Fountain Branch Carter was worried. Columbia Pike, the macadamized road that ran in front of his house at the south edge of this small town of about eight hundred people, was crowded with Union soldiers and their horses, wagons and artillery pieces, with more stretched out along the pike as far toward the south as he could see. His yard was filling up with men in blue, pitching tents and starting campfires. An officer had knocked on his front door and gotten him out of bed before daylight, and now his parlor was serving as the field headquarters for a Federal division commanded by Brigadier General Jacob Dolson Cox, with staff officers and messengers coming and going in a steady stream.1
It wasn’t as if Carter had never dealt with Yankees before. The Federal army had controlled this part of middle Tennessee and had a presence in and around Franklin for over two years—even building earthwork emplacements for artillery on the north bank of the Harpeth River, which they called Fort Granger—but this was different. Before, it had been a few thousand men—a few regiments or a brigade or two—but this was a whole army. By lunchtime, well over twenty thousand Federal soldiers would either march past Carter’s house or take up residence in the line of entrenchments that ran one hundred yards south of his front door. Carter had already taken some precautions in case there should be fighting—he had hidden much of his food, for instance—but now he had some hard decisions to make.
Fountain Branch Carter, owner of the Carter House, the Union field headquarters. A sixty-seven-year-old grandfather, Carter led a group of his family and neighbors—half of them children—down to his basement, where they hid as the battle rolled around the house. Carter House Archives.
Fount Carter was a sixty-seven-year-old widower and farmer with a large family to consider. Moscow Carter, his oldest son and a paroled Confederate officer, was living with him, as well as four daughters and a widowed daughter-in-law. In addition to the seven adults, there were also nine grandchildren under the age of twelve. His first thought was to move his family down into town, but General Cox offered to let them stay in the house. He explained that as soon as they got their wagon trains across the Harpeth River, the army would be moving on to Nashville. If there was any fighting at Franklin, it was expected to be east or west of town, assuming that the Confederate army would try to outflank the Federal position as they had done the day before. Everyone agreed that a frontal assault on the line just south of Carter’s house would be extremely foolish and very unlikely.
Carter and his son Moscow had discussed the general’s offer and decided to keep the family together in the house, as much to keep down the pilfering by the soldiers as anything, but they also agreed that everybody should pack a small bag of essentials, just in case they had to run. Both men knew that nothing is certain in war. Things could change very quickly.
In spite of General Cox’s assurances, Carter noticed that his men were already working to improve the old earthworks that ran south of his house and stretched around the south edge of the town, anchored on the Harpeth River to the east and west. Even more ominous, there was a Missouri unit digging a fallback line of entrenchments just behind his smokehouse and farm office only twenty yards away, and six artillery pieces were being moved into position in his backyard. Not an encouraging sign. If the mainline gave way, the battle could very quickly be right at his back door.
Oaklawn—Home of Absalom Thompson
Two Miles South of Spring Hill, Tennessee
November 30, 1864
Sunrise
About fourteen miles south of Fountain Branch Carter’s front yard, which was rapidly filling up with Federal troops, another man was facing the new day in a foul mood. Only half Carter’s age, Lieutenant General John Bell Hood commanded the Confederate Army of Tennessee, and seven of its nine infantry divisions were camped nearby along the Columbia Pike, south and east of the town of Spring Hill. Twelve hours earlier, at sundown, Hood believed that his troops were in the process of taking control of the Columbia Pike and trapping most of the Federal troops who had been delaying him for the last week. Upon waking this morning, however, the general found that the road was never actually blocked and that the entire Federal army, except for some burned-out wagons and a few stragglers, had escaped. At this very moment, in fact, they were streaming past Fount Carter’s house and digging entrenchments across his farmland and around his cotton gin. To say that General Hood was unhappy with the turn of events would be an understatement.
Ever since Hood had taken command of the Army of Tennessee four months earlier outside of Atlanta, he had faced criticism and doubters. He had replaced General Joseph E. Johnston, who was loved by the men of the army, and had been promoted to command over other men who the officers of the army would have preferred. Hood didn’t have Johnston’s experience, patience, maturity or endearing personality. What he did have was a reputation for personal bravery, sacrifice (he had been wounded twice leading his men) and aggressiveness, sometimes to the point of rashness. Most importantly, Hood also had the support of powerful men in Richmond, including President Jefferson Davis.
