In the latter days of September, 1864, the Confederate Army of Tennessee lay in the vicinity of Macon, Georgia. It was a dispirited body of men, homesick and discouraged. For four long months, first under one leader and then under another, it had opposed, step by step, Sherman’s advance toward Atlanta, and now that important strategic point was in the hands of the Federal forces. About the middle of July the President of the Confederacy had seen fit to remove Joseph E. Johnston from the command and replace him with John B. Hood. The latter’s habit of mind and methods of action led the Richmond authorities to believe that he would proceed very differently from Johnston, and in this he did not disappoint them. The results showed that Johnston’s Fabian policy was by far the better one under the circumstances. Sherman had the stronger army, but he was compelled constantly to detach portions of it in order to guard his lengthening line of supplies. The one thing he desired most was that his opponent should assume an aggressive attitude. Hood’s idea was precipitation rather than patience, and in consequence on the 2d of September General Slocum entered the coveted city.

On the 22d of that month President Davis visited the Southern Army, and made a memorable address to the troops. He promised them—and they were delighted at the news—that they would soon be back in Tennessee, for a fresh invasion of that State had been planned. This would, declared the speaker, place Sherman in a worse predicament than that in which Napoleon found himself at Moscow. But the Federal general had at least the advantage of learning what was going to happen to him, for the President’s words were reported verbatim in the Southern papers, and he prepared to meet his antagonists. Thomas, with the Army of the Cumberland, was sent to Nashville while Schofield, with his smaller force known as the Army of the Ohio, returned to Knoxville where he had spent the previous winter, to await Hood’s advance. By the 1st of October the latter was across the Chattahoochee in the hope of drawing Sherman from Atlanta. There was a brave fight at Allatoona where General Corse “held the fort,” but Sherman, although he followed the Confederate army, was unable to bring on a general engagement.

His great plan of a march through Georgia to the sea was now fully formed in his mind. He had not yet obtained Grant’s sanction to the scheme, but he ordered Schofield to cooperate with Thomas and sent the Fourth Corps as further assistance. He himself ceased the pursuit of Hood at Gaylesville and turned back to Atlanta, confident that the fate of Tennessee was safe in the hands of his ablest lieutenant, George H. Thomas. Hood appeared on the 26th of October at Decatur on the south bank of the Tennessee River. Lack of supplies had delayed his advance, but even so his performances had greatly alarmed the North. Twice had he interposed between Sherman and the Federal base and had destroyed many miles of railway, but what in other circumstances would have placed the Union leader in a dangerous predicament was now of little moment, since the latter was rapidly making preparations to cut himself off from all communication with the source of his supplies. It was necessary that Hood should have the assistance of Forrest, whose dauntless cavalry had been playing great havoc with the Federal stores in western Tennessee, so he moved to Florence before crossing the river, and here Forrest joined him on November 14th. In the meantime, Schofield, with about twenty-eight thousand men, had reached Pulaski on the way to encounter the Southern advance.

Now began a series of brilliant strategic moves, kept up for a fortnight before the two small armies—they were of almost equal strength met in one awful clash. Hood’s efforts were bent toward cutting Schofield off from Thomas at Nashville. There was a mad race for the Duck River, and the Federals got over at Columbia in the very nick of time. The Southern leader, by a skilful piece of strategy and a forced march, pushed on to Spring Hill ahead of his opponent. He was in an excellent position to annihilate General Stanley who was in advance, and then crush the remainder of the Federals who were moving with the slow wagon-trains. But owing to a number of strange mishaps, which brought forth much recrimination but no satisfactory explanation, the Union army slipped by with little damage and entrenched itself at Franklin on the Harpeth River. Of all the dark days of Confederate history—and they were many—the 29th of November, 1864, has been mourned as that of “lost opportunities.”

