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

Cox, "Franklin and

flank. The instant the men were assigned their CHAP. I. positions they went to work with instinctive alacrity to build such slight breastworks as the means at hand afforded. The roadway was left open to enable a double line of wagons and artillery to pass, and this opening was protected by a retrenchment a few rods further back.

Nashville,"

p. 84.

Wagner's division, which had held the lines at Spring Hill all the day before, and which had brought up the rear in a long night march, came in about noon. Colonel Opdycke's brigade, which had formed the rear guard, and upon which had fallen the double duty of beating back Hood's advance, and driving forward the weary and limping recruits of Schofield's army, now came inside the lines, and was posted as a reserve in rear of the center. Wagner's other two brigades were left outside the principal line, about half a mile forward on the Columbia pike, with instructions to observe the enemy, and to retire as soon as the Confederates showed a disposition to advance in force. The weary soldiers threw themselves rid., p. 86. down for a little repose behind their breastworks; neither Schofield nor his corps commanders imagined that a great battle was to burst upon them in a few moments. The artillery and trains were nearly all across the river by the middle of the afternoon, and Schofield had issued orders for the Nov.30,1864. troops to pass over at six o'clock. But there was a state of things in the Confederate army which made any moderate or prudent measures impossible to Hood. His failure to destroy Schofield at Spring Hill had so embittered and exasperated him that he was ready for any enterprise, however desperate. VOL. X.-2

CHAP. I.

Nov.30,1864.

The irritation had communicated itself to his principal officers; his reproaches had stung them beyond endurance; and, therefore, on arriving in sight of Schofield's army, in position on the south bank of the Harpeth, there was no thought of anything among the Confederate commanders but immediate and furious attack. All the Confederate accounts agree in describing this spirit in Hood's army on the morning of the 30th of November, though Hood and his generals entirely disagree as to the cause of it.1 Generals Cheatham and John C. Brown, and, according to their account, General Cleburne also, ascribed it to Hood's unreasonable and angry censures of their conduct the day before, while Hood attributes the new spirit of the army to mortification for the great opportunity lost and a renewed access of admiration and confidence towards himself.

The assault was made at about four o'clock. The Confederates never rushed forward to battle with more furious impetus, and by a strange accident it seemed for a moment as if this desperate assault of Hood was to succeed, and he was to gain the glory he so ardently longed for of a success like Stonewall Jackson's best. Wagner's two brigades, that had been left outside the line with instructions to retire before becoming actually engaged with the enemy, stayed too long. The wide and heavy lines of Cheatham and Stewart had enveloped them on both flanks and the bayonets of Hood's center were almost touching them when they

1 Hood's "Advance and Re- ing of Confederate officers at treat," p. 294 et seq. General Louisville-"Southern HistoriCheatham's paper, read at a meet- cal Society Papers." Vol. IX.