CHAP. I. arrive from Missouri, and Thomas was now equal or superior in infantry to Hood. But, to Schofield's surprise and annoyance, he found no means of Nov. 30,1864. crossing the river. He had destroyed his pontoons at Columbia, they being too heavy and cumbrous for the transportation at his disposition. Those he had requested from Nashville had not been sent; the light and movable train which had belonged to Thomas's army had gone with Sherman to Georgia. A staff and an army like that of Schofield's wastes no time in regrets; they scarped the banks on both sides of the river and made a sort of ford; they tore several houses to pieces, and with the planking floored the railroad bridge; they sawed the old "Franklin, posts of the county bridge down to the level of the Nashville," water, and hastily covered the stumps with planks. Thus in a few hours they had three practicable bridges, and began at once crossing the artillery and trains. T. J. Wood's division, with some guns, took position in an abandoned work called Fort Granger, on the north side, where they commanded the bridges. Cox, and p. 85. But while these operations were going on it became necessary to provide for receiving Hood's attack on the other side of the village. The Twenty-third Corps was posted on both sides of the main road, upon which Hood's army was expected. The village of Franklin stands in a bend of the Harpeth River, so that Cox, who commanded the lines, had his left on the stream, and extended across the Columbia pike to the Carter's Creek pike, but could not reach to the bend of the river on the other side. Kimball's division was, therefore, given the duty of closing the line on that |