On September 28th, 1864, less than four weeks from the day the Union forces occupied Atlanta, General Sherman, who found his still unconquered enemy, General Hood, threatening his communications in Georgia, and that formidable raider, General Forrest, playing the mischief in west Tennessee, sent to the latter State two divisions—General Newton’s of the Fourth Corps, and General J. D. Morgan’s of the Fourteenth—to aid in destroying, if possible, that intrepid dragoon. To make assurance doubly sure, the next day he ordered General George H. Thomas, his most capable and experienced lieutenant, and the commander of more than three-fifths of his grand army, “back to Stevenson and Decherd … to look to Tennessee.”
No order could have been more unwelcome to General Thomas. It removed him from the command of his own thoroughly organized and harmonious army of sixty thousand veterans, whom he knew and trusted, and who knew and loved him, and relegated him to the position of supervisor of communications. It also sent him to the rear just when great preparations were making for an advance. But, as often happens, what seemed an adverse fate opened the door to great, unforeseen opportunity. The task of expelling Forrest and reopening the broken communications was speedily completed, and on the 17th of October General Thomas wrote to General Sherman, “I hope to join you very soon.” Sherman, however, had other views, and the hoped-for junction was never made. On the 19th he wrote to General Thomas:
DEFENDING AN EMBRASURE.
“I will send back to Tennessee the Fourth Corps, all dismounted cavalry, all sick and wounded, and all incumbrances whatever except what I can haul in our wagons.… I want you to remain in Tennessee and take command of all my [military] division not actually present with me. Hood’s army may be set down at forty thousand (40,000) of all arms, fit for duty.… If you can defend the line of the Tennessee in my absence of three (3) months, it is all I ask.”
With such orders, and under such circumstances, General Thomas was left to play his part in the new campaign.
General Hood, after a series of daring adventures which baffled all Sherman’s calculations (“He can turn and twist like a fox,” said Sherman, “and wear out my army in pursuit”), concentrated his entire force, except Forrest’s cavalry, at Gadsden, Alabama, on the 22d of October, while General Sherman established his headquarters at Gaylesville,—a “position,” as he wrote to General Halleck, “very good to watch the enemy.” In spite of this “watch,” Hood suddenly appeared on the 26th at Decatur, on the Tennessee River, seventy-five miles north-west of Gadsden. This move was a complete surprise, and evidently “meant business.” The Fourth Corps, numbering about twelve thousand men, commanded by Major-General D. S. Stanley, was at once ordered from Gaylesville, to report to General Thomas. On the 1st of November its leading division reached Pulaski, Tennessee, a small town on the railroad, about forty miles north of Decatur, where it was joined four days later by the other two.
Making a slight though somewhat lengthened demonstration against Decatur, General Hood pushed on to Tuscumbia, forty-five miles west. Here he expected to find—what he had weeks before ordered—ample supplies, and the railroad in operation to Corinth. But he was doomed to disappointment. Instead of being in condition to make the rapid and triumphant march with which he had inflamed the ardor of his troops, he was detained three weeks, a delay fatal to his far-reaching hopes. Placing one corps on the north side of the river at Florence, he waited for supplies and for Forrest, who had been playing havoc throughout west Tennessee, from the line of the Mississippi border, northward to Kentucky, and was under orders to join him.
Convinced now of Hood’s serious intentions, General Sherman also ordered the Twenty-third Corps, ten thousand men, under command of Major-General J. M. Schofield, to report to General Thomas. Reaching Pulaski, with one division, on the 14th of November, General Schofield, though inferior in rank to Stanley, assumed command by virtue of being a department commander. The whole force gathered there was less than 18,000 men; while in front were some 5000 cavalry, consisting of a brigade of about 1500, under General Croxton, and a division of some 3500, under General Edward Hatch, the latter being fortunately intercepted while on his way to join Sherman.
MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
The Confederate army in three corps (S. D. Lee’s, A. P. Stewart’s, and B. F. Cheatham’s) began its northward march from Florence on the 19th of November, in weather of great severity. It rained and snowed and hailed and froze, and the roads were almost impassable. Forrest had come up, with about six thousand cavalry, and led the advance with indomitable energy. Hatch and Croxton made such resistance as they could; but on the 22d the head of Hood’s column was at Lawrenceburg, some 16 miles due west of Pulaski, Tennessee, and on a road running direct to Columbia, where the railroad and turnpike to Nashville cross Duck River, and where there were less than 800 men to guard the bridges. The situation at Pulaski, with an enemy nearly three times as large fairly on the flank, was anything but cheering. Warned by the reports from General Hatch, and by the orders of General Thomas, who, on the 20th, had directed General Schofield to prepare to fall back to Columbia, the two divisions of General J. D. Cox and General George D. Wagner (the latter Newton’s old division) were ordered to march to Lynnville—about half-way to Columbia—on the 22d. On the 23d the other two divisions, under General Stanley, were to follow with the wagon-trains. It was not a moment too soon. On the morning of the 24th General Cox, who had pushed on to within nine miles of Columbia, was roused by sounds of conflict away to the west. Taking a cross-road, leading south of Columbia, he reached the Mount Pleasant pike just in time to interpose his infantry between Forrest’s cavalry and a hapless brigade, under command of Colonel Capron, which was being handled most unceremoniously.1 In another hour Forrest would have been in possession of the crossings of Duck River, and the only line of communication with Nashville would have been in the hands of the enemy. General Stanley, who had left Pulaski in the afternoon of the 23d, reached Lynnville after dark. Rousing his command at 1 o’clock in the morning, by 9 o’clock the head of his column connected with Cox in front of Columbia—having marched thirty miles since 2 o’clock of the preceding afternoon. These timely movements saved the little army from utter destruction.
When General Sherman had finally determined on his march to the sea, he requested General Rosecrans, in Missouri, to send to General Thomas two divisions, under General A. J. Smith, which had been lent to General Banks for the Red River expedition, and were now repelling the incursion of Price into Missouri. As they were not immediately forthcoming, General Grant had ordered General Rawlins, his chief-of-staff, to St. Louis, to direct, in person, their speedy embarkation. Thence, on the 7th of November, two weeks before Hood began his advance from Florence, General Rawlins wrote to General Thomas that Smith’s command, aggregating nearly 14,000, would begin to leave that place as early as the 10th. No news was ever more anxiously awaited or more eagerly welcomed than this. But the promise could not be fulfilled. Smith had to march entirely across the State of Missouri; and instead of leaving St. Louis on the 10th, he did not arrive there until the 24th. Had he come at the proposed time, it was General Thomas’s intention to place him at Eastport, on the Tennessee River, so as to threaten Hood’s flank and rear if the latter advanced. With such disposition, the battles of Franklin and Nashville would have been relegated to the category of “events which never come to pass.” But when Smith reached St. Louis, Hood was threatening Columbia; and it was an open question whether he would not reach Nashville before the reënforcements from Missouri.
As fast as the Union troops arrived at Columbia, in their hurried retreat from Pulaski, works were thrown up, covering the approaches from the south, and the trains were sent across the river. But the line was found to be longer than the small force could hold; and the river could easily be crossed, above or below the town. Orders were given to withdraw to the north side on the night of the 26th, but a heavy storm prevented. The next night the crossing was made, the rai
lroad bridge was burned, and the pontoon boats were scuttled. This was an all-night job, the last of the pickets crossing at 5 in the morning. It was now the fifth day since the retreat from Pulaski began, and the little army had been exposed day and night to all sorts of weather except sunshine, and had been almost continually on the move. From deserters it was learned that Hood’s infantry numbered 40,000, and his cavalry, under Forrest, 10,000 or 12,000. But the Union army was slowly increasing by concentration and the arrival of recruits. It now numbered at Columbia about 23,000 infantry and some 5000 cavalry—of whom only 3500 were mounted. General James H. Wilson, who had been ordered by General Grant to report to General Sherman,—and of whom General Grant wrote, “I believe he will add fifty per cent. to the effectiveness of your cavalry,”—had taken command personally of all General Thomas’s cavalry, which was trying to hold the fords east and west of Columbia.
