Second Battle of Franklin

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Second Battle of Franklin
Part of the American Civil War
Battle of Franklin II 1864.jpg
Battle of Franklin, by Kurz and Allison (1891).
Date November 30, 1864
Location Franklin, Williamson County, Tennessee
Result Union victory[1]
Belligerents
United States United States (Union) Confederate States of America CSA (Confederacy)
Commanders
John M. Schofield John Bell Hood
Strength
27,000[2] 27,000[2]
Casualties and losses
2,326 (189 killed, 1,033 wounded, 1,104 missing/captured)[2] 6,252 (1,750 killed, 3,800 wounded, 702 missing/captured)[2]
v • d • e

The Second Battle of Franklin (more popularly known simply as The Battle of Franklin) was fought at Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee conducted numerous frontal assaults against fortified positions occupied by the Union forces under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield and was unable to break through or to prevent Schofield from a planned, orderly withdrawal to Nashville.

The Confederate assault, sometimes called the "Pickett's Charge of the West", resulted in devastating losses to the men and the leadership of the Army of Tennessee—fifteen Confederate generals (six killed or mortally wounded, eight wounded, and one captured) and 53 regimental commanders were casualties. After its defeat against Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas in the subsequent Battle of Nashville, the Army of Tennessee would retreat with barely half the men it began the short offensive with and was effectively destroyed as a fighting force for the remainder of the war.

Contents

[edit] Background

Further information: Franklin-Nashville Campaign

Following his defeat in the Atlanta Campaign, Hood had hoped to lure Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman into battle by disrupting his railroad supply line from Chattanooga to Atlanta. After a brief period in which he pursued Hood, Sherman decided instead to cut his main army off from these lines and "live off the land" in his famed March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah. By doing so, he would avoid having to defend hundreds of miles of supply lines against constant raids, through which he predicted he would lose "a thousand men monthly and gain no result" against Hood's army.[3]

Sherman's march left the aggressive General Hood unoccupied, and his Army of Tennessee could choose several options in attacking Sherman or falling upon his rear lines. The task of defending Tennessee and the rearguard against Hood fell to Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, commander of the Army of the Cumberland. The principal forces available in Middle Tennessee were IV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by Maj. Gen. David S. Stanley, and XXIII Corps of the Army of the Ohio, commanded by Maj. Gen. John Schofield, with a total strength of about 30,000. Another 30,000 troops under Thomas's command were in or moving toward Nashville.[4]

Rather than trying to chase Sherman in Georgia, Hood decided that he would attempt a major offensive northward, even though his invading force of 39,000 would be outnumbered by the 60,000 Union troops in Tennessee. He would move north into Tennessee, defeat portions of Thomas's army in detail before they could concentrate, seize the important manufacturing center of Nashville, and continue north into Kentucky, possibly as far as the Ohio River.[5] Hood even expected to pick up 20,000 recruits from Tennessee and Kentucky in his path of victory and then join up with Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia, a plan that historian James M. McPherson describes as "scripted in never-never land."[6]

Nevertheless, President Jefferson Davis proclaimed that Sherman would be destroyed after taking Atlanta just as Napoleon was after taking Moscow, and would "escape with only a bodyguard" while Hood marched to the Ohio River.[7] Hood spent the first three weeks of November quietly supplying the Army of Tennessee in northern Alabama in preparation for his offensive.[8]

[edit] Opposing forces

Principal Confederate commanders
Lt. Gen.
John Bell Hood
Maj. Gen.
Benjamin F. Cheatham
Lt. Gen.
Stephen D. Lee
Lt. Gen.
Alexander P. Stewart
Maj. Gen.
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Principal Union commanders
Maj. Gen.
John Schofield
Maj. Gen.
David S. Stanley
Brig. Gen.
Jacob D. Cox
Maj. Gen.
James H. Wilson

[edit] Confederate

Further information: Confederate order of battle

Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's[9] Army of Tennessee, at 39,000 men, constituted the second-largest remaining army of the Confederacy, ranking in strength only after Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The army consisted of the corps of:

