The Franklin–Nashville campaign, also known as Hood's Tennessee campaign, was a series of battles in the Western Theater, conducted from September 18 to December 27, 1864, in Alabama, Tennessee, and northwestern Georgia during the American Civil War.
The Confederate Army of Tennessee under Lieutenant General John B. Hood drove north from Atlanta, threatening Major General William T. Sherman's lines of communications and Middle Tennessee. After a brief attempt to pursue Hood, Sherman returned to Atlanta and began his March to the Sea, leaving Union forces under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas to deal with Hood's threat.
Hood hoped to defeat the Union force under Maj. Gen. John Schofield before it could converge with Thomas's army and attempted to do so at the Battle of Spring Hill on Tuesday, November 29, but poorly coordinated Confederate attacks combined with effective U.S. forces leadership allowed Schofield to escape. The following day, Hood launched a series of futile frontal assaults against Schofield's field fortifications in the Battle of Franklin, suffering heavy casualties; Schofield withdrew his force and successfully linked up with Thomas in Nashville, Tennessee. On December 15–16, Thomas's combined army attacked Hood's depleted army and routed it in the Battle of Nashville, sending it in retreat to Tupelo, Mississippi. Hood resigned his commission shortly thereafter and the Army of Tennessee ceased to exist as an effective fighting force.
Background
At the conclusion of his successful Atlanta campaign, Sherman occupied the city of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, and Hood, who was forced to evacuate the city, regrouped at Lovejoy's Station. For almost a month, the normally aggressive Sherman took little action while his men sat about idly, and many left the army at the end of their enlistments. On September 21, Hood moved his forces to Palmetto, Georgia, where on September 25, he was visited by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The two men planned their strategy, which called for Hood to move toward Chattanooga, Tennessee, and operate against Sherman's lines of communications. They hoped that Sherman would follow and that Hood would be able to maneuver Sherman into a decisive battle on terrain favorable to the Confederates.
During the conference, Davis expressed his disappointment in Hood's performance during the Atlanta campaign, losing tens of thousands of men in ill-advised frontal assaults for no significant gains, and implied that he was considering replacing Hood in command of the army. After the president's departure for Montgomery, Alabama, he telegraphed Hood that he had decided to retain him in command and, acceding to Hood's request, transferred Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee, one of Hood's corps commanders, out of the Army of Tennessee. He also established a new theater commander to supervise Hood and the department of Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor, although the officer selected for the assignment, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, was not expected to exert any real operational control of the armies in the field.
Although Sherman was planning to march east to seize the city of Savannah, Georgia, (the campaign that would be known as Sherman's March to the Sea) he was concerned about his lines of communications back to Chattanooga. One particular threat was the cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had long bedeviled Union expeditions with lightning raids into their rear areas. On September 29, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant urged Sherman to dispose of Forrest and Sherman sent Thomas to Nashville, Tennessee, to organize all of the troops in the state. Sherman sent another division, under Brigadier General (Brig. Gen.) James D. Morgan, to Chattanooga.
Sherman had some advance notice of the nature of Hood's proposed campaign. In a series of speeches given at stops along his way back to Richmond, President Davis rallied his listeners by predicting success for Hood, speeches that were reported in the press and read avidly by Sherman. In Columbia, South Carolina, his speech included:
General Hood's strategy has been good and his conduct has been gallant. His eye is now fixed upon a point far beyond that where he was assailed by the enemy. He hopes soon to have his hand upon Sherman's line of communications, and to fix it where he can hold it. ... I believe it is in the power of the men of the Confederacy to plant our banners on the banks of the Ohio, where we shall say to the Yankee, "be quiet or we shall teach you another lesson."
Opposing forces
Confederate
Lt. Gen. John B. Hood's Army of Tennessee, at 39,000 men, constituted the second-largest remaining army of the Confederacy, ranking in strength only after Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The army consisted of the corps of Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham, Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee, and Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart, and cavalry forces under Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Confederate inspections produced after the fall of Atlanta, but before the start of the new campaign indicate that while the Confederate Army of Tennessee's soldiers were poorly clothed, they were well equipped with modern weapons.
Union
At the beginning of the campaign, Union forces designated the Military Division of the Mississippi were commanded by Sherman in Atlanta, but his personal involvement in the campaign lasted only until the end of October. Reporting to Sherman was the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas (the "Rock of Chickamauga"), the force previously commanded by Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans. Thomas was the principal Union commander after Sherman's departure. Subordinate to him was the Army of the Ohio, commanded by Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield. It consisted of 34,000 men, made up of the IV Corps under Maj. Gen. David S. Stanley, the XXIII Corps under Brig. Gen. Jacob D. Cox, and a Cavalry Corps commanded by Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson. Thomas had an additional 26,000 men at Nashville and scattered around his department.
Confederate attacks on Sherman's supply line
So far, the Confederate strategy was working, because Sherman was being forced to disperse his strength to maintain his lines of communication. Hood's movements attracted a lot of attention in the press in the north and caused the War Department no small concern. Washington, DC insisted that Sherman deal with Hood's threat. However, Sherman was not about to fall into Hood's trap completely. He intended to provide Thomas with sufficient strength to cope with Forrest and Hood, while he completed plans to strike out for Savannah. On September 29, Hood began his advance across the Chattahoochee River, heading to the northwest with 40,000 men to threaten the Western & Atlantic Railroad, Sherman's supply line. On October 1, Hood's cavalry was intercepted by Union cavalry under Brig. Gens. Judson Kilpatrick and Kenner Garrard in a raid on the railroad near Marietta, but Sherman was still uncertain of Hood's location. For the next three weeks, Sherman had difficulty keeping abreast of Hood's movements. Hood moved rapidly, screened his march, and maintained the initiative. The Union cavalry, which Sherman had neglected to train adequately, had a difficult time following Hood and reporting his movements.
