You are looking at a place where, even as early as 1862, and more than a year before Gettysburg, the Civil War was turned. Confederate soldiers tried thirteen times to charge across this field, and to the right of this point, to attack one of the last garrisons defending US Grant's headquarters, less than a mile up the hill. Union soldiers held them off all afternoon, repulsing every attack from "The Hornet's Nest" obviously reflecting the sounds heard that day. Finally, the Confederate lined up 87 cannons, of which one stands (or one like it) in this image. For an hour, they blasted away at the men from Iowa, and Michigan, and Ohio, with the largest barrage of artillery fire in the world's history, to that time.
The loss of life was enormous. But the tide was turned. Grant was reinforced from across the Tennessee River, which stood 100 yards behind Grant. Had the Hornet's Nest fallen...