CHAP. I. turned and ran for the Union lines. They rushed over the parapets on either side of the pike, the Confederates following immediately after them, overwhelming and carrying to the rear the troops Nov.30,1864. who were defending the breastworks. A gap of about one thousand feet was instantly made in the Union lines; Hood's battalions were rapidly converging to this point. If the damage were not immediately repaired, it would be irreparable; with a superior force wedged into the Union center, short work would have been made of the two wings, and nothing but annihilation would have been left for Schofield's army. General D. S. Stanley, the commander of the Fourth Corps, seeing from the north side of the river the Confederate advance, started at the instant for his line. He reached it just as the breach was made and the confused mass of fugitives and Confederates came pouring to the rear. The only force available at the instant to meet them was Opdycke's brigade, which had fought all the day before at Spring Hill and afterwards had marched all night; but even while Stanley was galloping to order Opdycke to lead his men to the charge he saw that gallant commander taking position himself on the right of his line; seeing that no orders were necessary he gave none, but placed himself at the left of this heroic brigade. A shout rose among the veteran soldiers about him, "We can go where the general can"; and the brigade, supported on the right and left by Cox's men, who instantly rallied to the rescue, rushed forward and regained the lines. Opdycke's magnificent courage met its adequate reward. He fought on horseback CHAP. I. till his revolver was empty, then dealt about him with the butt of his pistol, and descending from his horse seized the musket of a fallen soldier, and fought like a private until the intrenchments were regained. Although four regimental commanders fell in this furious charge, Opdycke was unhurt. Stanley did not fare so well; his horse was killed under him and he received a serious wound in the neck and was carried to the rear. Cox, "Franklin and Nashville," p. 95. The battle did not cease with this fierce onset and repulse. All along the line the Confederates made. attack after attack. Hood sitting on horseback, a little way behind his lines, sent them forward again and again with furious orders" to drive the Yankees into the river." To show with what desperate gallantry the Confederates were led, it need only be said that six generals were killed on or near the parapets, six were wounded, and one captured. Cleburne closed his brilliant career in front of the Union breast works. John Adams charged his horse over the ditch, leaped it, and horse and rider were killed upon the parapet. General O. F. Strahl fought with his men in the ditch until evening came; he was struck down; he turned over the command to Colonel F. E. P. Stafford, but while his men were carrying him to the rear he was struck twice more and killed. Stafford took up his fallen sword and carried on the fight with a courage which will form the theme of fable and legend in time to come. An eye witness says that his men were piled about him in such numbers that when at last he was shot dead he could not fall, but was found the next morning, partially upright, as if still commanding the gallant dead who surrounded him. CHAP. I. Hood, "Advance and Retreat," Along the whole line the attack and defense were carried on, until nothing but the flashes of the Nov.30,1864. muskets could be seen in the darkness, with the same furious gallantry on the one side and the same immovable determination on the other. Few battles so frightfully destructive are recorded in the wars of modern times. In the terrible fight at Ezra Church, a Union picket shouted across the lines to a Confederate with that friendly chaff common to both armies, "I say, Johnny, how many of you are there left?" To which the undaunted Confederate replied, "About enough for another killing." On this terrible afternoon at Franklin, Hood's army suffered the last killing it was able to endure. He admitted in his dispatch to Richmond a loss of "about 4500"; but Thomas in his careful report foots the Confederate loss at 6252, of which all but 700 were killed and wounded. Schofield's loss was very much less, amounting to 2326 in all, of which Wagner's unfortunate division lost 1200. Had it not been for the mistake made in those two advanced brigades, Schofield's army would have slaughtered Hood's at its leisure. Thomas, in his grave and sober manner, thus sums up the result of this signal victory: "It not only seriously checked the enemy's advance and gave General Schofield time to move his troops and all his property to Nashville, but it also caused deep depression among the men of Hood's army, making them doubly cautious in their subsequent movements." Schofield reported the day's work to Thomas and by his advice and direction fell back during the night to Nashville. His retreat was entirely unmolested; for Wilson, while the battle was going p. 330. Thomas, Committee of the War. on Conduct Supplement, Part I., p. 372. Ibid. CHAP. I. 1864. on at Franklin, had met and checked Forrest, holding him at the river and driving some of his detachments back. Schofield's army, on arriving at Nashville, occupied a position selected for it in advance by General Thomas. General Schofield held the left extending to the Nolensville pike; the Fourth Corps, under the command of General Wood, held the center, and the Sixteenth Corps under General A. J. Smith, who had just arrived in time to assist in the defense of Tennessee, occupied the right, his flank resting on the Cumberland River below the city. Wilson, with his cavalry, was stationed first at Schofield's left, but Steedman's provisional command having arrived at Nashville on the evening of the 1st of December Wilson was moved to the north side of the river and Steedman occupied the space from Schofield's left to the Cumberland. Hood, as if driven by his evil genius, followed rapidly after Schofield and sat down before Nashville. He was aware, he said, of the reënforcements which had reached Thomas, and which had brought the strength of the National army above his own, but he was in the position of a desperate gamester who has so little to lose that he feels it better policy to stake all than to leave the game. He knew that Mr. Davis was urgent in his orders for the reënforcement of the Army of Tennessee from Texas; he hoped that with this expected accession he might still realize the roseate dreams with which he had started out on this ill-starred campaign. He trusted to the chapter of accidents to give him some dazzling successes which would draw the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians to his standard. He formed his line of battle in front of Nashville on the 2d of December. Lee's corps took the center, astride the Franklin pike, Stewart occupied the left, and Cheatham the right, their flanks widely extending towards the Cumberland River, and Forrest's cavalry filling the gap. But no sooner had he established himself there than, as if determined to give himself no chance in the impending battle, he detached Forrest on the 5th with W. B. Bate's division of infantry to invest and capture, if possible, the garrison of Murfreesboro', commanded by General Rousseau. This expedition totally failed. A sally was made on the 7th by some of Rousseau's troops under General Milroy, who won that day a merited consolation for his disaster at Winchester, and inflicted a sharp defeat upon Bate's infantry, which was thereupon recalled to Nashville; while Forrest, in this useless adventure, remained away from Hood too far to be recalled when he was most needed. While General Hood was strengthening his intrenchments and waiting in vain for good news from Forrest, and the arrival of reënforcements from across the Mississippi, which were never to come, Thomas upon his side was completing in his unhurried and patient manner his preparations for a crushing blow. He would have been ready to strike in about a week after Hood's arrival. Nothing exhibits more vividly the tension of spirit which had come with four years of terrible war, than the fact that the Administration at Washington, which had patiently allowed McClellan to sit motionless in front of Johnston from July to February, began to urge Thomas to move against CHAP. I. 1864. |