Original subtitles

If Richmond was the heart of the Confederacy, then Atlanta was its soul.

One of the youngest major cities in the South, Atlanta had grown from a

collection of log cabins to a thriving economic center of 20,000 people in only

30 years.

Through the Civil War, it had served as a major source of supplies for the

Confederate armies, and no other southern city, save Richmond, provided

as much support to the war effort as Atlanta.

Grant recognized this and hoped that Sherman's three armies in Tennessee

would be able to capture Atlanta during the course of the 1864 campaign.

While all the other elements of Grant's grand strategy came apart, thanks to the

ineptitude of Banks, Butler, and Siegel, Sherman once again demonstrated his

strategic genius and rescued the northern cause with a brilliant

campaign.

Based outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Sherman began his campaign with 100,000

men divided into three armies.

The largest of the three was the Army of the Cumberland with 60,000 men under the

command of George H. Thomas, the hero at Chickamauga.

General James B. McPherson had 30,000 men in his Army of the Tennessee, while

General John M. Schofield commanded a smaller force of 14,000 in the Army of

the Ohio.

Sherman planned to maneuver all three forces simultaneously to outflank the

rebel army defending northern Georgia and eventually destroy it.

Unlike Grant in northern Virginia, whose movements were often hampered by the

terrain, Sherman had plenty of room to spread out and get around the

Confederate defenders.

He would use that space to his advantage with telling effect throughout the rest

of 1864.

General Joseph E. Johnston, recently appointed to command the Army of

Tennessee and its 50,000 men, realized that he could not hope to destroy

Sherman's three armies no matter how brilliant of an offensive he conceived.

Instead, he settled on a strategy of delay and limited counterattack in an

effort to conserve his precious army and its irreplaceable men and material.

Johnston realized that he really had no hope of destroying Sherman's armies.

They were just too powerful.

So he settled on a campaign of delay with a political dimension.

He realized that if Sherman took Atlanta, the Lincoln administration's

future would be secured.

So if he could deny Sherman Atlanta, he may just give the Democrats the strength

they needed to win in the November 1864 elections.

And the Democratic platform had already stated they wanted to negotiate a peace

with the South. So that was the South's best hope for victory or at least a

settled peace in 1864.

The problem was Johnston's campaign of delay and retreat and trading space for

time did not sit well with the Southern temperament of the time.

The Confederates near Dalton, deployed on a series of hills known as Rocky Face

Ridge, protected the approaches to the city.

As he waited for Sherman's opening move, Johnston appealed to Jefferson Davis for

reinforcements. Eventually, Davis sent him General Leonidas Polk's army of

Mississippi, a force of between 10 and 16,000 men.

Polk's men, however, did not arrive in time to play a role in the first battle

of this new campaign.

Sherman studied Johnston's defenses along Rocky Face Ridge and concluded

that they could not be breached without massive casualties.

Instead of a frontal assault, he ordered McPherson's army to swing around

Johnston's left flank and cross the hills at the undefended Snake Creek Gap.

If McPherson's 30,000 men could push through the gap and reach the rail town

of Resaca in Johnston's rear, Sherman would catch the Confederate army in an

inescapable trap.

Sherman's plan was a brilliant maneuver.

If McPherson had been able to capture Resaca, he would have cut Johnston's

supply line and pinned him between his forces in the south and those of Sherman

to the north.

Sherman unleashed his new offensive on May 9th. McPherson quickly swung around

the Confederate left as Thomas and Schofield's armies made demonstration

attacks against Johnston's men on Rocky Face Ridge.

At first, the plan worked to perfection.

The attacks on the Rebel line completely fooled Johnston and distracted him from

McPherson's flank march.

Unopposed and undetected, his men poured through Snake Creek Gap and bored

straight in for Rusaka.

After learning of McPherson's triumph, Sherman pounded his fist and declared,

I've got Joe Johnston dead.

But McPherson failed in the next phase of his assignment.

Getting through Snake Creek Gap was a major achievement, but for the plan to

work, he had to take Resaca.

He didn't. As his men approached the town, he found entrenched infantry

waiting for him.

Expecting only cavalry, McPherson presumed something had gone wrong with

the plan and retreated to Snake Creek Gap to await further developments.

It was a costly mistake.

The Confederate garrison at Resaca numbered only 4,000 men, and McPherson

had outnumbered it by almost 8 to 1.

Sherman was surprised by the news, and when he saw McPherson a few days later,

he remarked, Well, Mac, you missed the opportunity of your life.

Unfazed by the setback, Sherman quickly altered his plans.

He had both Thomas and Schofield disengage at Rocky Face Ridge, then move

south to rejoin McPherson.

Alerted to the Union move, Johnston began abandoning Rocky Face Ridge on May

12th, marching south to defensive positions around Resaca.

After a day of skirmishing, the northerners launched a full-scale

assault on the rebel works on May 14th, but the well-entrenched rebels cut them

down.

The following day, Sherman ordered Hooker's 20th Corps to hit the rebel

right flank.

