The Battle of Franklin

The Battle of Franklin

By: Jerry Devine, Patriotic Instructor

The Battle of Franklin was one of the last great battles of the Civil War. Fate and circumstance placed the small town of Franklin in the path of two great in late November 1864.

Gen. John Bell Hood, at the head of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, which numbered just over 30,000, marched his army toward Nashville after having lost Atlanta in September. His hope was to retake the lost Tennessee capital, which had fallen to U. S. troops in early 1862. A Federal army, commanded by Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield, was sent from Georgia by Maj. Gen. William Sherman to Middle Tennessee with orders to slow Hood’s advance. Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas organized defenses just outside Nashville.

                                  
The Confederate troops began to arrive on the southern edge of the Harpeth Valley, about two miles from Franklin, around 1 pm. Within the hour, Hood had decided to launch a frontal assault, believing that Franklin was his last opportunity to destroy Schofield before the Federal army got to Nashville and reinforced Thomas.

The skies were clear that afternoon and the temperature pushed to nearly sixty degrees. Many described it as a beautiful “Indian summer afternoon,” but at 4 pm everything changed as roughly 20,000 Confederate soldiers began their advance toward a similar number of Federal troops. By that time, a frantic yet valiant stand by some newly recruited Federal troops, and a counter-assault by a brigade of Federal veterans, had stemmed the Confederate breakthrough. For those Southern troops who had pushed deep into the Federal defensive perimeter and then suddenly found their opportunity ripped away, the nighttime hours were ones filled with bloodshed and untold agonies. A Mississippian recalled how the Federal troops shot his comrades down like “animals trapped in a pen.” In places the bodies of the dead were heaped upon one other three and four deep. Some of the wounded were pinned beneath the dead and others cried and moaned and prayed throughout the long night.

During those short but awful hours, as the battle raged and swirled around them, the Carter family took refuge in their basement. Some two dozen men, women, and children, including the neighboring Lotz family who lived just across the Columbia pike, waited as the horrors of war engulf them.

Around midnight the Federal army began to withdraw from the smoldering and gruesome battlefield. Left behind was a small town and a battered Confederate army. Altogether, some 10,000 American soldiers became casualties at Franklin and about three-fourths of that number were Confederates. Six Confederate generals were counted among those killed or mortally wounded and lay on the back porch of the house. All told some 2,300 men died at Franklin, about 7,000 were wounded, and roughly 1,000 were taken prisoner. When recollecting the battle years later one soldier said simply, “It was as if the devil had full possession of the earth.”

The bloody assault cost Hood nearly 7,000 casualties, including six dead Confederate generals. Schofield withdrew to Nashville where he and Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's army would engage Hood one last time. It is sometimes referred to as Pickett’s Charge of the West. The charge covered more ground lasted longer and resulted in more Confederate casualties than did the better known one at Gettysburg.In the decades after the war veterans from both sides, some congressmen, and even a few Franklin locals made genuine efforts to establish a national or state park so as to commemorate the terrible conflict. Despite these efforts it was not to be, although some two dozen such bills were introduced into Congress only to die in sub-committees.

Over time the story of Franklin, like others, was lost. In fact, what happened at Franklin is not all that dissimilar to what happened to the battlefields outside Atlanta and Nashville. But what has happened in Franklin over the past 15 years is truly unique. Over 200 acres of a battlefield that most considered “lost” forever has been saved and reclaimed. Nearly $15 million has been spent to save this hallowed ground from the ravages of time.

Schofield’s small army of about 27,000 was nearly flanked, or cut off, near Spring Hill on the late afternoon and early evening of November 29, 1864. The Confederate forces missed a tremendous opportunity to deal Schofield a serious blow, and Spring Hill ultimately set the stage for Franklin. The Yankees just walked on by the Confederate forces and were not noticed, challenged, or attacked, and it haunted the memories of many Confederate veterans for decades.

Federal troops began to arrive on the outskirts of Franklin around dawn on November 30, 1864. Because the two bridges spanning the Harpeth River north of town were impassable, engineers hurriedly worked to prepare the bridges for a withdrawal. Meanwhile, the blue-clad soldiers began to throw up earthworks south of town. Around the same time, after discovering the enemy had slipped away, the Confederates initiated a hurried march north from Spring Hill in pursuit of the Federal army.

Federal Brig. Gen. Jacob D. Cox set up his headquarters at the Carter House after waking the family around sunup. 

