The point where present-day Mahlon Moore Road crosses Rutherford Creek is in fact approximately two miles south of Spring Hill, and from that point it is physically impossible to see the pike. However, that spot at Rutherford Creek is where Cheatham, not Hood, placed the location of their brief meeting. According to Hood, the location of his encounter with Cheatham was not two miles from Spring Hill; it was about two miles from the road to Spring Hill over which Schofield’s army was retreating. Those who have written on the subject failed to mention this not insignificant detail.
Approximately one mile farther south of the Rutherford Creek crossing are four hills directly adjacent to the country road over which Hood’s two corps made their flanking march. From atop the highest knoll, the Columbia to Spring Hill pike is clearly visible in the distance at multiple places—even without the aid of field glasses. Cheatham attempted to buttress his contention by stating that the road on which the Federals were retreating was never in view from any point along the route taken by the Confederates, a statement that is undeniably and demonstratively untrue.34
The Rutherford Creek crossing is a popular stop for Tennessee Campaign and battle of Spring Hill historical tours, and guides routinely take attendees to the top of a nearby knoll to prove beyond all doubt that Frank Cheatham was telling the truth and that John Bell Hood was lying about their meeting. In fact, the view from that knoll proves nothing: a visit to the highest knoll adjacent to present day Cliff Amos Road and John Sharp Road one mile south, where modern Route 31 (the former Columbia Pike) can be clearly seen, conclusively proves that Frank Cheatham was wrong.35
1 Henry Stone, “Repelling Hood’s Invasion of Tennessee,” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 4 vols. (New York: The Century Company, 1888), vol. 4, 446.
2 Brown-Ewell Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.
3 Horn, The Army of Tennessee, 393.
4 Jacobson, For Cause and For Country, 173.
5 A. C. Jones, “Criticism of General Hood,” Confederate Veteran, vol. 22 (November, 1914), 508.
6 Sam Davis Elliott, Soldier of Tennessee: General Alexander P. Stewart and the Civil War in the West (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), 234.
7 Daniel Govan letter to George Williams, June 1906.
8 Lundberg, The Finishing Stroke: Texans in the 1864 Tennessee Campaign, 82-83; Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 147. The laudanum issue is discussed extensively in Chapter 19.
9 Davison and Foxx, Nathan Bedford Forrest, 358.
10 Elliott, Doctor Quintard, 220; Cunningham, “The Battle of Franklin”; S. A. Cunningham, “Events Leading to the Battle of Franklin on the 45th Anniversary of the Battle,” Confederate Veteran, vol. 18 (January 1910).
11 Jones, “Criticism of General Hood,” 507.
12 W. D. Gale, “Hood’s Campaign in Tennessee,” Confederate Veteran, vol. 2 (January 1894), 4; James Ratchford, Memoirs of a Confederate Staff Officer: From Bethel to Bentonville, Evelyn Sieburg, ed.
(Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 1998), 61.
13 Wilson, Under the Old Flag, 42, 45.
14 J. P. Young, “Hood’s Failure at Spring Hill,” Confederate Veteran, vol. 16 (January 1908), 40-41.
15 Virgil Murphey Diary.
16 John Copley, “A Sketch of the Battle of Franklin, with Reminiscences of Camp Douglass,” Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 1893, 34-35.
17 Arnold Gates, ed., The Rough Side of War: The Civil War Journal of Chesley A. Mosman, 1st Lieutenant, Company D, 59th Illinois Volunteer Infanty Regiment, (Othello, WA: Basin Publishing Company, 1987), 312.
18 Barbara G. Ellis, The Moving Appeal: Mr. McClanahan, Mrs. Dill and the Civil War’s Great Newspaper Run (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2003), 334. In an email exchange with the author on December 13, 2011, Dr. Ellis also asserted that General Hood, “permitted the Yankee army to march unchallenged up the road between the Confederate army as his subordinates wrung their hands at his ‘indisposition’ and refusal to turn over the command to one of them.” Dr. Ellis was asked to provide a source for the claim, but did not respond.
