Confederate general John Bell Hood’s Tennessee campaign of 1864 is one of the most controversial of the Civil War. In particular, Hood’s frontal assault on an entrenched army led by John Schofield at Franklin, about twenty miles south of Nashville, on 30 November 1864, was an attack larger, bloodier, and more futile than Pickett’s charge, resulting in nearly 2000 Confederate dead. Yet the day before Hood had let Schofield’s army slip through his fingers at the Battle of Spring Hill. Following several piecemeal Confederate attacks, Schofield’s command escaped to Franklin -- within a few hundred yards of Hood's men in their camps for the night. Hood had lost perhaps his best chance to isolate and defeat the Union army, and his anger at Schofield’s escape may have contributed to the tragedy the next day at Franklin. How was it that Hood and his army let Schofield escape their clutches?

Eric A Jacobson is the Chief Executive Officer of The Battle of Franklin Trust, and the author of For Cause & For Country: A Study of the Affair at Spring Hill and the Battle of Franklin (2006)

Battle of Franklin Trust - https://boft.org/