Battle of Franklin (1864)

Background

Atlanta fell on 1 September 1864. Rather than follow John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee, Sherman sent troops back to hold Tennessee under George H. Thomas and set off on his march to the sea. Hood turned north. He meant to retake Middle Tennessee, beat the Federal forces there before they could combine, capture the great supply depot at Nashville and perhaps carry the war into Kentucky and Ohio. He crossed into Tennessee with about 39,000 men. In his path were the IV and XXIII Corps, about 30,000 strong under John M. Schofield, Hood's West Point classmate; Thomas had about 30,000 more in and around Nashville.

From 24 to 29 November Schofield held the crossing of the Duck River at Columbia in mostly bloodless skirmishing. On 29 November Hood marched round him to Spring Hill, across the Federal line of retreat. A series of command failures left the turnpike open, and during the night Schofield's column and its wagons slipped past the Confederate camps. Spring Hill cost about 850 men in all, and Hood was furious.

Schofield's lead troops reached Franklin about 04:30 on 30 November. He could not simply keep going: his pontoons had been left behind at Columbia for want of wagons, those he had asked Thomas for had not arrived, and the wagon bridge over the Harpeth had to be rebuilt and the railway bridge planked before the trains could cross. Thomas also wanted the Harpeth line held until A. J. Smith's corps arrived. Jacob Cox put the infantry to work on the old 1863 entrenchments on the southern edge of town, inside a bend of the river. Hood reached Winstead Hill, two miles to the south, about 13:00 and, over the objections of Forrest and Cheatham, ordered a frontal assault.

The armies

Livermore's count, which CDB90 follows exactly, gives Schofield 27,939 men engaged and Hood 26,897, but both include cavalry fighting away from the main field. The infantry that made the assault numbered about 19,000 to 23,000, and the Federal line it struck was held by a similar number. Only Edward Johnson's division of Stephen D. Lee's corps arrived in time to fight; Lee's other divisions and most of Hood's artillery were still on the road from Columbia. Accounts give the attack one or two batteries in support. Hood himself was still limited by earlier wounds to an arm and a leg.

The Army of Tennessee attacked with Cheatham's corps (Cleburne, Brown and Bate) on the left and A. P. Stewart's (Loring, French and Walthall) on the right, Forrest's cavalry on both flanks. Schofield had David Stanley's IV Corps (Kimball, Wagner and Wood, the last north of the river) and the XXIII Corps, commanded at Franklin by Cox (Ruger and Reilly), with James Wilson's cavalry, some of it carrying Spencer repeaters. The Federals had about 36 guns on the field, some of them across the river in Fort Granger.

The works ran in a mile-long arc from the Harpeth north-west of town round to the river again in the south-east, with a thick abatis of Osage orange in front of the eastern end. The one gap was where the Columbia Pike crossed Carter Hill, left open for the wagons and covered by Battery A, 1st Kentucky Artillery.

The battle

CDB90 treats the battle as a single engagement, number 213 (FRANKLIN), from 15:30 to 23:00 on 30 November. Times are approximate.

Morning and noon: the Federal position. By noon the main line was ready. Kimball's division held the right, Ruger's the centre and Reilly's the left, with Casement's brigade on Reilly's right. Cox made the Carter House, just behind the line on the pike, his headquarters; the Carter cotton gin stood in a small salient east of it. Schofield spent most of the afternoon at Fort Granger across the river. Wagner's division was posted about half a mile out on open ground. Emerson Opdycke, ignoring Wagner's orders, brought his brigade back inside and halted it about 200 yards behind the Carter House. Lane's and Conrad's brigades, perhaps 1,200 men, stayed out in front.

16:00: the advance. The Confederate line, about two miles wide, moved off from the hills to the south, Cheatham west of the pike and Stewart east of it. Bate's division on the far left was delayed working its way round Winstead Hill. The Federal guns opened at once; Hood had almost nothing to answer them with. The sun set at 16:34.

The forward brigades overrun. Cleburne's and Brown's divisions swept over Lane and Conrad. Their men ran for the works with the Confederates at their heels; nearly 700 were captured, and the defenders at the centre had to hold their fire because pursuers and pursued were mixed together. Cleburne, Brown and part of French's division broke into the line near the Carter House and the cotton gin and carried it about 50 yards deep.