Hood soon had several clashes with some of his senior officers, and after Atlanta’s fall, his most senior and respected corps commander demanded to be reassigned rather than serve under him any longer. His detractors accused Hood of being strategically grandiose, tactically unimaginative, logistically sloppy and physically unfit—he had a paralyzed arm from Gettysburg and a stump of a leg from Chickamauga. Because of these infirmities, he had to be tied on his horse every morning, and he carried a crutch and wooden leg strapped to his saddle. To be fair, however, even though many have charged that his handling of his troops in the defense of Atlanta resulted in unnecessarily high casualty rates—and they may be right—it’s hard to see how he could have prevented the loss of the city.
No one questioned John Bell Hood’s personal bravery or his commitment to “the Cause.” He had already given more than most. What they questioned was whether he was really the best commander for the last Southern army still able to maneuver and mount any sort of offensive action between the Army of Northern Virginia, now besieged by Grant at Richmond, and the Mississippi River. With this new push into Tennessee, he intended to prove them wrong. He had brought his men across the Tennessee River and meant to threaten Nashville and even move as far as the Ohio River, if possible. The first real resistance had come a couple of days ago at Columbia, and in response, he had planned a grand flanking maneuver worthy of his heroes, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. In Hood’s mind, the sun should have risen today on a great victory, but it had all come to nothing. The enemy had escaped.
Hood had been on the field the day before, within easy reach of both his subordinates and the battlefield itself, but when things became confused and began to go wrong, his efforts seemed to only add to the confusion. Maybe his damaged body was exhausted from eight days on the road from dawn to dusk; for whatever reason, as the sun was going down, Hood chose to leave the execution of whatever plan he had at Spring Hill to others, and now he felt they had failed him.
As with most failures, at Spring Hill there was enough blame to go around. A more experienced, more mature, more personally secure commander might have simply accepted the blame as the senior officer on the field, as Lee had done after Pickett’s Charge on the third day at Gettysburg, and gone forward to correct the deficiencies within his command with as little impact on morale as possible. This Hood could not do.
Rippavilla Plantation, home of Major Nathaniel Cheairs and site of General Hood’s breakfast meeting the morning after Spring Hill, November 30, 1864. Author’s photo.
Hood had called for a breakfast meeting of his senior commanders at Rippavilla, the home of Major Nathaniel Cheairs, which still stands today on the Columbia Pike, just south of Spring Hill. As the general and his staff rode across the fields toward the fine plantation house, he was furious.2 In Hood’s mind, he had been the victim of incompetence if not outright disobedience of orders by some of his corps and division commanders, compounded by what he believed to be the general unwillingness of his troops and their officers to attack fortified positions. In some of this, Hood’s feelings were understandable—the performance of some of his subordinates was certainly open to question. Hood’s suggestion that the troops and their line officers were too hesitant to attack fortified positions, however, was unjust and unfounded, as many of them would shortly prove with their blood. It was also profoundly insulting to proud officers like Patrick Cleburne and others.
The breakfast meeting that morning was private, which was just as well. Given General Hood’s mood, the language would certainly not have been fit for women or children. As far as Hood was concerned, he and his plan had fallen victim to the mistakes of others. What he would later call “the best move in my career as a soldier”3 had been wasted, and by God, he would know the reason why.
This then was the way Wednesday, November 30, 1864, began for two men. One of these men was a simple farmer and businessman—a father and grandfather responsible for a few of his children, workers and neighbors and caught between two great armies. Other than to try and protect his little group of family and friends, he was powerless to do anything but watch events unfold.
The other man led a great army and controlled the destinies of thousands of men. In a few hours, this man would make decisions that would send Fountain Branch Carter and his little group into his cellar, hiding in fear, and plunge almost forty thousand men into a firestorm that would, for those who survived, be the raw material of nightmares for the rest of their lives. One Union soldier would later write these words in a letter home:
Franklin Tennessee: These are words that will haunt me the rest of my life.4
In this, he would not be alone.