In spite of every opposition, Forrest succeeded in placing one of his divisions on the north side of Duck River before noon of the 28th, and forced back the Union cavalry on roads leading toward Spring Hill and Franklin. At 1 o’clock on the morning of the 29th General Wilson became convinced that the enemy’s infantry would begin crossing at daylight, and advised General Schofield to fall back to Franklin. At 3:30 the same morning General Thomas sent him similar orders. Daylight revealed the correctness of Wilson’s information. Before sunrise Cheatham’s corps, headed by Cleburne’s division,—a division unsurpassed for courage, energy, and endurance by any in the Confederate army,—was making its way over Duck River at Davis’s Ford, about five miles east of Columbia. The weather had cleared, and it was a bright autumn morning, the air full of invigorating life. General Hood in person accompanied the advance.
When General Schofield was informed that the Confederate infantry were crossing, he sent a brigade, under Colonel P. Sidney Post, on a reconnoissance along the river-bank, to learn if the report was true. He also ordered General Stanley to march with two divisions, Wagner’s and Kimball’s, to Spring Hill, taking the trains and all the reserve artillery. In less than half an hour after receiving the order, Stanley was on the way. On reaching the point where Rutherford Creek crosses the Franklin Pike, Kimball’s division was halted, by order of General Schofield, and faced to the east to cover the crossing against a possible attack from that quarter. In this position Kimball remained all day. Stanley, with the other division, pushed on to Spring Hill. Just before noon, as the head of his column was approaching that place, he met “a cavalry soldier who seemed to be badly scared,” who reported that Buford’s division of Forrest’s cavalry was approaching from the east. The troops were at once double-quicked into the town, and the leading brigade, deploying as it advanced, drove off the enemy just as they were expecting, unmolested, to occupy the place. As the other brigades came up, they also were deployed, forming nearly a semicircle,—Opdycke’s brigade stretching in a thin line from the railroad station north of the village to a point some distance east, and Lane’s from Opdycke’s right to the pike below. Bradley was sent to the front to occupy a knoll some three-fourths of a mile east, commanding all the approaches from that direction. Most of the artillery was placed on a rise south of the town. The trains were parked within the semicircle.
From Spring Hill roads radiate to all points, the turnpike between Columbia and Franklin being there intersected by turnpikes from Rally Hill and Mount Carmel, as well as by numerous country roads leading to the neighboring towns. Possession of that point would not only shut out the Union army from the road to Nashville, but it would effectually bar the way in every direction. Stanley’s arrival was not a moment too soon for the safety of the army, and his prompt dispositions and steady courage, as well as his vigorous hold of all the ground he occupied, gave his little command all the moral fruits of a victory.
Hardly had the three brigades, numbering, all told, less than four thousand men, reached the positions assigned them, when Bradley was assailed by a force which the men declared fought too well to be dismounted cavalry. At the same time, at Thompson’s Station, three miles north, an attack was made on a small wagon train heading for Franklin; and a dash was made by a detachment of the Confederate cavalry on the Spring Hill station, north-west of the town. It seemed as if the little band, attacked from all points, was threatened with destruction. Bradley’s brigade was twice assaulted, but held its own, though with considerable loss, and only a single regiment could be spared to reënforce him. The third assault was more successful, and he was driven back to the edge of the village, Bradley himself receiving a disabling wound in rallying his men. While attempting to follow up this temporary advantage, the enemy, in crossing a wide corn-field, was opened upon with spherical case-shot from eight guns posted on the knoll, and soon scattered in considerable confusion. These attacks undoubtedly came from Cleburne’s division, and were made under the eye of the corps commander, General Cheatham, and the army commander, General Hood. That they were not successful, especially as the other two divisions of the same corps, Brown’s and Bate’s, were close at hand, and Stewart’s corps not far off, seems unaccountable. Except this one small division deployed in a long thin line to cover the wagons, there were no Union troops within striking distance; the cavalry were about Mount Carmel, five miles east, fully occupied in keeping Forrest away from Franklin and the Harpeth River crossings. The nearest aid was Kimball’s division, seven miles south, at Rutherford Creek. The other three divisions of infantry which made up Schofield’s force—Wood’s, Cox’s, and Ruger’s (in part)—were still at Duck River. Thus night closed down upon the solitary division, on whose boldness of action devolved the safety of the whole force which Sherman had spared from his march to the sea to breast the tide of Hood’s invasion. When night came, the danger increased rather than diminished. A single Confederate brigade, like Adams’s or Cockrell’s or Maney’s,—veterans since Shiloh,—planted squarely across the pike, either south or north of Spring Hill, would have effectually prevented Schofield’s retreat, and day-light would have found his whole force cut off from every avenue of escape by more than twice its numbers, to assault whom would have been madness, and to avoid whom would have been impossible.