By noon, the bulk of the Federal army was organized into a defensive line which spanned just over a mile in length and was anchored on the Harpeth River on both flanks. At 2 pm orders were issued calling for a withdrawal to Nashville to begin at 6 pm.

Artillery fire soon began shrieking toward the Southern line and gaping holes were ripped into the gray and butternut ranks. The Confederate attack quickly morphed into a headlong charge. The two armies came into close contact shortly before 4:30 pm and the fighting became brutal and fiendishly savage. Waves of Southern troops were shot down, even as some of them ruptured the center of the Federal line. Scores of Federal troops were shot and clubbed as howling and jubilant Southerners plowed forward. Casualties were severe and mounted quickly. The sun set soon after the battle reached its apex and it was completely dark only a few minutes after 5 pm, except for the flashing of the guns.

                                    

At Carnton House wounded Confederate soldiers were arriving by the dozens not long after the battle began. It soon became the largest field hospital in the area and surgeons were set up in almost every room of the house and some worked outside. By the middle of the night some 300 wounded filled the home, with hundreds more on the grounds.

Around midnight the Federal army began to withdraw from the smoldering and gruesome battlefield. Left behind was a small town and a battered Confederate army. Altogether, some 10,000 American soldiers became casualties at Franklin and about three-fourths of that number were Confederates. Six Confederate generals were counted among those killed or mortally wounded and lay on the back porch of the house. All told some 2,300 men died at Franklin, about 7,000 were wounded, and roughly 1,000 were taken prisoner. When recollecting the battle years later one soldier said simply, “It was as if the devil had full possession of the earth.” The bloody assault cost Hood nearly 7,000 casualties, including six dead Confederate generals. Schofield withdrew to Nashville where he and Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's army would engage Hood one last time. It is sometimes referred to as Pickett’s Charge of the West. The charge covered more ground lasted longer and resulted in more Confederate casualties than did the better known one at Gettysburg.

In the decades after the war veterans from both sides, some congressmen, and even a few Franklin locals made genuine efforts to establish a national or state park so as to commemorate the terrible conflict. Despite these efforts it was not to be, although some two dozen such bills were introduced into Congress only to die in sub-committees.

Over time the story of Franklin, like others, was lost. In fact, what happened at Franklin is not all that dissimilar to what happened to the battlefields outside Atlanta and Nashville. But what has happened in Franklin over the past 15 years is truly unique. Over 200 acres of a battlefield that most considered “lost” forever has been saved and reclaimed. Nearly $15 million has been spent to save this hallowed ground from the ravages of time.

Ironically Schofield and Thomas, the victors, as well as the Battle of Franklin itself, are names known only by dedicated WBTS scholars. Thomas is not only forgotten, but, on the verge of achieving the most decisive victory of the entire war, in the sense of destroying the opposing Army of Tennessee as an effective fighting force, was slated to be relieved of command for failing to move decisively against the enemy. The Confederate General Hood, who lost the final battles for Atlanta, was defeated at Franklin, and had his army destroyed at Nashville is still comparatively well known for his personal bravery, for his terrible wounds, his (disputed) drug use, and the more recent massacre at the fort that bears his name. History is a fickle mistress.

The Turning point of the war- 3 cigars and the Lost Order

By: Wendell Small

The month of September 1862 began as the low point of the American Civil War for the North. The South was superior on the battlefield and demonstrating a spirit of resistance which boded the separation of the former United States into two rival nations. Before the month of September ended, the eventual defeat of the South became inevitable.

Second Battle of Bull Run Map

In August, Robert E. Lee had smashed the Federal forces under John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run,¹ leaving a legacy of hysteria to the Federal Government. Records were shipped further north and gunboats and a steamer were ready to evacuate Lincoln and his cabinet in the face of anticipated Confederate advances.

In New York and Indiana, potential Copperhead plots and sabotage terrorized both official and public opinion. Confederate armies in Kentucky under Braxton Bragg had taken Lexington and were threatening Louisville and Cincinnati, where martial law was proclaimed. A third major Confederate army under Earl Van Dorn, somewhere in Mississippi, conjured up additional nightmares for the frightened, who visualized this army over-running the western areas of the Union. In Maryland, where memories of the April 1861 riots in Baltimore against Federal soldiers were still clear and bitter, there was widespread apprehension of a rebel uprising attended by the loss of the state and the isolation of Washington.

