Gen. John Bell Hood
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Editor’s note: This article gives brief accounts of the Battle of Franklin, Nashville and the Cedars. Subsequent articles will deal with these important encounters in more detail.
The dwindling troops of the 45th Tennessee found themselves near home again in December of 1864 after nearly being marched to death by the Army of Tennessee’s new, overly aggressive commanding general.
Gen. Braxton Bragg, friend of CSA President Jefferson Davis, had been kicked upstairs following his failures at Stones River, Chickamauga, Chattanooga and so forth. The Confederates had won at Chickamauga, but Bragg had the chance to crush the Army of the Cumberland and failed to do it.
Davis replaced Bragg with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who was popular with his troops, but not with Davis and his cronies.
Johnston, who had been Bragg’s superior in the Western Theater, believed it was important to rebuild the Army of Tennessee after the series of major defeats. Facing the wily Union Gen. William T. Sherman near Atlanta, Johnston attempted to push Sherman away from the heart of the South by out maneuvering him.
That wasn’t a popular strategy with Jefferson Davis, who now had Bragg as his chief military advisor.
Bragg had managed to take many of his most important critics down with him. Former U.S. Vice President Gen. William C. Breckinridge survived the Battle of Stones River, but his career was damaged as was that of Gen. James Longstreet and Gen. D.H. Hill, who had openly criticized Bragg after Chickamauga.
Longstreet, who led a corps of the Army of Northern Virginia at Chickamauga, had hoped, personally, to replace Bragg. Hill was a seasoned division and corps commander, who like Longstreet, had served with Robert E. Lee’s army.
During the Civil War, Hill was perhaps best known as the brother-in-law of Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. He was demoted and temporarily lost his command for his criticism of Bragg.
Ultimately, another Army of Northern Virginia general did replace Bragg critic Johnston at the head of the Army of Tennessee.
Impetuous Gen. John Bell Hood had commanded the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia and was Longstreet’s subordinate.
Hood had been seriously wounded at Gettysburg where an artillery burst cost him the use of his left arm. He recovered from the life-threatening injury in time to rejoin Longstreet’s Corps at Chickamauga, where he was struck in the upper thigh with a minie ball. Doctors amputated his leg just below the hip. Entitled to a medical discharge, Hood did not resign, but instead recovered at Richmond, Va., where he was befriended by his commander in chief, Jefferson Davis.
He made quite an impression in Richmond.
Prolific diarist Mary Chesnut wrote, “When Hood came with his sad Quixote face, the face of an old Crusader, who believed in his cause, his cross, and his crown, we were not prepared for such a man as a beau-ideal of the wild Texans. He is tall, thin, and shy; has blue eyes and light hair; a tawny beard, and a vast amount of it, covering the lower part of his face, the whole appearance that of awkward strength. Some one said that his great reserve of manner he carried only into the society of ladies. Major [Charles S.] Venable added that he had often heard of the light of battle shining in a man's eyes.
He had seen it once — when he carried to Hood orders from Lee, and found in the hottest of the fight that the man was transfigured.”
When Davis and Bragg grew weary of Johnston’s efforts to stop Sherman, they replaced him with Hood against the advice of almost all their top generals, even Robert E. Lee, who described him as “all lion, no fox.”
In the summer of 1864, Hood launched four major offensives against Sherman in the Atlanta area, trying to break the siege. All failed with major troop losses for the Army of Tennessee.
When Hood assumed command in July, the army had more than 50,000 soldiers. By that November, the ranks were thinned to approximately 30,000.
Hood, in conjunction with Davis, devised a plan to use the remaining part of the Army of Tennessee as a lure to draw Sherman back into Tennessee and out of Georgia. It was a plan that achieved only one thing: The loss of another 13,500 men of the Army of Tennessee.
Hood added to the ravages of Atlanta by burning military supplies and installations when he evacuated the city in September of 1864.
Sherman was to conduct his March to the Sea unimpeded by the second largest army of the Confederacy. Gen. George H. Thomas of the Army of the Cumberland was more than capable of handling Hood.
Hood fought seven battles and marched his worn, ill-equipped troops hundreds of miles during his ill-conceived Middle Tennessee Campaign, which lasted from September to December of 1864.
The Army of Tennessee quickly grew to hate “Old Wooden Head” as they called him.
They made up a little song about him, which they sang to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas:”
“My feet are torn and bloody,
My heart is full of woe,
I'm going back to Georgia
To find my uncle Joe.