Schofield did not expect, or desire, a battle at Franklin, but he was treated to one the following afternoon when the Confederates came up, and it was of the most severe nature. The first attack was made as the light began to wane, and the Federal troops stood their ground although the orders had been to withdraw, because through some blunder two brigades in blue had been stationed, unsupported, directly in front of Hood’s approach. The stubborn resistance of Schofield’s army only increased the ardor of the opponents. It is said that thirteen separate assaults were made upon the Union entrenchments, and the fearful carnage was finally carried into the streets and among the dooryards of the little town. At nine o’clock the fury of the iron storm was quelled. Five Confederate generals, including the gallant Cleburne, lay dead upon the field. In two of the Southern brigades all the general officers were either killed or wounded. Hood’s loss was about sixty-three hundred, nearly three times that of Schofield. By midnight the latter was on his way, uninterrupted, to Nashville. Meanwhile Thomas was performing a herculean task within the fortifications of that capital city. He had received a large number of raw recruits and a motley collection of troops from garrisons in the West. These had to be drilled into an efficient army, and not one move to fight would Thomas make until this had been done. Grant, in Virginia, grew impatient and the Northern papers clamored for an attack on Hood, who had now arrived with thirty-eight thousand men before the city. Finally Grant took action, and General Logan was hurrying to assume the Federal command. But by the time he reached Louisville there was no need for his services.

Thomas had for some days been ready with his force of forty-five thousand, but to increase the difficulties of his position, a severe storm of freezing rain made action impossible until the morning of December 15th. The Union lines of defense were in a semi-circle and Hood was on the southeast, lightly entrenched. The first assault on his right wing followed by one on his left, forced the Confederates back to a second position two miles to the south, and that was the first day’s work. Hood had detached a part of his forces and he did all he could to gain time until he might recover his full strength. But he had respite only until Thomas was ready on the morrow, which was about noon. The Union army deployed in front of the Southerners and overlapped their left wing. An attack on the front was bravely met and repulsed by the Confederates, and the Federal leader, extending his right, compelled his opponent to stretch his own lines more and more. Finally they broke just to the left of the center, and a general forward movement on the Union side ended in the utter rout of the splendid and courageous Army of Tennessee.

It melted away in disorder; the pursuit was vigorous, and only a small portion reassembled at Columbia and fell back with a poor show of order behind the Tennessee.

Many military historians have seen in the battle of Nashville the most crushing defeat of the war. Certainly no other brought such complete ruin upon a large and well-organized body of troops.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

RUSHING A FEDERAL BATTERY OUT OF JOHNSONVILLE

When Thomas began to draw together his forces to meet Hood at Nashville, he ordered the garrison at Johnsonville, on the Tennessee, eighty miles due west of Nashville, to leave that place and hasten north. It was the garrison at this same Johnsonville that, a month earlier, had been frightened into panic and flight when the bold Confederate raider, Forrest, appeared on the west bank of the river and began a noisy cannonade. New troops had been sent to the post. They appear well coated and equipped. The day after the photograph was taken (November 23d) the encampment in the picture was broken.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

FORT NEGLEY, LOOKING TOWARD THE CONFEDERATE CENTER AND LEFT, AS HOOD’S VETERANS THREATENED THE CITY

It was Hood’s hope that, when he had advanced his line to the left of the position shown in this photograph, he might catch a weak spot in Thomas’ forces. But Thomas had no weak spots. From the casemate, armored with railroad iron, shown here, the hills might be easily seen on which the Confederate center and left were posted at the opening of the great battle of Nashville.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

THE PRIZE OF THE NASHVILLE CAMPAIGN—THE STATE CAPITOL

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

THOMAS ADVANCING HIS OUTER LINE AT NASHVILLE, DECEMBER 16TH

Camp-fires were still smouldering along the side of the abatis where the lens caught the field of Nashville, while Thomas’ concentric forward movement was in progress. Note the abatis to the right of the picture, the wagons moving and ready to move in the background, and the artillery on the left. White tents gleam from the distant hills. A few straggling soldiers remain. The Federals are closing with Hood’s army a couple of miles to the right of the scene in the picture.

GUARDING THE LINE DURING THE ADVANCE