At Franklin, about 27,000 Confederates were engaged, primarily from the corps of Cheatham, Stewart, and Forrest, and Johnson's division of Lee's corp.[2]

[edit] Union

Further information: Union order of battle

Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield, commander of the Army of the Ohio, led a force of about 27,000 consisting of:

[edit] The road to Franklin, November 21–29

The Army of Tennessee marched north from Florence, Alabama, on November 21, and indeed managed to surprise the Union forces, whose two halves were 75 miles apart at Pulaski, Tennessee, and Nashville. With a series of fast marches that covered 70 miles in three days, Hood tried to maneuver between the two armies to destroy each in detail. But Union General Schofield, commanding Stanley's IV Corps as well as his own XXIII Corps, reacted correctly with a rapid retreat from Pulaski to Columbia, which held an important bridge over the Duck River on the turnpike north. Despite suffering losses from Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry along the way, the Federals were able to reach Columbia and erect fortifications just hours before the Confederates arrived on November 24. From November 24 to November 29, Schofield managed to block Hood at this crossing, and the "Battle of Columbia" was a series of mostly bloodless skirmishes and artillery bombardments while both sides re-gathered their armies.[12]

On November 28, Thomas directed Schofield to begin preparations for a withdrawal north to Franklin. He was incorrectly expecting that Maj. Gen. A.J. Smith's XVI Corps arrival from Missouri was imminent and he wanted the combined force to defend against Hood on the line of the Harpeth River at Franklin instead of the Duck River at Columbia. Meanwhile, early on the morning of November 29, Hood sent Cheatham's and Stewart's corps north on a flanking march. They crossed the Duck River at Davis's Ford east of Columbia, while two divisions of Lee's corps and most of the army's artillery remained on the southern bank to deceive Schofield into thinking a general assault was planned against Columbia.[13]

Now that Hood had outflanked him by noon on November 29, Schofield's army was in critical danger. His command was split at that time between his supply wagons and artillery and part of the IV Corps, which he had sent to Spring Hill nearly ten miles north of Columbia, and the rest of the IV and XXIII Corps marching from Columbia to join them. In the Battle of Spring Hill that afternoon and night, Hood had a golden opportunity to intercept and destroy the Union troops and their supply wagons as his forces had already reached the turnpike separating the Union forces by nightfall. However, because of a series of command failures along with Hood's premature confidence that he had trapped Schofield, the Confederates failed to stop or even inflict much damage to the Union forces during the night. Both the Union infantry and supply train managed to pass Spring Hill unscathed by dawn on November 30, and soon occupied the town of Franklin 12 miles to the north. That morning, Hood was surprised and furious to discover Schofield's unexpected escape. After an angry conference with his subordinate commanders in which he blamed everyone but himself for the mistakes, Hood ordered his army to resume its pursuit north to Franklin.[14]

[edit] Union defensive plans

Schofield's advance guard arrived in Franklin at about 4:30 a.m. on November 30, after a forced march north from Spring Hill. Jacob Cox, a division commander temporarily commanding the XXIII Corps, immediately began preparing strong defensive positions around the deteriorated entrenchments originally constructed for a previous engagement in 1863.[15]

Schofield decided to defend at Franklin with his back to the river because he had no pontoon bridges available that would enable his men to cross the river; the bridges had been left behind in his retreat from Columbia because they lacked wagons to transport them, and pontoons requested from Thomas in Nashville had not arrived. Schofield needed time to repair the permanent bridges spanning the river—a burned wagon bridge and an intact railroad bridge. He ordered his engineers to rebuild the wagon bridge and to lay planking over the undamaged railroad bridge to enable it to carry wagons and troops. His supply train parked in the side streets to keep the main pike open, while wagons continued to cross the river, first via a ford next to the burned-out pike bridge, and later in the afternoon by the two makeshift bridges. By the beginning of the assault, nearly all the supply wagons were across the Harpeth and on the road to Nashville.[16]