Why Cleburne and Brown failed to drive away Stanley’s one division before dark; why Bate failed to possess himself of the pike south of the town; why Stewart failed to lead his troops to the pike at the north; why Forrest, with his audacious temper and his enterprising cavalry, did not fully hold Thompson’s Station or the crossing of the West Harpeth, half-way to Franklin: these are to this day disputed questions among the Confederate commanders; and it is not proposed to discuss them here. The afternoon and night of November 29th, 1864, may well be set down in the calendar of lost opportunities. The heroic valor of the same troops the next day, and their frightful losses as they attempted to retrieve their mistake, show what might have been.
THE BATTLE-FIELD OF FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE, LOOKING NORTH FROM GENERAL CHEATHAM’S HEADQUARTERS. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
MAJOR-GENERAL D. S. STANLEY. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
By 8 o’clock at night—two hours only after sunset, on a moonless night—at least two corps of Hood’s army were in line of battle facing the turnpike, and not half a mile away. The long line of Confederate camp-fires burned bright, and the men could be seen standing around them or sauntering about in groups. Now and then a few would come almost to the pike and fire at a passing Union squad, but without provoking a reply. General Schofield, who had remained at Duck River all day, reached Spring Hill about 7 P.M., with Ruger’s division and Whitaker’s brigade. Leaving the latter to cover a cross-road a mile or two below the town, he started with Ruger about 9 P.M. to force a passage at Thompson’s Station, supposed to be in the hands of the enemy. At 11 P.M. General Cox arrived with his division, and soon after Schofield returned to Spring Hill with the welcome news that the way was open. From Thompson’s Station he sent his engineer officer, Captain William J. Twining, to Franklin, to telegraph the situation to General Thomas,
all communication with whom had been cut off since early morning. Captain Twining’s dispatch shows most clearly the critical condition of affairs: “The general says he will not be able to get farther than Thompson’s Station to-night.… He regards his situation as extremely perilous.… Thinking the troops under A. J. Smith’s command had reached Franklin, General Schofield directed me to have them pushed down to Spring Hill by daylight to-morrow.” This was Tuesday. The day before, General Thomas had telegraphed to General Schofield that Smith had not yet arrived, but would be at Nashville in three days—that is, Thursday. The expectation of finding him at Franklin, therefore, was like a drowning man’s catching at a straw.
Just before midnight Cox started from Spring Hill for Franklin, and was ordered to pick up Ruger at Thompson’s Station. At 1 A.M. he was on the road, and the train, over five miles long, was drawn out. At the very outset it had to cross a bridge in single file. So difficult was this whole movement, that it was 5 o’clock in the morning before the wagons were fairly under way. As the head of the train passed Thompson’s Station, it was attacked by the Confederate cavalry, and for a while there was great consternation. Wood’s division, which had followed Cox from Duck River, was marched along to the east of the pike, to protect the train, and the enemy were speedily driven off. It was near daybreak when the last wagon left Spring Hill. Kimball’s division followed Wood’s, and at 4 o’clock Wagner drew in his lines, his skirmishers remaining till it was fairly daylight. The rear-guard was commanded by Colonel Emerson Opdycke, who was prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice the last man to secure the safety of the main body. So efficiently did his admirable brigade do its work, that, though surrounded by a cloud of the enemy’s cavalry, which made frequent dashes at its lines, not a straggler nor a wagon was left behind. The ground was strewn with knapsacks cut from the shoulders of a lot of raw recruits weighed down with their unaccustomed burden.
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