On The Battlefield: The Battle of Franklin

[Music] [Music] so here we are on the franklin battlefield behind me is the carter house we're going to hit a couple of the key spots on the franklin battlefield today it's good to probably start with some context why there was a battle of franklin which occurred on november 30th 1864 just a few months before the end of the american civil war this was an effort by john bell hood and the confederate army of tennessee to retake the capital of tennessee nashville which had fallen to u.s troops early in the war countering hood's movement out of georgia and alabama into middle tennessee was john schofield john schofield was in command of two u.s army corps so all together there are about 60 000 soldiers in middle tennessee that fall campaign really is decided here at franklin although there's a battle in nashville two weeks later this was hood's really last chance to destroy the us army we're going to go into a little bit of the detail about how the battle unfolded some of those initial moments and then as the confederate breakthrough reaches its high tide we'll hit a couple of key spots on the battlefield and also talk about the reclamation movement that's occurred here over the last 15 or so years to reclaim and restore ground that was hallowed a long time ago but for a long time had been covered by modern development so let's get started we're now standing near where the carter cotton gin once stood which is to my rear left what happens is the us army the night before had escaped from the clutches of the confederates at spring hill marched all night 12 13 14 miles they began to arrive here just before sunrise and almost immediately john schofield the commander realizes he has a dilemma he can't get the army across the river which is to my rear about a mile away because of the condition of the bridges so he's back there with the engineers working to get those bridges in a condition where the army can later evacuate but but scofield knows this is going to take a good while and very likely the confederates when they realize what had happened during the night would begin a pursuit so he and jacob cox have a conversation right over here at the carter house cox eventually sets up his headquarters there schofield instructs him to take command and set up a line of defense while scofield heads back toward the river and that's exactly what jacob cox begins to do over the course of the next several hours he deploys three divisions his own division about where i'm standing extends to my left to the east and then angles back around the gin see the gin becomes a bit of an obstruction so the line has to work its way around this very tall two-story roughly 30 by 30 square foot building thomas ruger's division is west of columbia pike and nathan kimball's division eventually forms up and so by around noon there are in the neighborhood of 15 or 16 000 infantry in place and what they're doing throughout that morning is digging in which you can see here during the course of the reclamation where this rock bed is where the main u.s line of defense was located during the reclamation work that we've done over the last 15 or so years we had to do archaeological digs and so we were able to find the base of a substantial section of the line so we marked it with this so it's very clear to visitors guess where the line was this is how the line begins to form and remember this is all really for the most part a delaying tactic by schofield and his commanders their plan is not to stay in franklin their hope is to begin pulling out shortly after the sun goes down in addition to the infantry artillery is placed up and down the line to my left two guns of the sixth ohio to my right four guns of the first kentucky there were about three dozen artillery pieces in line at various points along this defensive position and so it's a well-defended area but it's a temporary one also you might notice that we're on a bit of a hill this is known as carter hill park so this was a logical place for the us army to set up this defensive position about the time that they're finishing the work in this area george wagner's division begins to arrive south of here wagner's division is the last u.s unit to get on the field but right behind him john bell hood at the head of the confederate army and over the next hour or so things would begin to move pretty rapidly as hood surveys the scene has to make a decision about what he's going to do that's going to take us to our next spot on the battlefield so we're about 150 or 200 feet south of where we were just standing so when john bell hood begins to arrive on the outskirts of franklin around noon or 12 30 one of the first people he talks to is nathan bedford forest and forest is advocating for another flanking maneuver which had been attempted the day prior at spring hill hood believes there's simply not sufficient time for a flanking maneuver he's concerned that if they do not act with the utmost speed that the federal army is going to evacuate which of course was exactly scofield's plan so for most of the afternoon the confederate army is forming up south of here about a mile and a half from our position by around 3 or 3 30 there are six confederate divisions in place about 20 000 men including some confederate cavalry on the east side of the infantry line the confederates begin to move right about four and those who saw it from this perspective just up the slope really never forgot it this was one of the largest infantry assaults of the entire war certainly one of the most controversial components of the battle of franklin was george wagner's decision to place his troops on a ridge a half mile south of the main line probably as controversial as hood's decision to attack so there's always been a lot of discussion about why did wagner do what he did and i think a lot of that is really overplayed it isn't that wagner placed the troops out on that ridge that's really the