Reclaiming Civil War History at the Battle of Franklin | History Traveler Episode 67

we have been talking about the Battle of Franklin and this morning we were right here at Carlton so that was in the last video if you haven't had a chance to watch that go back and see it all kinds of extremely cool stuff and in that we talked about how the Confederates were coming up from the south launched this march across open ground got completely cut to ribbons and now we are getting ready to go right here to the high-water mark of the Confederate attack and the Battle of Franklin at the Carter House [Music] well I just arrived here at the Carter house so this is just a couple of miles from the spot that we were just at and as you can see that might be a little bit bright behind me but this kind of sets up on a high place and the Carter house is right here so in the next video we're going to come back and kind of look at some of these structures here at the Carter house in depth but anyway this spot represents the high-water mark of the Battle of Franklin so this is as far up as as the Confederates guy and then we're just absolutely decimated the Battle of Franklin Trust has done some amazing things as far as reclamation and preservation in this area and kind of bringing back the history so we're gonna kind of take a look at the grounds around here and explore some of the stories from the end of the Battle of Franklin before we go out to the battlefield section I wanted to look at some of the artifacts that they have in their Museum I was like looking at some of these old relics so here are some different bits looks like some different tools not exactly sure what all of these are fortunately they have some descriptions a hoof knife okay whenever you look at some of these old artifacts yeah kind of like this saber here tend to bring home the reality of it something tangible that you could look at yeah very cool now I'm sure that we will see this spot whenever we're out there but at the Carter house there was a cotton gin so you can see a picture right here that kind of formed a little bit of a salient and the Union battle line and it's no longer there but they have some planks of wood with bullet holes in them from that old cotton gin interesting looking forward to going out and seeing where that thing was so there was a Confederate soldier by the name of Todd Carter that grew up here at the Carter house and found his way back during the Battle of Franklin was mortally wounded and they have a bunch of his possessions here so here's his wallet they also have the sword that belonged to Todd Carter some stirrups and straps that belonged to him but probably the craziest thing is they have the dadgum bullet that was lodged in his head my goodness [Music] now if you look right here you can see it's kind of a berm that has been recreated to show where the reserve line was here at the Carter house so this this was the the Union position but if you go up here whenever they were excavating right here at the Carter house they were able to dig lines that went kind of perpendicular to the the Union trenches and anywhere whenever you come to this place anywhere you see these gravel lines well that is where a Union entrenchment was so this is where the Union soldiers would have been set up looking towards the south so the Confederates would have been coming up from this direction and yeah like I said this is this is where the high-water mark was for the Confederates something else that's kind of interesting about this particular spot is there was a soldier who had been awarded the medal of honor at Lookout Mountain and he was fighting here at the Battle of Franklin was making an attempt to get the regimental flag from the Confederates got wounded in the process and that soldiers name was Arthur McArthur and he is the father of Douglas MacArthur got wounded three times right here [Music] the battle Franklin trust really has done a remarkable job at reclaiming and and preserving this area so right now I'm at the site of a field where some vicious fighting took place now a lot of the battle field here at Franklin has been covered up in concrete and houses and development over the years and this spot right here used to be the location of a Domino's Pizza but thanks to generous donations and the hard work that these people are doing we can come back here and get a little bit better idea of of what happened here at the Battle of Franklin pretty cool what they're doing here I'm just across the street from the Carter House right now and if you look right and here you can see the line of entrenchments for the Union forces that were fighting here at at Franklin and if you walk over here you notice that the line is actually forward of the one that I just showed and the reason for that is because there was a huge obstruction that anybody who fought at the Battle of Franklin talked about at least that was at the Carter House they would talk about the cotton gin there was a two-story cotton gin that was located right here and whenever the Battle of Franklin Trust reclaimed this area they excavated this and actually found the original foundation and then that battle line had to be put in front of that cotton gin pretty cool and they never would have known it had they not reclaimed this area [Music] well I am back here where we started at carton and after the battle there were soldiers who were just buried all over this battlefield well the owner of carton guy by the name of mechanic arranged to have all of these soldiers dug up and reinterred right here behind his house there's just under 1,500 Confederate soldiers that are buried here so pretty sobering to walk these grounds and think about the cost of that war this is just a small corner of it but I am so glad that we came here because this place is legitimately amazing whether you're a fan of history or especially Civil War history I've just been blown away at everything that I've seen here today got a little bit more that we're going to show back at the Carter House though in the next video amazing place [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 62,988

Rating: 4.9731708 out of 5

Keywords: history, history traveler, history underground, travel, civil war, battle of franklin, battle of nashville, confederates, john bell hood, nathan bedford forrest, civil war battle, union army, carntan, tennessee, nashville, franklin, carter house, confederate cemetery

Id: 89fGw5AHYXI

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2020