19 Hood, Advance & Retreat, 285-286.
20 Benjamin F. Cheatham, Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 9, 526, 530.
21 Joseph B. Cumming, Recollections, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 72. Cumming was a major in the 5th Georgia, served on the Florida coast in 1861 and thereafter spent most of the war in the Western Theater. He joined W. H. T. Walker’s brigade and, after Walker was killed in the battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864, became a member of John B. Hood’s staff.
22 S. D. Lee letter to John Bell Hood, August 25, 1875, John Bell Hood Personal Papers.
23 William W. Old letter to John Bell Hood, September 10, 1877, John Bell Hood Personal Papers. In the letter, Old invited Hood to write Martin, and provided Martin’s mailing address in New York City. It is not known at this time if Hood indeed wrote to Martin, or if Martin replied.
24 Ratchford, Some Reminiscences of Persons and Incidents of the Civil War, 61-62.
25 Stephen. D. Lee letter to John Bell Hood, April 25, 1879, John Bell Hood Personal Papers.
26 Hay, Hood’s Tennessee Campaign, 101.
27 Horn, The Army of Tennessee, 387.
28 Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 154-155.
29 Connelly, Autumn of Glory, 500-501; Connelly and McDonough, Five Tragic Hours, 55.
30 S. D. Lee letter to John Bell Hood, April 16, 1879, John Bell Hood Personal Papers.
31 S. D. Lee letters to John Bell Hood, April 16 and 25, 1879, John Bell Hood Personal Papers.
32 Hood, Advance & Retreat, 284-285.
33 Benjamin F. Cheatham, “The Lost Opportunity at Spring Hill, Tenn.—General Cheatham’s Reply to General Hood,” 524-525, 529.
34 On September 28, 2012, the author and local historian Eric Jacobson identified and personally visited one of the hilltops from which the Columbia Pike can be seen. It is not conclusively known whether Hood’s army at this point marched on the modern day Cliff Amos Road or John Sharp Road, but both are near to one another and to the four hills where the Columbia to Spring Hill pike can be seen. See also Cheatham, “The Lost Opportunity at Spring Hill,” 529.
35 The author has personally attended multiple field tours that include the Columbia to Spring Hill movements of Hood’s and Schofield’s forces and the battle of Spring Hill. Every tour has included a stop at the Mahlon Moore Road bridge over Rutherford Creek, where attendees are taken to the top of a nearby hill, shown that the Columbia Pike cannot be seen, and told that Hood was wrong and Cheatham correct. Tour operators and guides assert, without proof, that this is the place of Hood’s alleged meeting with Cheatham.
Chapter 9
“Some write a narrative of wars and feats, Of heroes little known, and call the rant a history.”
— William Cowper
John Bell Hood and the Battle of Franklin
The battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, was one of the most tragic events of the Civil War. In terms of the number of casualties suffered over a compact area during such a short time, it ranks among the bloodiest battles of the war, rivaling those of Cold Harbor, Antietam, Malvern Hill, and the more famous Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg.
To the well-traveled Civil War enthusiast, Franklin is also notable for the extent to which the battlefield was built over and thus obliterated in the decades after the war. Franklin was once considered the consummate example of hallowed ground lost to apathy. By the late 1990s, only two locations where heavy combat occurred had been preserved: the Collins Farm on the eastern flank, and the Carter House at the epicenter of the battle. Fortunately, a near-miraculous reclamation of core battlefield land was recently accomplished. Hundreds of acres of land have been acquired on the battle’s eastern flank, and several acres of hallowed ground around the Carter House and Carter cotton gin have now been preserved.
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p; The Franklin community’s passive attitude toward the battle during the mid-to-late 20th century may have been due, in part, to the common interpretation of the battle that had taken hold of the public’s imagination. This portrayal reduced the desperate high-stakes struggle between Schofield’s Federals and Hood’s Army of Tennessee to little more than a suicidal charge ordered by an inept and unstable Confederate commander, with Federal defenders casually decimating the attacking enemy from behind a line of entrenchments. The battlefield was considered by many to be a site of mass murder, rather than a pivotal Civil War battle with major strategic and political ramifications. Given this perception, it is little wonder that houses, restaurants, and other commercial buildings were built on this hallowed land. It has been a long time coming, but the community (both local and the Civil War community across the country) has finally come to better understand that the outcome at Franklin would have significantly influenced the course of the war.
Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864, was much more than a crime scene.
Any analysis of the decisions made during a historical event should be as comprehensive, accurate, and unbiased as possible, with a goal of revealing the credible historical evidence. Hood’s critics and detractors have been heard; his supporters deserve a voice as well.
John Bell Hood made the decision to attack and should be held accountable for the results. Many contemporaries, both Federal and Confederate, disagreed with and even condemned his decision to launch an assault. There were many, however, who supported his decision. Unfortunately, the voices of most diarists and memoirists who sympathized with Hood (or understood and concurred with his decisions) have been largely ignored or suppressed. Most modern historians simply repeat or paraphrase earlier writers, thus perpetuating and even intensifying the incomplete history of Hood the commander.
The decision made by the Confederate high command (President Jefferson Davis, Lt. Gen. John B. Hood, Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, and others) to launch a post-Atlanta invasion of Tennessee was, like all military campaigns, a death warrant for soldiers in both armies—the number dependent upon circumstances then unknown. The performance of thousands of participants from privates up to generals, Federal and Confederate, would influence the outcome and decide the fate of many. The invasion was an effort to force Sherman’s marauding army to withdraw in pursuit rather than pursue its course of slicing across Georgia to the coast. Sherman’s ultimate objective was to join Grant and crush Robert E. Lee’s beleaguered defenders of the Confederate capital and Petersburg.1
The only viable way to stop Sherman’s onslaught was to defeat Gen. George Thomas’s small but growing force defending Nashville—the key to Tennessee and the gateway to Kentucky and beyond. Once Hood’s Army of Tennessee moved north into its namesake state, several thousand lives—both Confederate and Federal—were doomed to be maimed or lost. How many casualties both sides would incur could not be known, and circumstances had yet to dictate where the blood would be spilled.
After Schofield’s army had escaped the Confederate trap at Spring Hill on the evening of November 29, a battle was all but ensured thereafter. Logic dictated that the combat would unfold either around Nashville or, as fate would soon dictate, the small town of Franklin 15 miles south of the capital city, where Schofield’s desperate Federal retreat was halted by the raging Harpeth River, which had destroyed the bridges. By the time his pursuing army arrived at Franklin at midday on November 30, Hood faced few remaining options. His first was a flanking maneuver to the east and north to cut the road leading to Nashville—a movement similar to what had failed the day before at Spring Hill, when a river crossing was unopposed and more hours of daylight remained. A second option was to simply allow Schofield to withdraw to Nashville across hastily repaired bridges. Hood’s third alternative was to launch an immediate assault against Schofield’s 25,000 exhausted troops, most of whom were pinned against a swollen river. That afternoon, Hood had available a force roughly equal to Schofield’s, with Stephen D. Lee’s three additional Confederate divisions (about 8,500 infantry) and more than 100 artillery pieces due in later that day from Columbia. After careful consideration, Hood rode to Lee, who had arrived at Winstead Hill ahead of his corps, greeted him cordially, and announced, “General, we shall make the fight.”2
During the mid-20th century, several authors, each of whom embellished statements written by the previous writer, created an impression in mainstream Civil War scholarship that Hood attacked at Franklin without legitimate reason and with a sinister intent. The most outrageous statement appears on a historical marker at the city of Franklin’s own Winstead Hill Park, which, notwithstanding the absence of any supporting evidence, states that General Hood “gained his revenge” for the lost opportunity at Spring Hill, and “sacrificed” his troops in a “fit of rage.”3