On October 3, the day that Thomas arrived in Nashville, Stewart's corps captured Big Shanty (present-day Kennesaw) with its garrison of 175 men, and the following day Acworth, with an additional 250. Sherman left Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum in Atlanta and moved toward Marietta with a force of about 55,000 men. Hood split his force, sending the majority of his command to Dallas, Georgia. The remainder, a division under Maj. Gen. Samuel G. French, moved along the railroad toward Allatoona.
Allatoona (October 5)
The small Federal garrison at Allatoona, a partial brigade, was commanded by Colonel John Tourtellotte. Before the Southern division arrived, Sherman sent a reinforcement brigade with Brig. Gen. John M. Corse, who took command of both brigades. The Federal troops occupied strong defensive positions in two earthen redoubts on each side of a 180-foot, 65 feet deep railroad cut and many of the men, including the entire 7th Illinois, were armed with Henry repeating rifles.
Major General Samuel Gibbs French's division arrived near Allatoona at sunrise on Wednesday, October 5. After a two-hour artillery bombardment, French sent a demand for surrender, which Corse refused. French then launched his brigades in an attack—one from the north (against the rear of the fortifications) and two from the west. Corse's men survived the sustained two-hour attack against the main fortification, the Star Fort on the western side of the railroad cut, but were pinned down and Tourtellotte sent reinforcements from the eastern fort. Under heavy pressure, it seemed inevitable that the Federals would be forced to surrender, but by noon French received a false report from his cavalry that a strong Union force was approaching from Acworth, so he reluctantly withdrew at 2:00 p.m. Allatoona was a relatively small, but bloody battle with high percentages of casualties.
Resaca, Dalton, and the movement into Alabama
Hood then moved to the west and crossed the Coosa River in the vicinity of Rome, Georgia, near the Alabama state line. He turned north in the direction of Resaca, Georgia, and joined with Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler's cavalry, which had been previously raiding in Tennessee. On Wednesday, October 12 (a week after Allatoona ), Hood demanded the surrender of the Union brigade stationed at Resaca and left Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee's corps there to invest the city. The 700 Union men under Colonel Clark R. Weaver refused Hood's ultimatum to surrender, which warned that no prisoners would be taken. Weaver replied "In my opinion I can hold this post. If you want it, come and take it." Hood declined to attack the Union position because he believed that it would be too costly, instead bypassing the city, moving north, and continuing the destruction of the railroad.
Meanwhile, Sherman had learned of Hood's location and ordered reinforcements sent to Resaca, arriving there on October 13, too late to engage Hood in battle. Hood sent Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart as far north as Tunnel Hill, near the Tennessee state line, to damage the railroad as much as possible. During this operation, on October 13, Stewart captured the Federal garrison at Dalton, Georgia, under ugly circumstances. The 751 men under Colonel Lewis Johnson included a large number of African-American soldiers, a sight that enraged many in Hood's army. In surrender negotiations, Johnson insisted that his black troops be treated as prisoners of war, but Hood replied that "all slaves belonging to persons in the Confederacy" would be returned to their masters. Unable to defend the garrison, Johnson surrendered and 600 black soldiers were stripped of their shoes and some clothing and marched to the railroad, where they were forced to tear up about 2 miles of track under the supervision of Maj. Gen. William B. Bate's division. Six of the Union soldiers were shot for refusing to work or being unable to keep up with the march. Colonel Johnson later wrote that the abuse his men received "exceeded anything in brutality I have ever witnessed." Johnson and his white officers were paroled the following day, but some of his black soldiers were returned to slavery.
From Resaca, Hood withdrew on a six-day march to the west toward Gadsden, Alabama, reaching it on Thursday, October 20. He had hoped to engage Sherman in battle near LaFayette, Georgia, but his subordinate commanders convinced him that their troops' morale was not ready to risk an attack. He considered his campaign a success so far, having destroyed 24 miles of railroad, although this turned out to be a fleeting advantage to the South. Sherman deployed as many as 10,000 men in reconstruction and by October 28 regular rail service resumed between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Sherman pursued Hood only as far as Gaylesville, Alabama, over 30 miles short of Gadsden.
Hood began to focus his strategy. He needed to prevent Thomas's army from reuniting with Sherman and overwhelming him, and he calculated that if he moved swiftly into Tennessee, he might be able to defeat Thomas before the Union forces could be reassembled. After Thomas was eliminated, Hood planned to move into central Kentucky and replenish his army with recruits from there and Tennessee. He hoped to accomplish all of this before Sherman could reach him. His plan was that if Sherman followed him, Hood would fight him in Kentucky; from there he planned to move eastward through the Cumberland Gap to aid Robert E. Lee, who was besieged at Petersburg. One of his goals was to take Nashville which had been under federal control since 1862. The historian, Eric Jacobson has written that by this time in the war, the Army of Tennessee also realized that the war had become a war of extermination for them. On October 21, Hood's plan received the reluctant approval of Gen. Beauregard, who was concerned about the daunting logistical challenges of an invasion. Beauregard insisted that Wheeler's cavalry be detached to monitor Sherman, and assigned Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry to Hood's advance. Hood set out toward Decatur, Alabama, with the intention of meeting up with Forrest in the vicinity of Florence, from where they would march north into Tennessee.