By noon the Union works were ready. The line formed an approximate semicircle around the town, from northwest to southeast; the other half of the circle was the Harpeth River. Counter-clockwise from the northwest were the divisions of Kimball (IV Corps), Ruger (XXIII Corps), and Cox (XXIII Corps). A gap in the line occurred where the Columbia Pike (present day U.S. Route 31) entered the outskirts of the town, left open to allow passage of the wagons. About 200 feet behind this gap a 200-yard "retrenchment" line was constructed, which was intended to be a barrier to traffic, not a full-fledged defensive earthwork. (The gap was also defended by the guns of Battery A, 1st Kentucky Artillery.) The actual earthworks on the southern portion of the line were formidable. Attacking infantry would be confronted by a ditch about four feet wide and two–three feet deep, then a wall of earth and wooden fence rails four feet above the normal ground level, and finally a trench three–four feet deep in which the defenders stood, aiming their weapons through narrow "head gaps" formed by logs. In the southeast portion of the line, Osage-orange shrubs formed almost impenetrable abatis. Just behind the center of the line stood the Carter House, appropriated as Cox's headquarters. Just east of the pike was the Carter cotton gin building, around which a minor salient occurred in the Union earthworks. Schofield established his headquarters in the Alpheus Truett house, a half mile north of the Harpeth on the Nashville Pike, although he would spend most of his time during the battle in Fort Granger, built in 1863 as an artillery position northeast of the town.[17]

Two Union brigades were positioned about a half mile forward of the main line. Wagner's division had been the last to arrive from Spring Hill, and after briefly stopping at Winstead Hill before Hood arrived, he ordered his brigades under Cols. Emerson Opdycke, John Q. Lane, and Joseph Conrad (who had replaced Luther Bradley, wounded at Spring Hill) to stop halfway to the Union line and dig in as best they could on the flat ground. Opdycke considered the order to be ridiculous and refused to obey it; he marched his brigade through the Union line and into a reserve position behind the gap through which the Columbia Pike passed.[18]

Wood's division of IV Corps and all of Wilson's cavalry were posted north of the Harpeth to watch for any flanking attempt. Schofield planned to withdraw his infantry across the river by 6 p.m. if Hood had not arrived by then. As Hood approached, Schofield initially assumed the Confederates were demonstrating as they had at Columbia, planning to cross the Harpeth and turn the Union position. He did not suspect that Hood would be rash enough to attack the strong defensive line.[19]

[edit] Hood's arrival and plan

View north from Hood's headquarters on Winstead Hill (engraving from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War)

Hood's army began to arrive on Winstead Hill, two miles (3 km) south of Franklin, around 1 p.m. Hood ordered a frontal assault in the dwindling afternoon light—sunset would be at 4:34 p.m. that day—against the Union force, a decision that caused dismay among his top generals. Nathan Bedford Forrest argued unsuccessfully that if he were given a division of infantry to accompany his cavalry, he could flank Schofield out of his position "within an hour." Frank Cheatham told Hood, "I do not like the looks of this fight; the enemy has an excellent position and is well fortified." But Hood countered that he would rather fight a Federal force that had only a few hours to build defenses, instead of Nashville where "they have been strengthening themselves for three years." Patrick Cleburne observed the enemy fortifications as being formidable, but he told the commanding general that he would either take the enemy's works or fall in the attempt. He later remarked to Brig. Gen. Daniel C. Govan, "Well, Govan, if we are to die, let us die like men."[20]

Some popular histories assert that Hood acted rashly in a fit of rage, resentful that the Federal army had slipped past his troops the night before at Spring Hill and that he wanted to discipline his army by ordering them to assault against strong odds. Recent scholarship by Eric Jacobson discounts this as unlikely, as Hood was not observed to be angry by the time he arrived in Franklin.[21]