There is little doubt that Hood was upset when he learned that Schofield’s command had escaped at Spring Hill—and he had every right to be. After the fall of Atlanta, Hood acknowledged that his resources were limited. Sherman, explained Hood, “is weaker now than he will be in future, and I as strong as I can expect to be.” Hood’s actions also demonstrated that he appreciated the importance of husbanding his strength and risking the lives of his men wisely. For example, when he opened his post-Atlanta campaign, Hood bypassed Resaca because of its heavy defenses and dispatched only a single division to attack the Federal garrison at Allatoona, Georgia. When he began moving west into northern Alabama in preparation for the Tennessee invasion, Hood bypassed Decatur because he realized an assault against that stronghold would not be worth the casualties it would cost. Hood even declined to give Schofield battle at Columbia, in favor of a flanking operation to Spring Hill to block the withdrawal of Schofield’s Federals. Hood outmaneuvered Schofield at Columbia in an effort to reduce the bloodletting and score a major, and perhaps largely bloodless surrender by trapping the Federals. As recorded in a previous chapter, Hood ordered the road blocked at Spring Hill and an attack against Schofield; neither ensued. Schofield’s escape understandably disturbed the experienced and aggressive combat commander who learned his craft in the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee. Once Schofield escaped, Hood knew that defeating the Federal army would be much more costly. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect any commander to react with indifference upon learning that a skillfully trapped enemy had escaped.4
Hood’s decision to attack Schofield’s exhausted trapped Federals at Franklin is rarely fully explained. Instead, most authors simply state that Hood was angered over the failure to trap the enemy at Spring Hill and ordered the attack at Franklin the next day to punish his army. For decades, authors have promoted the myth of an incoherently enraged Hood rejecting the pleas of his subordinates and throwing his troops against the enemy regardless of the consequences. Some authors, without any evidence at all, have even falsely asserted that Hood intentionally positioned specific divisions and brigades to incur the heaviest casualties.
Like the rest of his army, Hood awoke early on the morning of November 30 thinking that Schofield’s army had been trapped in the open country between Columbia and Spring Hill, caught between two of S. D. Lee’s divisions with 100 cannon at Columbia, and seven infantry divisions plus Forrest’s cavalry at Spring Hill with no viable chance of reinforcements. If such was the case (as Hood had carefully planned), the Federal position would have been untenable and all feasible routes of escape to Nashville cut off. If Hood was indeed angry or upset that morning, he had every right to be. His bold flank march, later described as “brilliant” and “equal to Stonewall Jackson” by Federal cavalry commander Gen. James Wilson, had not only earned his Confederate army a rare numerical superiority over a Federal opponent, but cornered the Federals in an indefensible position. After destroying or capturing Schofield’s army, which at the time constituted most of the veteran infantry Thomas was working to consolidate around Tennessee, Hood would move farther north and attack Thomas with either a numerical a
dvantage or at least near-even numbers.
Instead, Hood learned that morning of Schofield’s unlikely escape. The hard-earned chance of capturing or destroying Schofield’s army had vanished. The Confederate advantage had slipped through his fingers, and now Hood would have to meet and defeat Schofield and Thomas under much more difficult—and certainly bloodier—conditions.5
There are only two known historical records that described Hood as upset or angry at any time on the day of Franklin. Both accounts discuss his demeanor that morning. However, dozens of sources describe Hood acting within normal parameters. Let’s examine these accounts in an effort to determine their reliability and relative merit.
The two sources that describe Hood as acting inappropriate or angry have come to epitomize the perception of his mood on the day of Franklin, and have been repeated so often that Hood’s fury is considered an undisputed reality in today’s Civil War culture. The first account that described Hood as irate occurred during the breakfast meeting at Rippavilla, the home of Nathaniel Cheairs in Spring Hill. It is not known precisely who was in attendance; firsthand accounts identify only Hood, Cheatham, and Forrest, although others might have been present. No written records exist of the Cheairs house meeting nor its tone or content. The only account we have is the oral recollection of Mrs. Cheairs passed down through the decades. Although she wrote nothing of the event, Mrs. Cheairs purportedly said that the language used by the generals was inappropriate “for women’s ears.” In addition to its vagueness, the entire account is simply local lore. Neither Mrs. Cheairs, nor Hood, Forrest, Cheatham, or any staff officers wrote a word about it.
John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General Page 21