The Battle of Franklin
By: Jerry
Devine, Patriotic Instructor
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.