controversy because wagner was operating as the rear guard of the army so from that ridge the confederate activity could be monitored because from this area you can't really see beyond the ridge so wagner's troops are actually in a logical position the mistake that he makes is he doesn't pull the troops back in time in fact at one point he orders them to be held out there at the point of the bayonet one of the brigade commanders would later report that they did finally get an order to withdraw from wagner but by the time they got the order it was too late out on this ridge are about 3 000 federal soldiers there are almost 20 000 southern troops bearing down on the federal position so those men are completely overwhelmed and as that line begins to crack there's an opportunity for the confederates and in some ways that opportunity was precisely what john bell hood was looking for because when hood made the decision to attack he could see wagner's troops out on that ridge that if the infantry assault could smash that advanced line wagner's troops would necessarily fall back and create all sorts of havoc in this area in fact they would really almost be like a shield preventing the men on the mainline from being able to fire into the confederates because they would have their own men between them and the enemy the troops that come through this area initially are george wagner's troops as they're retreating back toward what they hope to be the safety of the main line of course many of those men are shot down they're captured they're knocked down dragged away but coming right through this area are elements of pat claiborne's division claiborne is arguably the best division commander in the southern army he commands three brigades he's got granberry's brigade closest to the road go vans arkansas brigade just to the east they slam into this area what happens on the main line is these guys can't hold on for much longer they try and let as many of wagner's men get back inside the main line as they can but with the confederates rolling in right behind them they finally open up and not just infantry fire this area is just ripped by artillery fire and the confederates begin to fall in waves claiborne probably down before the sunset at about 4 35 is when the sun goes down i think he and granberry are among those casualties who were taken out by those first waves of volleys from the federal troops and those explosions coming out of the kentucky guns and those ohio guns clayburn's body would be found the next morning not far east of here one of the pieces of the battlefield that we're able to save was about where he was found that area is today marked appropriately this is a killing zone this area is as bad as any civil war battlefield could be there are just within sight somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 or 25 000 men engaged in a furious combat john bell hood fought at places like antietam gettysburg as well as thomas ruger on the other side who had been at many of those same battles both would later say independent of one another the volume of fire they heard at franklin exceeded anything they'd ever witnessed and it all happened right here so even though clyburn's down as well as granberry who dies not far up to my front left claiborne's men continue pouring up toward the main line and then the breakthrough occurs one of the things that was also really easily forgotten about franklin is because so much of the battlefield was covered and the battlefield was often described as just being flat well this is a great perspective you can actually see and this is about where claiborne fell and many of his men fell and charged forward they're actually charging uphill cockrell's men suffered over 60 casualties the highest loss of any confederate brigade so there's often a lot of focus on how badly claiborne's entire division was beat up of course claiborne himself passes away but cockrell was coming in at an angle and they took heavy casualties all the way through this area of course many of these men are later exhumed and moved to carnegie this side of the battlefield sees some of the most furious action a federal soldier later said he never saw troops placed in a position like clyburn's men wore that afternoon and and this was also an area that was covered by development there was a house there there was a house back here and there were two commercial buildings off to my right which is toward the west when i used to lead battlefield tours many many years ago we'd come back into this area and we'd be sandwiched between all of this development and trying to describe to people what happened in the area was so difficult and it's so much easier today this is one of the most important spots on the battlefield so claiborne's men are creating this immense havoc they just blast through the main line they they completely uproot two regiments the 100th ohio falls back most of the 104th ohio also falls back and there's this moment where aaron baldwin who's in command of two guns a section of the sixth ohio right here i can't tell you whether he actually looked to his right or not but if he did he would have seen all of his support falling back and surging confederates pushing into the breach and i always thought this was a key spot on the battlefield this is an anchor and what baldwin does is he doesn't retreat he orders his gunners to double shot the guns they're blasting into the missouri brigade they're ripping clyburn's men apart they hold their ground to anyone who's ever been at a place like gettysburg right at the angle right there where cushing's guns were that's what this spot is to franklin this is a point where men don't need orders they almost instinctively hold their ground because they realize if they turn tail and run like everybody else is this whole thing comes unraveled and a big part of the franklin story is people will sometimes jump to the end and conclude that because of the ultimate confederate