foot-tall columns of stone. Bone-tired Confederates of the 2nd Missouri Brigade took shelter amid these rocky dens after the first day's hard marching and fighting. What at first seemed like a good natural defense became a deathtrap.
As the second day's fighting began, 21 Union cannon in Cox's field below fired a punishing barrage toward this mountainside. A hurricane of artillery projectiles, rock fragments, and timber splinters tore through the infantrymen posted near here. After 30 minutes of slaughter, General Earl Van Dorn ordered a withdrawal back toward Elkhorn Tavern.
Marker can be reached from Military Park Road (County Road 65), on the right when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