The counter-attack at the Carter House. Opdycke's brigade and reserves of Reilly's division charged into the breach. The fighting in the Carter gardens and around the outbuildings was hand to hand, with bayonets, sabres, pistols and shovels. Opdycke had his horse shot under him and fought on foot; Stanley was hit in the neck. The breach was sealed. Brown's division was pinned against the outside of the works, and Cleburne was killed near the gin.

The eastern flank. Stewart's corps, squeezed between the pike and the river, attacked Reilly's and Casement's brigades. The Osage orange abatis broke up its formations, and guns at Fort Granger fired into its flank. Loring's division was thrown back twice; Quarles's brigade reached the works and could go no further. ABT counts up to six attacks here.

The western flank and the Harpeth. On the far left Bate's division and Chalmers's cavalry attacked in the dusk and failed, Bate's flank uncovered. East of town Forrest crossed the Harpeth at Hughes Ford, but Wilson's dismounted troopers, firing Spencers, drove his men back over the river.

Dark: Johnson's attack. About 19:00 Johnson's division of Lee's corps, just arrived, attacked west of the Carter House in the dark, lost its alignment and was repulsed. Attacks went on by torchlight, some stopping within 50 yards of the works; the Tennessee Encyclopedia counts as many as 18 charges in all. Most of the fighting was over by about 21:00, though firing continued later.

Night: Schofield withdraws. Over Cox's objections, and under Thomas's earlier orders, Schofield ordered the army across the Harpeth from 23:00. The troops and trains crossed around midnight on the repaired bridges and were inside the Nashville defences by noon on 1 December. Hood did not pursue in the night.

Aftermath

Schofield lost 2,326 men, nearly half of them captured from Wagner's forward brigades. Confederate losses are usually given as 6,252, Schofield's estimate, including about 1,750 killed: more dead than in Pickett's Charge. Hood reported 4,500. The toll among officers was worse than anywhere else in the war. Patrick Cleburne, States Rights Gist, Hiram Granbury, John Adams and Otho Strahl were killed and John C. Carter mortally wounded; seven more generals were wounded and George W. Gordon was captured. Wikipedia counts 55 regimental commanders lost; the Tennessee Encyclopedia says 63 of 100 were killed or wounded. A colonel was left commanding Brown's division and a captain Granbury's brigade.

Town houses, the Carter and Lotz houses and Carnton, the McGavock plantation, filled with wounded. Tod Carter, a son of the house, was mortally wounded within sight of it. The McGavock Confederate Cemetery at Carnton holds 1,481 Southern dead.

Hood followed Schofield to Nashville with about 26,500 men, where Thomas, with more than 60,000, routed him on 15–16 December. Fewer than 20,000 got back to Mississippi. Historians still argue over why Hood attacked: the common account of a commander enraged by Spring Hill, found in Sword and McPherson, is disputed by Jacobson and Rupp. Development swallowed much of the field, including a Pizza Hut on the spot where Cleburne fell, removed in 2005; ABT and its partners have since saved more than 180 acres.

Wargaming it

Franklin is a compact, one-sided and dramatic battle. The main field is about two miles deep and a little more across, and the action runs from about 16:00 to 21:00, most of it after the sun set at 16:34. It works at brigade level, with turns of 15 to 20 minutes, or at regimental level for the fight around the Carter House and the cotton gin. Most of the table is open, gently rolling ground; the details that matter are the Federal works, the gap at the Columbia Pike, the Osage orange abatis on the eastern flank, the Harpeth guarding both Federal flanks, and Fort Granger's guns across the river.

A straight refight is a slaughter, so the interest lies in conditions and timing. The Federal player must hold until the bridges are ready and the wagons are across, not merely survive. Wagner's forward brigades are the best decision point: leave them out, pull them in, or let a die decide, as their running back blinds the centre and opens the breach. Opdycke's reserve is the counter, and night should cost the attacker cohesion and the defender aim. Confederate options include Bate's delayed start, Lee's late arrival, the missing artillery, and what Forrest's cavalry achieves against Wilson's repeaters beyond the river. A Spring Hill prequel, where Hood had his real chance, makes a good campaign pairing.

Maps and pictures