I hereupon decided, before the enemy would be able to reach his stronghold at Nashville, to make that same afternoon another and final effort to overtake and rout him, and drive him in the Big Harpeth river at Franklin, since I could no longer hope to get between him and Nashville, by reason of the short distance from Franklin to that city, and the advantage which the Federals enjoyed in the possession of the direct road.
—Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood, Advance and Retreat[22]

Regardless of Hood's personal motivations, his definite and immediate objective was to try to crush Schofield before he and his troops could escape to Nashville; he was concerned that if he attempted to turn Schofield by crossing the Harpeth and getting between him and Nashville, the maneuver would be time consuming and the open terrain of the area would reveal his movements prematurely, causing Schofield to simply withdraw again.[23] The Confederates began moving forward at 4 p.m., with Cheatham's corps on the left of the assault and Stewart's on the right. Lee's corps, and almost all of the army's artillery, had not yet arrived from Columbia. Hood's attacking force, about 19–20,000 men, was arguably understrength for the mission he assigned—traversing two miles of open ground without artillery support and then assaulting prepared fortifications.[24]

[edit] Battle

Battle of Franklin      Confederate      Union

Hood's attack initially enveloped the two brigades under Lane and Conrad, which despite orders not to engage in front of the works, stood their ground. Whether or not Wagner ordered the change in orders from those issued by XXIII Corps commander Gen. Cox remains a matter of controversy (Wagner claimed he did not; one brigade commander contradicted him in official reports and Wagner was relieved of command in December). The veteran soldiers of these brigades fled back to the main breastworks, while untried replacements were reluctant to move under fire and were captured. The fleeing troops were closely pursued by the Confederates, eventually intermingling with them, so much so that defenders in the breastworks could not fire without hitting fellow soldiers.

Officers in Col. Silas A. Strickland's brigade (Ruger's division, west of the turnpike) had understandably failed to prepare for such an event. This, combined with the opening in the works through which the Columbia Pike passed, caused a weak spot in the Union line at the Carter House. The Confederate divisions of Maj. Gens. Patrick Cleburne, John C. Brown, and Samuel G. French converged on this spot and a number of their troops broke through the now not-so-solid Federal defenses. Strickland's regiments fell back to avoid capture. A spontaneous counterattack, led by the brigade of Col. Emerson Opdycke and fortified by rallied elements of Wagner's men, newly mustered regiments such as the 44th Missouri, 175th and 183rd Ohio, and two veteran Kentucky regiments, managed to seal the gap and kill, capture, or repel the Confederates who had penetrated the defense, after brief but vicious hand-to-hand combat. By 5 p.m., after the sun had set, the Union line was again firmly entrenched. Meanwhile, on the east side of the battlefield, Confederate Maj. Gens. William W. Loring and Edward C. Walthall saw their troops torn apart. Maj. Gen. William B. Bate on the west side of the field fared no better, and no further assaults were attempted on the flanks.

In the center, however, the Confederates, believing that an irreparable breach had been made and seeking to exploit it, made repeated but uncoordinated assaults on the Union second line. After dark, around 7 p.m., the division of Maj. Gen. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson attacked and had no more luck than its predecessors, but was the only division of Lee's intact corps to be ordered to attack. Large numbers of Confederate troops became pinned down in the ditch fronting the main line, and an intense firefight transpired for hours, each side firing through embrasures or over the top of the parapets at close range in an attempt to dislodge the other.

That some Union troops were armed with Spencer and Henry repeating rifles added to the already considerable advantages of the defenders. Particularly, near the Carter House where the Confederates focused their attack, 350 men of the 12th Kentucky and 65th Illinois were firing with 16-shot, lever-action Henry rifles,[25] the predecessors to the Winchester repeating rifle. These rifles, capable of at least 10 shots per minute, gave these men several times more firepower than what their numbers indicated had they been armed with the usual muzzle-loading rifle-muskets. The Confederate generals could not know this fact when they ordered repeated charges to attack what appeared like a weak spot, only to have their regiments mauled. Other regiments of dismounted Union cavalry were also armed with the 7-shot breech-loading Spencer carbine, which likewise gave them a firepower advantage against the Confederates.