As Hooker's men marched forward, they collided with Hood's Confederates, who

had moved into the open to launch a counterattack of their own.

As this battle unfolds around Rusaka, Sherman sends once again his maneuver

arm, McPherson, across the Ustanala River in a wide sweeping flank move

against Johnston, and McPherson tries to drive into Johnston's rear.

This time, Johnston caught wind of McPherson's movements and reacted

quickly. Putting his entire army on the road, he retired across the Ustanala and

fell back to Cassville.

The news of General Johnston's retreat from Rusaka was received throughout the

South with a mixture of worry and anger.

The citizens of Atlanta howled with protest over what they perceived as

Johnston's lack of tenacity, and Jefferson Davis grew increasingly

disillusioned with his general. If Johnston were to salvage his career and

his campaign, he would need to strike a telling blow against Sherman's armies.

Johnston saw the withdrawal to Cassville as an opportunity to draw Sherman's

armies into a trap.

As he pulled back, he divided his army so that it appeared the main force had

moved to Kingston, when in reality the bulk of his men marched on to Cassville.

Johnston hoped to lure a portion of the Union army to Cassville, while the rest

of Sherman's force moved on Kingston.

To spring his trap, Johnston selected Hood's corps to deliver the hammer blow

against the Union troops coming down the Adairsville Road.

And this really was to Johnston's credit, because Hood had been a constant

critic of Johnston's policies, and yet Johnston gave him basically the position

of honor for this particular trap.

And he did so because he recognized that Hood's temperament and his

aggressiveness and his instincts were really all the... probably best suited

more than any of the other corps commanders to deliver this blow against

the Union.

Sherman did not oblige Johnston.

Relying on his strategic mobility, he sent his three armies around Johnston's

left and right and straight down the center as well.

McPherson's army moved towards Kingston, while the remaining two armies marched

on Cassville, with Thomas heading straight down the Adairsville Road, and

Schofield moving east, then south, to hit the rebel right flank.

With Hooker's 30th Corps in the van, the Army of the Cumberland nearly walked

into Hood's trap.

But just before the Confederates planned to launch their assault on Hooker, a

Union force materialized behind Hood's Corps.

Hood was totally surprised by this threat to his unanchored right flank and

his rear.

Instead of launching his surprise attack, he pulled back, tied in with

Polk, and bent his line around the northeast part of Cassville.

Johnston's best opportunity to deal a telling blow to Sherman had been lost.

When Johnston's trap doesn't work and the federal armies are continuing to

advance unhindered, he elects to pull back to some high ground beyond

Cassville. But his corps commanders object that the area isn't defensible,

so he elects to move back even farther south and takes up positions around

Altoona. Sherman concluded that the Confederate position at Altoona was too

strong to attack directly.

Again, relying on his strategic mobility, Sherman's armies cut loose

from their railway supply line and marched south in an attempt to turn the

Confederate left flank.

Johnston reacted quickly to the threat. Putting his army on the road, he swung

southwest out of Allatoona and tried to punch into Sherman's unprotected rear.

It didn't work.

Instead, the two sides met at New Hope Church on May 25, 1864.

Hooker deployed his men in a narrow, deep formation that had been successful

at Spotsylvania. But in the thick woods surrounding New Hope Church, the choice

was a poor one.

The Union assault was cut to ribbons.

Stymied by the Confederate defenders at New Hope Church, Sherman ordered General

Oliver Howard to swing to the left and attack the far right Confederate flank.

Stumbling through the dense woods, Howard's men soon became disoriented.

On May 27th, Howard sent a message to Sherman that read, I have found the

enemy flank, I think.

Without a clear picture of the tactical situation, General Howard ordered an

attack in the late afternoon of May 27th.

that became known as the Battle of Pickett's Mill.

The assault regiments quickly got mixed up and lost in the dense forest.

Some never entered the fight. Others drifted away from their objectives.

At about 6 o'clock, the Union attack develops, and the men go in in

uncoordinated waves.

Part of the attack wave goes right into an open ravine and gets caught out in

the open and is just butchered by Confederate fire.

A subsequent attack at 7 o'clock accomplished nothing either, and that

forced ultimately the Union troops to pull back their lines.

Howard's Corps lost about 2,400 men in a fruitless assault.

Johnston, encouraged by the situation, decided on a counterattack at Dallas

against the Union far right wing, hoping to exploit any weakness or possible

withdrawal.

On May 28th, Southerners under the command of Lieutenant General William

Hardy probed the Union defensive line held by Major General John Logan's men

from the Army of the Tennessee.

The rebel assault enjoyed some initial success and briefly drove the Federals

from their line of breastworks.

General Logan soon rallied his troops, however, and they swept forward,

retaking their line and inflicting severe losses on the rebels.

Nearly 1,000 Confederates fell in just a few hours.

On June 1st, Sherman's cavalry occupied Allatoona Pass, a vital link on the rail

line that connected Sherman's base at Chattanooga with points farther south.