Among the European powers, sentiment was building toward mediation in the war and recognition of the Confederacy, if not toward actual intervention on its behalf. The British were provoked to these attitudes by the shortage of cotton for their textile mills, resulting in unemployment and deprivation for hundreds of thousands of workers; by a preference of the British nobility for the aristocratic, Anglo-Saxon South over the heterogeneous, "mongrelized" North; by the desire of the British Government to see two rival pygmies instead of a single united giant on the Canadian frontier; and by general national anger toward supposedly hostile Northern actions such as the blockade and the removal by a Yankee warship of two Confederate agents from a British mail steamer, the Trent. Recognition of the Confederacy by Her Majesty's Government and a negotiated peace on the basis of Southern independence loomed as a startling reality to the North in the shambles of its defeated army. Britain would have been followed by Napoleon III of France, who had the assurance of Confederate support and eventual recognition of any French conquests in Mexico in return for his recognition of the Confederacy effectively revoking the Monroe Doctrine.

The South responded to news of the great victory at Second Bull Run with a demand that the war now be carried into Yankee territory. Newspapers in every Southern city spoke for their readers when they clamored for an immediate invasion of the North. Sentiments similar to those stirring the average Southern citizen also motivated the leaders of the Confederacy. Lee agreed that Southern military success had put the Confederacy in a position to state its political objectives leading to an honorable peace, but he still felt that one more victory over the Federal troops and this one a victory north of the Potomac would so clearly prove the strength of the Confederate position that the North must accede to any demand for peace. Such a victory might well affect the coming Congressional elections in the North as well as influence the wavering British and French Governments to recognize Southern independence. An offer of peace after a great victory would be considered a magnanimous gesture by a victorious power rather than a sign of weakness by a frightened bureaucracy.

To achieve these political ends, Lee had to gain another battlefield victory over the Federals. By taking the initiative, Lee could draw his opponents, far less skillful than he, whoever they might be, into a war of maneuver in which he could win on a field and at a time of his choosing. Lee also intended to seize or to destroy the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge over the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, severing the connecting artery between Washington and the West.
With a victorious, battle-tested army under successful veteran commanders, Lee would be able to defeat the Federals. Lee also would be able to destroy the railroad bridge at Harrisburg if he reached it without having drawn the Federals into battle or to seize the bridge if he reached it after a victorious battle.

Although his army was relatively small, Lee divided it into several parts, with the Federal garrisons at Harper's Ferry and Martinsburg in the Shenandoah Valley as targets for three units. Two other units were to proceed toward Boonsboro and Hagerstown. In his Special Orders 191 of 9 September 1862, Lee drew up his order of march and made his troop dispositions. Each of the key commanders mentioned in the order was sent copy of the order. James ("Pete") Longstreet carefully read his copy and chewed it.  John G. Walker pinned his copy to the inside of his jacket. Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson meticulously burned his copy.

There was a certain confusion in Jackson's mind as to whether Daniel Harvey Hill was still under his command or directly under Lee. To be certain that Hill received a copy of Special Orders 191, Jackson, in his own hand, sent Hill a copy. Hill admitted receiving this copy.   Unfortunately, Lee, considering Hill no longer under Jackson but directly under himself, also sent Hill a copy. Hill claimed that he never received this copy.

On Saturday, 13 September, the hastily reorganized Federal Army of the Potomac under the command of George B. McClellan moved into Frederick and set up camp on the outskirts of the town. Colonel Silas Colgrove, the commander of the 27th Indiana Volunteers, Third Brigade, First Division, Twelfth Army Corps, ordered his men to stack arms in the same area which had previously been occupied by the men under the command of Daniel Harvey Hill.

While resting in this area, Private Barton W. Mitchell and Sergeant John M. Bloss, both of the 27th Indiana, found a copy of Lee's Special Orders 191 in a paper wrapped around three cigars. The order was authenticated by Colonel Samuel E. Pitman, First Division Adjutant-General, who recognized the signature of Lee's Assistant Adjutant-General as that of Colonel Robert H. Chilton, with whom Pitman had served in Detroit. The order then was brought to McClellan, who set off to destroy Lee in detail.

Barton W. Mitchell marker

Picture of Barton W. Mitchell

Sergeant John M. Bloss

 

McClellan, dilatory by nature and convinced by his faulty intelligence that Lee had an army about 50 percent larger than the Army of the Potomac, was not likely to have attacked Lee. Even with Lee's orders before him - orders dividing Lee's army - McClellan inched cautiously, but swiftly for him, forward.