The fighting had mostly subsided by 9 p.m. The overall attack had been awesome, described by some as a tidal wave, and known as the "Pickett's Charge of the West." But it was actually much larger than the famous charge at Gettysburg. In the East, 12,500 Confederates in nine brigades had crossed a mile (1.6 km) of open ground in a single assault lasting about 50 minutes. In Franklin, some 19,000 in 18 brigades marched into the guns a distance of nearly two miles (3.2 km) and conducted assaults in multiple waves that lasted over five hours.

Across the river to the east, Confederate cavalry commander Forrest attempted to turn the Union left flank, but the Union cavalry under Wilson repulsed his advance.

Schofield, who spent the battle in Fort Granger (just across the Harpeth River, northeast of Franklin), ordered his infantry to cross the river, starting at 11:00 p.m., despite objections from Cox that withdrawal was no longer necessary. (Union reinforcements under Maj. Gen. A.J. Smith were already in Nashville.) Although there was a period in which the Union army was vulnerable, straddling the river, Hood was too stunned to take advantage of it. The Union army began entering the breastworks at Nashville at noon on December 1.

[edit] Aftermath

The devastated Confederate force was left in control of Franklin, but its enemy had escaped again. Hood was unable to destroy Schofield or prevent his withdrawal to link up with Thomas in Nashville. And his unsuccessful result came with a frightful cost. More men of the Confederate Army of Tennessee were killed in five hours at Franklin than in two days at the Battle of Shiloh. The Confederates suffered 6,252 casualties, including 1,750 killed and 3,800 wounded. An estimated 2,000 others suffered less serious wounds and returned to duty before the Battle of Nashville. But more importantly, the military leadership in the West was decimated, including the loss of perhaps the best division commander of either side, Patrick Cleburne. Fifteen Confederate generals (six killed or mortally wounded, eight wounded, and one captured) and 53 regimental commanders were casualties. The six generals killed or mortally wounded were Cleburne, John C. Carter, John Adams, Hiram B. Granbury, States Rights Gist, and Otho F. Strahl.

Due to Schofield's rapid withdrawal on the night of the battle, Union losses were reported as only 189 killed, 1,033 wounded, and 1,104 missing. Modern research (ca 2005) by Carter House historian David Fraley identifies Union killed at Franklin to be in excess of 600 and perhaps as many as 800. Many of the prisoners, including all captured wounded and medical personnel, were recovered on December 18 when Union forces re-entered Franklin in pursuit of Hood.

The Army of Tennessee was all but destroyed at Franklin. Nevertheless, rather than retreat and risk the army dissolving through desertions, Hood advanced his 26,500 man force against the Union army now combined under Thomas, firmly entrenched at Nashville. Hood and his department commander Gen. P.G.T. Beuaregard requested reinforcements, but none were available. Strongly outnumbered and exposed to the elements, Hood was attacked by Thomas on Dec. 15 and 16, and defeated decisively, retreating to Mississippi with just under 20,000 troops.

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Battle Cry of Freedom, historian James M. McPherson wrote,

Having proved even to Hood's satisfaction that they could assault breastworks, the Army of Tennessee had shattered itself beyond the possibility of ever doing so again.[26]

[edit] Battlefield today

Main article: Franklin Battlefield

The Carter House, which stands today and is open to visitors, was located at the center of the Union position. The site covers about 15 acres (61,000 m2). The house and outbuildings still show hundreds of bullet holes. The Carnton Plantation, home to the McGavock family during the battle, also still stands and is likewise open to the public. Confederate soldiers of Stewart's Corps swept past Carnton toward the left wing of the Union army and the house and outbuildings were converted into the largest field hospital present after the battle. Adjacent to Carnton is the McGavock Confederate Cemetery, where 1,481 Southern soldiers killed in the battle are buried. Adjacent to the 48 acres (190,000 m2) surrounding Carnton is another 110 acres (0.45 km2) of battlefield, which is currently being converted to a city park.