You may talk about your Beauregard,
You may sing of Bobby Lee,
But the gallant Hood of Texas
He played hell in Tennessee.”
On Nov. 29, 1864, Hood was presented with an opportunity to defeat the Union Army of Ohio at Spring Hill, which enraged Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Hood had approximately 30,000 men to Maj. Gen. John Schofield’s 38,000. Through miscommunication, the Union army was allowed to escape to Franklin, where it dug in a reinforced position.
Franklin was a disaster for the Confederacy.
“Having proved even to Hood's satisfaction that they could assault breastworks, the Army of Tennessee had shattered itself beyond the possibility of ever doing so again,” wrote Pulitzer Prize winning historian James M. McPherson in “The Battle Cry for Freedom.”
The Federals' defensive line was a semicircle around Franklin, from northwest to southeast with the Harpeth River helping to secure the position.
Hood, despite the protests of his subordinate generals, ordered a frontal assault by the Army of Tennessee against Union troops, a number of which were equipped with repeating rifles including the new Henry 16-shot rifles.
The Confederate army advanced across nearly 2 miles of open territory into an entrenched Union army.
They charged the reinforced positions as many as five times.
The Confederates suffered 6,252 casualties, including 1,750 killed and 3,800 wounded. Fifteen Confederate generals were casualties (6 killed, 8 wounded, and 1 captured), and 65 field grade officers were lost. Union casualties were 189 killed, 1,033 wounded, 1,104 missing.
Fortunately, for perhaps the first time, the 45th Tennessee did not fight at Franklin. By then assigned to Maj. Gen. Stephen Lee’s Corps, the newly reformed brigade didn’t arrive in time for the battle.
On Nov. 18, 1864, what had been Brown’s and Reynold’s Brigades were consolidated and former Murfreesboro Mayor Joseph B. Palmer was placed in command of what would be known as “Palmer’s Brigade” for the remainder of the war. Col. Anderson Searcy of Murfreesboro, who was leading the 45th/23rd battalion, was also placed in charge of the 26th Tennessee.
Palmer’s Brigade was to miss the Battle of Nashville, a slaughterhouse that marked the death knell for the Army of Tennessee.
Once Nashville was over, Hood had only 10,000 men left. He had killed his army.
The Murfreesboro warriors fought a bit closer to home thanks to the “wisdom” of Hood.
“Old Wooden Head” had detached Forrest and his cavalry to attack Murfreesboro. Maj. Gen. William B. Bate’s infantry division accompanied Forrest on the mission along with Palmer and Brig. Gen. Claudius Sears’ brigades.
Hood thought Forrest could destroy the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad and help isolate Federal troops in Nashville.
On Dec. 4, 1864, Bate attacked Blockhouse No. 7 protecting the railroad crossing at Overall Creek between Murfreesboro and Smyrna. Union defenders fought the infantry off.
The following day, Forrest led the action sending columns against Blockhouse 7 and a similar fortification in La Vergne. Union troops surrendered both garrisons.
Forrest linked with Bate and moved to Murfreesboro, driving federal troops to withdraw within Fortress Rosecrans.
On Dec. 6, Forrest ordered Bate to “move upon the enemy’s works.” After two or so hours of fighting, Forrest broke off the attack. That evening, Palmer’s and Sears’ brigades arrived. The Confederates reinforced their position just off the Wilkinson Pike near Fortress Rosecrans.
On the morning of the 7th, Maj. Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau went on the offensive, sending Brig. Gen. Milroy out of Fortress Rosecrans with seven regiments of Federal troops.
Milroy rousted the Confederates in what now is called the “Battle of the Cedars.”
It was Forrest’s first defeat as an independent agent.
Rousseau reported that it was a “pretty severe engagement, lasting three-quarters of an hour. The rout was complete, infantry and cavalry running in every direction.”
Federal troops also turned away elements of Buford’s cavalry division, which had seized about half of Murfreesboro by bombarding homes with artillery fire.
Withdrawing orderly, Forrest’s cavalry and the Rutherford County troops of Palmer’s Brigade served in the rear guard of the Army of Tennessee as it limped back to Mississippi in complete defeat. “Old Wooden Head” resigned from the army.
But it was on to North Carolina for the 45th and the men of Palmer’s brigade for the last major battle of the Civil War.
Click on More to read Rousseau's report on the Battle of the Cedars |
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