Eastern Flank Battlefield | The Battle of Franklin

[Music] hi guys my name is will and today we're going to be walking across the grounds at carton and talking a little bit about the eastern flank of the battlefield now this is probably not as well known as the breakthrough at the center at carter house but this is something that we're trying to change because this in fact is a major part of what goes on across the battlefield now where we're standing right across through here would have been the grounds that luring and walthall and french's divisions cross on the eastern flank of the battlefield they are the full eastern third of the confederate fans now loring's division would have crossed the grounds right here at carton walthall would have been visible over to their west and french's division just out of eyesight over to the west as well as they're moving out of their battle formations as they're moving towards franklin these guys are going to be shoulder to shoulder across the fields and eventually the house that they're going to see is carton right here now loring actually takes over carton and uses it as a field hospital for most of the battle as his troops are crossing these grounds where we are right now is a little bit of a low spot it's kind of below the high ground that carton's built on once they get up to the top of that ridge where the house is they're going to be within firing range and within sight line of federal artillery under colonel isaac newton styles he's on the eastern flank of the u.s lines and his 12 cannons are going to rain fire down on lauren's division from roughly here at the house all the way back across the fields until they reach the entrenchments of the u.s army as these guys are marching up through here they have to know that this isn't going to end well for them they have to know that they're going to come under heavy fire but these are veteran soldiers they know what they're doing and eventually as they get up to the house and they start taking fire they're going to double time it across the field trying to close that distance as quickly as they can now what you can see back here over behind me this open field would have been very similar to what they're marching across on the day of the battle and as they get closer and closer to the u.s entrenchments they're going to start reaching sawmill creek they're going to start running into some trees at the edge of the harpeth river and eventually when they close on those u.s barricades they're going to be in for it because they're having to go uphill all the way to hit those entrenchments so at this point we're on that ridge that i was talking about we're on the highest point around carton carton's over here to my right back over to my left behind me is going to be the beginnings of sawmill creek so this is the ground that you'd have had lauren's been moving across through here would have been walthall's men and just on the far side of the tree line going up sawmill creek is going to be edward french or samuel french's division my apologies as they're making their way up loring and walthall have pretty clear ground to go through so they really don't have any trouble moving across these fields are pretty good clip they are still taking artillery fire from those cannons up by stiles and even some of the guns that are further down around the cotton gin under aaron baldwin as samuel french's men were moving up they start to run into a problem sears who is the lead brigade gets snarled up they start moving pretty slowly as they start to cross sawmill creek as they start to get into some of the brush and so cockrell actually moves around in front of him with his missouri brigade and they begin to take the lead as they move up towards the battlefield now eventually they would strike just right in front of the carter cotton gin and they would end up taking severely heavy casualties during the course of the battle walthall's division would move up at the same time that lawrence is they're pretty much lockstep as they go across this field but loring and walthall are already losing pretty good casualties to the cannon fire that's coming across here they may have used solid shot but most of the rounds that they're going to use are a type that explode what we call k-shot or hotchkiss shells basically they're fused around and when they would come screaming through the air they would hit and explode either at head level or about waist level and that's going to cause the most casualties of the cannon fire that's coming across here they're basically cutting holes in the line as the confederates are moving forward now when they get up to the federal barricades which is just almost a mile away from us they're running up against some of the strongest entrenchments that have been built across the battlefield styles and casements brigade had plenty of time to build their entrenchments they're very strong they're very high and most of that eastern flank under the u.s army actually has what's called an abati put in front of it it's a basically a brushwork hedge of thorny really tough trees that they've lined out into kind of a row in front of their works when the confederates are hitting that they're fighting to fight through that tangle that thorn that mess and as they're trying to cut their way through they're still coming under artillery fire and rifle fire but this time at near point blank range the cannons would have swapped over to canister loads which is effectively a shotgun round and they are again cutting literal holes in the lines as the confederates are trying to approach those works they suffer pretty heavy casualties over the course of this battle simply because they had to move across this open ground and they had to attack some of the strongest entrenchments that were on the battlefield so we're standing in the mcgavik confederate cemetery which is located on the grounds here at carton once this battle runs its course which is roughly from 4 pm to 9 pm lauren's division alone takes around 670 casualties over the course of a five-hour battle a lot of those wounded in loring's division and probably even a few from walthall's division were taken back here to carton and carton would end up being a field hospital for nearly seven months for the confederate soldiers unfortunately however there are many more laying on the field dead and some would die even well after the battle's over so when we look at these gravestones these are all of the men who lost their lives were buried on the battlefield and eventually moved here as part of movement 1866 but as you look across these graves these are men who made this ill-fated charge across two miles of open ground to hit entrenchments surrounding the town of franklin ultimately general john bell hood sent his men in thinking that if they could hit hard enough if they could fight long enough that maybe they would break the army of ohio here the u.s forces and perhaps be able to reclaim nashville and reclaim control of tennessee maybe they could turn the tide of the war but hood has to make hard and fast decisions and as a young man who really hasn't been introduced this level of command before i think after this battle he ultimately realized what the cost of those decisions were when these men moved across these fields they're veteran soldiers they know their job but at the same time they know that some of them are not going to go home and ultimately after you make a charge like this the field would have been covered in wounded and dead until they could be either buried or taken to hospitals and what you wind up with is something like here at carton which is 1496 graves of men who did not survive this assault for one reason or another this part of the battlefield was no less important for the soldiers here than for the soldiers in the center at the breakthrough or on the western flank under william bates division this part of the battlefield costs just as many lives as any other part that's why we feel it's important to educate visitors here about the eastern flank what part it played in the battle how it was important to the soldiers and eventually to our efforts to reclaim it and turn it into something that people can see and visit today you

Channel: The Battle of Franklin Trust

Views: 1,954

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: xtaZZzGnrqc

Length: 8min 36sec (516 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 20 2021