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The Confederacy's Last Gasp in Tennessee
Following the loss of Atlanta in early September 1864, Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood led his 38,000-man army north toward Middle Tennessee. He hoped a daring invasion would divide the Union army at a critical time, forcing US Gen. William T. Sherman to divert his "March to the Sea." If the Confederacy could regain Tennessee, Hood reasoned, then it could take the fight into Kentucky and Ohio where he could find plenty of food for his hungry soldiers.
Screened by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry, Hood's troops crossed the Tennessee River at Florence, Ala., on Nov. 21. His first objective was Columbia on the Duck River and the turnpike to Nashville. Opposing Hood were Gen. John Schofield's 30,000 troops, assigned by Sherman to join Gen. George Thomas (then in Nashville with about 30,000 men of his own) to neutralize the Confederate threat.
Hood saw a chance to get his army between the two Federal forces, possibly defeating Schofield, then Thomas.
Schofield won the race to Columbia, but Hood managed to slip around Schofield's flank and created an opportunity to trap the Union Forces at Spring Hill. There was some fighting at Spring Hill during the afternoon of Nov. 29, but in one of the war's most famous and still-argued-about blunders, the Confederates let Schofield's troops march past them that night -- right under their noses.
Hood gave chase north toward Franklin, but Schofield waited for him there behind sturdy defenses. Unleashing his army in an ill-considered attack on Nov. 30, Hood battered his army against these defenses at Franklin for five hours, losing more than 6,000 men. Six Confederate generals, including the brilliant Gen. Patrick Cleburne, were killed or mortally wounded.
Following the battle, Schofield again marched north, joining Thomas in Nashville, now a fortress after nearly three years of Union occupation. Hood, his army now badly wounded, limped after him and deployed south of the city. As the Union army gathered strength in the Tennessee capital, the Federal high command pestered Thomas to attack and get rid of Hood, who they feared might sidestep Nashville and continue to the Ohio River. On Dec. 15 and 16, Thomas unleashed his army -- with US Colored Troops at the forefront -- and forced Hood's broken forces away from Nashville. What remained of the once-grand Confederate Army of Tennessee headed south.
About half the Southerners who fought around Nashville later joined their former commander Joseph Johnston opposing Sherman in North Carolina. But outside of skirmishes and guerilla fighting, the major fighting in Middle Tennessee was over. |