Stones River National Battlefield, a park along the Stones River in Rutherford County, Tennessee, three miles (5 km) northwest of Murfreesboro and twenty-eight miles southeast of Nashville, memorializes the Battle of Stones River. This key battle of the American Civil War occurred on December 31, 1862 and January 2, 1863, and resulted in a strategic Union victory. Creation of the National Battlefield The national battlefield was established through the efforts of both private individuals, the Stones River Battlefield and Park Association, the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway (in 2011, part of CSX Transportation), and a 1927 act of Congress authorizing a national military park under the jurisdiction of the War Department. During the early years of the twentieth century, the railroad emphasized the battlefield as a destination to increase passenger traffic. It promoted veteran reunions and acquired parts of the battlefield as points of historical interest. In 1906, the company erected a obelisk to commemorate the January 2, 1863, position of massed Union artillery used to repel a Confederate assault on Union troops across the river. The Stones River Battlefield and Park Association was chartered on April 28, 1896, after the establishment of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park increased interest in preserving significant Civil War battlefields. The association secured options on property connected with the battle, reportedly by June 1897. Association members erected wooden signs to mark and interpret battlefield locations. In 1912, the Association lobbied to have Congress "establish an accurate system of markers," but the measure failed, in part because of the testimony of former congressman and Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park Commissioner Charles H. Grosvenor, who believed the landmarks had been "entirely obliterated." Land acquisition began in 1928 and was completed in 1934. In 1992, the park accepted a donation from the City of Murfreesboro of an intact segment of Fortress Rosecrans, the largest enclosed earthwork built during the Civil War. The park preserves less than a fifth of the more than 3,000 acres (12 km2) over which the battle was fought. On March 3, 1927, the site was established as Stones River National Military Park. It was transferred from the War Department to the U.S. Department of the Interior's National Park Service on August 10, 1933, and redesignated as a national battlefield on April 22, 1960. As with all historic areas administered by the National Park Service, the battlefield was listed on the National