casualties and the grievous losses they took that they never had a chance the confederate army did have a chance and at about 4 30 4 45 and almost up until five o'clock this whole thing was hanging in the balance but it starts to unravel at places like this because baldwin will not pull back probably 50 men manning two guns and there's about four thousand confederates bearing down on them and all of their support is falling away and they hold their grounds a guy in the 65th ohio named israel gaskell he had made it back from the advanced line but he couldn't get over the earthworks and so he's trapped between the confederates who are right behind him federal troops have now started to fire and he's screaming on the outside of the works for somebody to help him and it's actually baldwin who helped pull gaskell over the works years later gaskell and another man come back to franklin and guess what they did they took their photo standing next to the carter smokehouse which we later acquired and is now in our collection another key piece of why this ground is important as if it's not obvious already is that a number of u.s soldiers won medals of honor on this ground there would be about a dozen men who would later be awarded those medals for bravery under fire and several of them fought in this area in the 104th ohio and also a man in the 12th kentucky when claiborne's men broke the main line and everything in this area begins to fall back there's a reserve line right back here the 12th and the 16th kentucky in the 175th ohio which is a brand new unit is right behind them they can see this explosion in front of them and so the commanders of the kentucky regiments small veteran units really ground down by the war they pitch right into the confederates behind them come the new ohio troops so there's about a thousand men that slam right into claiborne's men really in a matter of minutes they begin to force the confederates back across the earth works that they had just taken moments earlier and then it becomes this back and forth dogged fight some of claiborne's men had actually taken control of these four guns for just the briefest of moments the artillerists fall back but with the counter-assault they soon retake the guns and begin blasting into not just claiborne's men but you can see how the guns are angled just across the road are john brown's troops so another confederate division has started to peel into the main line on the west side and begins to crack it and those guns are firing into brown's flank i think it's almost impossible to really get a sense of how savage the fighting was in this area i think this is only perhaps paralleled by what happened at antietam and spotsylvania big battles like gettysburg for example were often a series of smaller actions this is really both armies slugging it out with everything they've got and let's not forget with the sun down by 4 30 it's almost completely dark by five so a lot of the fighting unfolds in the daylight and then plays out into the twilight but much of it would drag into the night this is a really kind of cool side story to to the reclamation that's unfolded through the years and it involves the archaeological digs so if you look across the road you can see where those artillery pieces are and right in front of them is where the main line was that's where we had the archaeological dig well we'd always assume now we knew the road was left open earlier in the day as the lines are being set up the pike was left open so the wagons could continue to move up the road toward the river we assumed that the line would sort of meet on each side of the road but it doesn't you'll notice this section of the line right here is probably about 25 or 30 feet south of where that portion of the line hits the road i can't tell you why other than this is all really a very quick and in some ways kind of haphazard project as they're slapping together this defensive position and it's all being done by different commanders and different units we even learned during the archaeological digs the depth of the earthworks was different there wasn't any sort of real continuity this section of the line which runs straight that way was held by the 50th ohio when john brown's troops hit the 50th ohio this unit completely splinters apart they suffered about 50 casualties in just a matter of minutes the survivors go fleeing back toward the carter house and the outbuildings where there is this secondary line of defense eventually another regiment in the carter garden the 72nd illinois also falls back as brown's men four brigades and about 3 700 men put this unbelievable pressure on the main line so to recap this you have almost 6 800 confederates who hit this area from the gin to about where our modern visitor center is probably 250 yards think about that kind of power being slammed into that small of an area it's really no wonder the us troops fell back but i think the even greater story is how the secondary line was able to hold the breakthrough in check so all of the ground that's really behind me and to my left was all part of the carter garden this was a roughly two acre tract in which the family grew all the sort of vegetables that people still grow today carrots collard greens okra tomatoes this was the family garden it's not only bisected by the federal line which you can see here begins to curve why is it curving because they're wrapping the line around the hill they're following the topography you can see down there how the ground dips away you want to control to use a military term the military crest you want to create these fields of fire where you can produce maximum casualties on an attacking force it's an ingenious setup one of the first big reclamation victories was securing part of the carter garden back in about 2007 or 2008 this little track today where we've recreated not just part of the vegetable garden but also part of their orchard the carters grew apples and peaches so we've