Lee, stunned by the relatively swift advance by McClellan, did his best to reassemble quickly his scattered units to present a united front to the Federals, and on Wednesday, 17 September 1862, the Battle of Antietam took place.  Lee, forced to fight on the defensive for the first time during the war and incapable of maneuver, was able to stop the Federal attack only with great difficulty and great losses. On 19 September, Lee withdrew into Virginia, and the North was free of the invader.
The railroad bridge at Harrisburg was not cut, and the North was able to maintain its fundamental east-west link. Maryland, eager to follow a winner, not only did not secede but even went so far as to increase its effort on behalf of the Union. With Maryland remaining loyal, Washington was neither surrounded nor isolated, and the fear of invasion among Northern states proved to be groundless.

The Copperhead movement gradually lost strength as the war progressed. Even at the polls this movement proved to be weak as Lincoln's Republicans hung on in the Congressional elections of 1862 enough to remain in power.
Lincoln, who had resolved upon the Emancipation Proclamation as a military, political, and psychological measure necessary to insure the ultimate conquest of the Confederacy by the Union, leaped upon Antietam as the victory which he needed to give meaning to the Proclamation. Even though the Proclamation was a political gesture, in victory it seemed more idealistic - and realistic - than if it had followed a defeat on Northern territory. After a Union defeat the Proclamation would have seemed to be nothing more than the empty oratory of a beaten demagogue rather than the noble gesture of a confident leader.

The recognition which the South had expected from abroad was contingent upon a Confederate victory, and the Southern retreat from Maryland was no such victory. The retreat led to second thoughts; second thoughts, to inaction; inaction, to continued nonrecognition - right through to the end of the war. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, moreover, swayed foreign public opinion to the North, which now seemed to stand for the oppressed rather than as the oppressor of a popular revolt.

Finally, Southern hopes which had been raised to the heights with the victory at Second Bull Run and with the transfer of fighting from Southern to Northern soil changed to utter frustration in less than three weeks. Although the spirit of the South was as resolute after Antietam as before, a gnawing doubt now marched side by side with this spirit.
Lee unequivocally blamed the failure of the invasion of Maryland on the lost order. At the very least, if McClellan had not obtained a copy of Lee's orders, Lee could have reunited his army long before the dilatory McClellan would have moved, and Lee could have re-equipped it with some of the hoard from Harpers Ferry and given his 10,000 or more stragglers time to rejoin his army. Thus refurbished, Lee could have gone on to Harrisburg, destroyed the bridge, and sought out McClellan.

The cumulative effects of a victory by Lee over McClellan in Maryland would have been devastating to the North. Lee could have moved on to Harrisburg and could have menaced Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Washington, isolated by a secessionist Maryland could hardly have remained the capital. Previously prepared evacuation plans might have moved the Government to Philadelphia or New York while Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, graciously doling out merciful terms to a stunned city, rode triumphantly down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Lincoln, with defeat on the battlefield and at the polls a haunting reality, would hardly have dared to propose the Emancipation Proclamation. An independent Confederacy, badly in need of a labor force, might have maintained the institution of slavery until the increased use of the machine made slavery an expensive economic anachronism.
If secession had succeeded, Great Britain could have obtained the cotton that its textile mills needed and eventually could have established a successful partnership with the Confederate States of America. The South, led by an aristocracy with a lineage as proud if not as old as Britain's nobility could have been accepted as a peer and an ally by its British cousins.
The Yankees by the very similarity of their economic interests could never be a partner or an ally of the British but must always be a rival against whom war might very well erupt. Finally, although the Union had an Anglo-Saxon heritage, it was a melting pot with many social customs alien to the British, who found Southern Anglo-Saxon homogeneity more palatable.
Napoleon III, having recognized the Confederacy, would have received a carte blanche from the South to pursue his conquest of Mexico. The North, defeated and confused, would have been able to do very little to prevent Napoleon from succeeding.

Tradition and a considerable body of opinion have held that Gettysburg, not Antietam, is the more nearly decisive battle and the turning point of the Civil War. However, the relative positions of the North and South at both these junctures in history clearly seem to point up September 1862 as a period far more critical for the North and far more favorable for the South than July 1863.

As a final historical note, although the circumstances of how the Orders came to be Lost are still debated today, and the responsibility for the loss has never been accurately fixed on any individual, no one knows what happened to the cigars.