Much of the rest of the Franklin battlefield has been lost to commercial development. The spot where Gen. Cleburne fell, for instance, was covered until late 2005 by a Pizza Hut restaurant. Although the restaurant was purchased by a preservation group and demolished, the Civil War Preservation Trust continues to rank the Franklin battlefield as one of the ten most endangered sites. City officials and historic-preservation groups have recently placed a new emphasis on saving what remains of the land over which this terrible battle raged.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ NPS
  2. ^ a b c d e Eicher, p. 774.
  3. ^ McPherson, Battle Cry, p. 808; Connelly, pp. 477-78; Eicher, pp. 736-37; Jacobson, pp. 29-30; Sword, pp. 45-46.
  4. ^ Jacobson, p. 41; McPherson, Battle Chronicles, p. 179; Welcher, p. 583.
  5. ^ McPherson, Battle Chronicles, p. 180; Jacobson, pp. 44-47; Sword, pp. 68, 72-73; Nevin, p. 82.
  6. ^ McPherson, Battle Cry, p. 811.
  7. ^ McPherson, Battle Cry, p. 807.
  8. ^ Sword, pp. 68-70, 74; McPherson, Battle Chronicles, p. 180.
  9. ^ Eicher, p. 769. At the start of the Atlanta Campaign, Hood was appointed a temporary "full" general, but this appointment was never confirmed by the Confederate Congress and was later rescinded.
  10. ^ Sword, pp. 444-47.
  11. ^ Sword, pp. 448-51; Eicher, pp. 770, 774. Although Schofield was the commander of the Army of the Ohio through 1865, historians of the campaign do not always use this designation for the combination of corps assembled against Hood, referring in some cases only to the "Federal Army." See, for example, Welcher, pp. 599, 611; Sword, p. 448; Jacobson, p. 452.
  12. ^ Sword, pp. 93-95; McPherson, Battle Chronicles, pp. 181-82; Welcher, p. 588; Eicher, p. 770; Nevin, p. 88.
  13. ^ Jacobson, pp. 53, 55, 72-75; Eicher, p. 770; Sword, pp. 84, 89, 91; McPherson, Battle Chronicles, pp. 180-82; Welcher, pp. 586-88; Nevin, pp. 82-83, 88.
  14. ^ Jacobson, pp. 105-68; Eicher, p. 771; Sword, pp. 124-54; Kennedy, p. 392; Welcher, pp. 589-90.
  15. ^ Eicher, p. 772; Sword, pp. 159-60; Jacobson, pp. 199-203; Welcher, pp. 590-91.
  16. ^ Sword, p. 167; Jacobson, p. 198; Welcher, pp. 591-93.
  17. ^ Jacobson, pp. 208-11; Welcher, p. 593; Sword, p. 167; Eicher, p. 772.
  18. ^ Sword, pp. 171-77; Jacobson, pp. 219-21, 230; Welcher, p. 594.
  19. ^ Sword, pp. 197-98; Welcher, pp. 593, 597.
  20. ^ Sword, pp. 178-80; Niven, pp. 98-100; Jacobson, pp. 241-42, 247.
  21. ^ Jacobson, pp. 239-40. For examples of the popular view promoting Hood's anger and resentment, see Sword, p. 179, and Niven, pp. 95-96.
  22. ^ Hood, p. 291.
  23. ^ Jacobson, pp. 239-40.
  24. ^ Welcher, p. 595; Sword, p. 180; Jacobson, pp. 245-47.
  25. ^ Jacobson, pp. 286-87, 329-30.
  26. ^ McPherson, Battle Cry, p. 813.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

Coordinates: 35°55′03″N 86°52′24″W / 35.9174°N 86.8733°W / 35.9174; -86.8733

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