Battle of Franklin
| date | November 30, 1864 |
|---|---|
| place | Franklin, Williamson County , Tennessee , USA |
| output | Southern victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
|
approx. 32,000
|
approx. 38,000
|
| losses | |
|
2,326
|
6.261
|
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
The second Battle of Franklin (better known as the Battle of Franklin) was held on November 30, 1864 in Franklin , Tennessee , held as part of the Franklin-Nashville campaign in the American Civil War . It was one of the most losing battles in the Confederate Army. Although the commander of the Ohio Army , Major General John McAllister Schofield withdrew its troops from the battlefield, the Confederates had lost unsuccessful frontal attacks more than six thousand soldiers. The frontal attacks by John Bell Hood's Tennessee Army were colloquially known as " Pickett's Charge of the West".
background
The Battle of Franklin took place the day after the Battle of Spring Hill . Hood's Tennessee Army had failed to crush Union forces at Spring Hill, so Schofield and his Ohio Army could escape. Hood had hoped to stop Schofield's army before it merged with the Cumberland Army . This army was commanded by Major General George Henry Thomas and was located north of Nashville . Both armies combined would represent about 60,000 men, twice the size of Hood's army. When the two armies met at Franklin, Hood had about 38,000 soldiers and Schofield 32,000 men.
Schofield's advance division arrived at Franklin at about 6:00 a.m. after a forced march from Spring Hill . Brigadier General Jacob Dolson Cox , a division commander who temporarily served the XXIII. Commanding the Union Corps (and later becoming Governor of Ohio) immediately began building strong fortifications, partly using fortifications built for the first Battle of Franklin in 1863. A semicircle of fortifications was built around the city from northwest to southeast, each ending on the Harpeth River .
Schofield made the decision to defend himself at Franklin with his back to the river, because he had too few pontoon bridges available. He had to leave these parts of the bridge behind on his quick march on Spring Hill because he didn't have enough transport vehicles. He didn't have the time to repair the existing bridges. He relied on the fortifications to stop the advance of Hood's army.
By noon the Union had been fortified. Anticlockwise from northwest to southeast were the following units: IV Corps under Major General Nathan Kimball , XXIII Corps under Thomas H. Ruger and Cox. Two brigades of the IV Corps under Brigadier General George D. Wagner lay outside the city to watch the Confederate march. Brigadier General Thomas J. Woods Division of IV Corps was north of the Harpeth River, as Schofield planned to cross the river by 6:00 p.m. at the latest if Hood had not appeared by then. Hood's army appeared outside town around 3:00 p.m. Hood was known for his aggressive, sometimes reckless way of leading. Against the advice of his generals, he ordered a frontal attack on the triple Union fortifications in the waning daylight. Many historians believe that Hood was not entirely in his right mind to order the frontal attack because he was still furious that Schofield's army escaped from the Spring Hill battlefield during the night. The Confederates overran the south end of the fortifications with Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham's Corps on the left and Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewarts on the right.
The battle
The two brigades set up in the apron fled behind the defensive positions when Hood attacked. Since the Confederates were chasing them and some blue and gray uniforms were mixed up, it was difficult for the defending soldiers to aim behind the parapets. This created a defensive gap at the height of Carter House, as the inexperienced soldiers of a regiment just arrived from Nashville, lying behind the parapets, fled with Wagner's brigades. The Confederate divisions of Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne , John C. Brown and Samuel Gibbs French then focused their attack on this loophole. A heroic counter-attack by Emerson Opdycke's brigade and two of Cox's regiments closed the gap after a 30-minute hand-to-hand battle.
Again and again the Confederates ran against the Union lines in the following period. Shortly before dark, Major General Edward “Allegheny” Johnson reached the battlefield, but like his predecessors, had no luck at war. At around 9:00 p.m., the fighting slowly ceased. The run up against the defenses had been like a tidal wave and was often called "Pickett's Charge of the West" in retrospect, based on the Pickett attacks near Gettysburg . This attack was much larger than that at Gettysburg, however. While 12,500 Confederates had crossed 1.6 km of open terrain in a single attack in 50 minutes there, at Franklin 20,000 soldiers had marched over 3.2 km and carried out 17 attacks in five hours.
Across the river, Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest attempted to penetrate the Union's left flank, but the Union cavalry under Major General James H. Wilson was able to repel the advance.
Schofield, who was on the other side of the river during the battle at Fort Granger, ordered a retreat across the river during the night. This started at 11 p.m. Though Union forces were vulnerable during the retreat, the battered Hood failed to take advantage of it. Union forces reached the Nashville defenses on December 1st.
Review
The Confederates captured Franklin this way, but the Union forces had escaped them again. Usually, whoever forces his opponent to retreat wins a battle, but here the “winner” had to pay a high price. More Tennessee Army soldiers were killed in the five hours of the Battle of Franklin than in the two days of the Battle of Shiloh . The Confederates lost 6,252, of which 1,750 were killed and 3,800 wounded. The leadership of the southern states was severely decimated, including such capable generals as Patrick Cleburne. A total of 15 Confederate generals (6 killed, 8 wounded and 1 captured) and another 65 officers were affected. The Union lost 189 dead, 1,033 wounded and 1,104 missing.
Although the Tennessee Army had been almost destroyed by Franklin, Hood immediately moved on to Nashville with her. There he met the now reinforced Cumberland Army, which had holed up near Nashville. Nevertheless, he attacked there again in the Battle of Nashville and led his troops to perdition.
The battlefield today
The Carter House, which still exists today, can be visited. It stood in the center of the Union lines and still has more than a thousand bullet holes. Much of the rest of the battlefield has now been built on. For example, the place where General Cleburne fell was built over in 2005 with a "Pizza Hut" restaurant. Although the Association for the Preservation of the Civil War Battlefields bought up much of the area, the Franklin Battlefield is still considered one of the ten most vulnerable historic battlefields in the United States.
