Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/63

 MURFREESBORO MURILLO 55 whom 1,805 were colored. It is regularly laid out, lighted with gas, and well built, princi- pally of brick. The court house is large and handsome, and stands in the centre of the pub- lic square. Being surrounded by a fertile and thickly settled country, the city has an impor- tant trade, especially in cotton and grain. It contains two national banks, a manufactory of cedar ware, an extensive saw mill, a cotton gin manufactory, a pork-packing establish- ment, several cotton gins and grist mills, car- riage factories, &c. There are four public school departments, two for white and two for colored children, a private school, a female in- stitute, the Soule female college under the pat- ronage of the Methodists, two weekly news- papers, and ten churches (four colored). Mur- freesboro was the seat of Union university, founded by the Baptist educational society in 1848, but now suspended. In the immediate vicinity of the city are the Tennessee central fair grounds, occupying 20 acres handsomely improved. Near by are a large national cemetery, beautifully laid out and decorated, containing a monument to those who fell in the battle of Murfreesboro, and a confeder- ate cemetery. The town was established in 1811, and incorporated in 1817. The state le- gislature met here from 1819 to 1825. Early in the summer of 1862 it was occupied by a small Union force. On July 13 it was cap- tured by the confederates under Forrest, a Michigan regiment being made prisoners. Soon after Gen. Bragg made it the centre of his operations in Tennessee, having about 50,000 men, of whom nearly a third were caval- ry. Late in November Gen. Rosecrans moved from Nashville with about 40,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, and took up a strong posi- tion near Murfreesboro. For nearly a month the two armies lay watching each other. At length Bragg sent the greater part of his cav- alry to operate against the lines of commu- nication of Rosecrans, who thereupon took the offensive. Skirmishing began on Dec. 26, but the main engagements took place Dec. 31, 1862, and Jan. 2, 1863. The action of Dec. 31 was severe but indecisive. On Jan. 2 the confederate 'forces made one more vigorous attack. Bragg was finally repelled, and on the 4th he abandoned Murfreesboro, of which Rosecrans took possession next day. He fortified the place, and made it his depot of supplies, remaining there for six months, after which he advanced toward Chattanooga, whither Bragg had fallen back. The battle of Murfreesboro, commonly called that of Stone River, was, in proportion to the numbers en- gaged, one of the most bloody of the war. Bragg says he had 35,000 men engaged, and that the Union force was about 70,000. Rose- crans puts his force at 43,000, estimating that of the confederates at 62,000. The Union loss was 1,553 killed, about 7,000 wounded, and 3,000 prisoners. Bragg puts his entire loss at about 10,000. MURGER, Henry, a French author, born in Paris in 1822, died there, Jan. 28, 1861. He had only limited opportunities of education, and became a lawyer's clerk, and afterward secretary of Count Tolstoi, a Russian resident of Paris. He wrote in prose and verse, and led a precarious life as a journalist and Iitt6- rateur till 1848, when his Scenes de la vie de Boheme, describing his own experiences, made him famous. He dramatized it in 1851, with Theodore Barriere, with considerable suc- cess. Among his subsequent works are poems, plays, novels, and new series of his sketches of "Bohemian" life in Paris, including Le pays latin, scenes de la vie d'etudiant (1852). MURIATIC ACID, See HYDEOCHLORIO ACID. MURILLO, Bartolome Esteban, a Spanish painter, born in Seville, where he was baptized Jan. 1, 1618, died there, April 3, 1682. At an early age he entered the studio of his uncle Juan de Castillo, and soon began to sketch the ragged, sunburnt children of the street, and to paint pictures of Spanish low life. The removal of his master in 1640 to Cadiz threw Murillo upon his own resources, and he painted several coarse and hurried pictures to sell in the public fairs of Seville. To procure means to enable him to study in Madrid, he executed pictures for the colonial market, which were distributed throughout the Spanish American possessions, comprising the greater part if not the whole of his paintings in churches and monasteries of the new world, and the number and value of which have been greatly exaggerated. With the money thus acquired he went in 1643 to Madrid, and was kindly received by Velasquez, who admitted him to his academy and intro- duced him to the royal galleries of the capital and the Escurial, where during the next two years he copied the works of Titian, Rubens, Vandyke, Ribera, and Velasquez. After his return to Seville, his first important commis- sion was from the friars of the convent of San Francisco, for the cloisters of which he paint- ed 11 large pictures in the frio, described as dark, with a decided outline, which was the first of the three styles usually distinguished in his works. The cloisters were burned in 1810, and the greater part of the pictures car-* ried off by Marshal Soult. Commissions flowed in upon him, and in 1648 he married an Andalu- sian lady of wealth and rank. Soon afterward he adopted his cdlido or second style, warm, and with improved coloring, some of the earli- est examples of which are " Our Lady of the Conception," the "San Leandro" and "San Isidro," the "Nativity of the Virgin," and the " St. Anthony of Padua." From the last, in the cathedral of Seville, the figure of the saint was cut out and stolen in 1874, but recovered in New York in January, 1875. In 1660 Mu- rillo, in 'con junction with Valdes Leal and the younger Herrera, founded an academy of art in Seville, of which he was president till his death. To this period may be ascribed his four large semicircular pictures, executed for