done this through the help of volunteers and staff members and this is a civilian component that also i think makes franklin very unique a lot of major battles in the civil war and they always impacted civilians but very few were found right on the outskirts of a town gettysburg is an example of that he had a family whose very existence was just destroyed by the battle and not only is the physical destruction manifest the carters actually lose a son todd carter who had joined the 20th tennessee early in the war is part of the confederate attacking force and so brown's men are slamming into this area just to the west william bates division is also hitting the federal line and todd is part of bates division family would find him the next morning not far beyond where you can see some of the recreated orchard clinging to life and as we tell folks here all the time todd carter he passed away on december 2nd but the real powerful part of the story and really the sad part of the story is he died in the home in which he was raised by saving ground and by opening it up as much as we could we were really peeling back history that was lost and i remember the first time because there used to be a there was a fence around this and of course you had all the houses and modern obstructions and we cleared it away some of the confederate soldiers who made this attack had been fighting since early 1862. some of these men have been at shiloh perryville chickamauga chattanooga they fought around atlanta and for the guys who were from tennessee some of them were coming back home and there's this moment at about 4 30 when the breakthrough occurs and they come charging from the south right through this area across this ground and through that garden when you look up that direction you can see those two artillery pieces and they are throwing everything this way that those artillerists can possibly let loose the main lines blowing up but there's a secondary line missouri troops a brand new regiment and now they're throwing everything they can and still the confederates keep moving forward and as they push up this hill you'll start to see this line of hills emerge in the distance and you can really get a sense of how this really is a hill and as they keep moving through the garden now on a full run this isn't the double quick this is a full-on charge screaming and howling the rebel yells reverberating and there's a moment where hoods hoods gamble the campaign may actually work and just down the brow of the hill is franklin most of the men never got beyond this line because what they got hit with were blasts out of the 20th ohio guns about six or seven hundred members of the 44th missouri cannot be dislodged even though about a third of the missourians become casualties and the secondary line is holding two veteran units a new unit and a new unit are buying precious moments perhaps two three four minutes of time and just down on the other side of the hill is emerson updike's brigade updyke was the other brigade of wagner's division that had not been out on the advanced line the confederates had no idea updyke was just beyond the brow that hill and so while the secondary line is teetering holding the confederates in check updyke's men come into the fray four of his regiments hit this side of the road three are on the east side of columbia pike what his units do is they shore up this secondary line there was a lot of talk update himself was a great promoter how he'd saved the day jacob cox knew as well as anyone updike and his men had certainly done their part but this was if anything a team effort there were men up and down this line thousands of them fighting with everything they had to hold these surging confederate troops in check one of the units of updyke's period that is certainly worthy mentioned is the 24th wisconsin they hit this area closer to the house with about 150 men in the ranks they'd left milwaukee two and a half years earlier with a thousand men off to save the union they got here as ground down as many confederate units were the war had been hard on them they didn't have a colonel they didn't have a lieutenant colonel they had a major in command he was 19 years old his name was arthur mcarthur in history likely would have forgotten who he was long ago except about 20 years after the war he and his wife had a son they named douglas macarthur and if you think about douglas macarthur's impact of world war ii you can see how history really is connected to today it is absolutely without a doubt connected to what we are and who we are today and that is another example of why places like this are important this has always been i think one of the most unique battlefields in america there was nothing like what happened at franklin after november 30th 1864. this was it this was the last great charge and most of those who fought here on both sides knew really what was at stake and that has to also be talked about most men on both sides knew this war for the union in this war for southern independence had now morphed into a war to destroy slavery and to redefine the country and perhaps that's ultimately why it was so unbelievably savage we should never forget what happened here and that's why saving this ground costly as it has been as much work as it has been it has been worth all of it to save this ground and so the people years from now will never know about this house and that house and some pizza place and you know all the things that happen here to make this happen they'll just know that it's a park and they'll know that something important happened here you

Channel: The Battle of Franklin Trust

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Keywords: the civil war, Franklin, battle of Franklin, battlefield tour, Eric Jacobson, battle of Franklin trust, tennessee, Nashville, John Bell Hood, Tennessee campaign

Id: HNB6bONePaY

Length: 23min 41sec (1421 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 12 2020