The Battle of Franklin: Twilight of the Army of Tennessee

by Crutchfield, James A.

• ISBN13: 9781577364382
• ISBN10: 1577364384
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-01
• Publisher: Providence House Publishers

Summary

For five hours on November 30, 1864, Union and Confederate forces faced each other at Franklin, Tennessee. General John Bell Hood commanded thirty to forty thousand tired, poorly equipped soldiers. His foe was General John M. Schofield and twenty-one thousand troops of the Union Army. Schofield had reached town at 3:00 AM. By the time advance elements of Hoods army arrived, Union engineers had built a system of earthworks that surrounded the town. Between 3:00 and 4:00 PM, Hood made his infamous decision to attack Schofield. At battles end, the Confederates had suffered around 7,300 casualties while Union numbers exceeded 2,500. Bloody Franklin plunged its sleepy namesake town and the roundabout countryside into an economic and psychological depression, from which it took years to recover. The Army of Tennessee was a mainstay of the Confederate war machine, and, at Franklin, it was severely weakened, setting the stage for its defeat at Nashville two weeks later.