Painfully aware that his advance on Atlanta was absolutely dependent on his

ever-lengthening supply line, Sherman abandoned his position at Dallas on June

5th and began moving toward the railhead at Allatoona Pass.

Sherman is a logistician, first and last.

he will not move south unless he has a hundred locomotives and a thousand

freight cars he makes that very clear this is going to be a world logistics

this is for sherman a modern war it's a war of numbers

sherman

had marched to within 30 miles of atlanta in only a month of campaigning

He had done it not by blunt force, but by maneuver, using the vast southern

countryside to his advantage as he swung his armies around Johnston's every time

the Confederates dug in.

But in June, Sherman's best asset, his mobility, would be eliminated thanks to

the weather and a cunning Confederate deployment.

Following the Battle of Dallas, both sides paused to reassess their strategic

situation.

On the Union side, Sherman's armies had suffered over 9,000 casualties since the

start of the campaign.

His men had become so wary of earthworks and trenches that Sherman began to grow

frustrated.

Fresh furrow in a plowed field will stop the whole column and all begin to

entrench. We are on the offensive and must assail and not defend.

The federal troops had been on the march for the better part of a month, and as

they traveled ever deeper into Georgia, the combination of heat, dust, and

insects made their lives miserable.

One private from Indiana wrote, The men's bodies are alive with creeping

things of every description.

Chiggers are big and red as blood.

They will crawl through any cloth and bite worse than fleas and poison the

flesh very badly.

Every man from Colonel Down is broken out horribly.

and cannot get a moment's rest for the intolerable itching.

Tortured by George's plentiful insect population and harassed by Confederate

skirmishers, Sherman's men trudged steadily south.

Sherman, too, was suffering.

Just after the Battle of New Hope Church, he learned that his newborn son,

Charles, wasn't expected to live.

Having already lost his eldest son, Willie, Sherman needed every ounce of

resolve to stay focused on the campaign ahead.

Though he'd suffered about 8,500 casualties in his army, Johnston had

accomplished his objectives to this point in the campaign.

He had prevented Sherman from scoring a decisive victory. He had prevented

Sherman from achieving a breakthrough that led to the capture of Atlanta.

And his force was largely intact.

Yet his own subordinates were highly critical behind his back of his

policies, especially John Bell Hood, who actually began a whisper campaign

against him in Richmond. And this fact, plus the fact that the newspapers in the

South became... highly critical of him as well ultimately led to johnston's

undoing in spite of mounting criticism johnston decided to remain on the

defensive and wait for sherman to come to him but the wiley federal commander

refused to cooperate preferring instead to continue his flanking strategy wrote

johnston to his wife sherman is so cautious that i can find no opportunity

to attack him The frustration expressed by Johnston knew no rank.

A surrendering private told his captors, Sherman will never go to hell.

He will flank the devil and make heaven in spite of the guards.

But by mid-June, Sherman was ready to change his tactics.

With the roads turned to mud thanks to nearly continual rain, Sherman realized

he could not maneuver around Johnston, who had deployed his men across the face

of Kennesaw Mountain just 20 miles from Atlanta.

Reasoning that Johnston expected another turning movement, Sherman decided to

attack. Johnston had consolidated his army on the line at the Kennesaw

Mountain position.

And this was a pretty formidable piece of terrain, and he used the time

effectively as Sherman's army closed in to fortify it even further.

And it was such a strong position that the veteran federal soldiers were...

were dismayed by it. They were, in fact, even taking bets about whether or not

they'd be successful in the assault.

On June 27, 13,000 Union troops stormed the Confederates on Kennesaw Mountain.

Federal attackers overran the first rifle pits but were slowed by the rough

terrain, then stopped by savage fire from the dug-in Confederates.

Intense rifle and artillery fire cut the front ranks to pieces and the rear

regiments had difficulty getting into the fight.

As the temperature soared to nearly 100 degrees in the shade, the Yankees

continued to throw themselves against Confederate breastworks that rivaled

those at Petersburg.

One Southerner recalled, The Federals seem to walk up and take death as

coolly as if they were wooden men.

Sam Watkins, a Southern private who had received his baptism of fire long before

at Shiloh, Recall the slaughter that took place near a salient later known as

the Dead Angle. I've heard men say that if they ever killed a Yankee during the

war, they were not aware of it.

On this memorable day, all that was necessary was to load and shoot.

As the battle along Kennesaw Mountain unfolded, the gunfire actually sparked a

number of forest fires. And caught in these fires, as had happened at the

wilderness and at other battles, were wounded men.

And these men literally were burning alive, and their screams for help echoed

through the memories of the veterans of this battle for the rest of their lives.

And in fact, in one portion of the line, a truce was called so that both sides

could go and save these guys from these flames.

After the brief armistice, hostilities soon recommenced, but nowhere could the

Federals crack the Confederate line.

In three major assaults into a hail of shot and shell, not one breastwork fell.

As the battle raged, one Confederate described the scene within the trenches.

I never saw so many broken down and exhausted men in my life.

Wet with blood and sweat.

Our tongues were cracked and parched for water, and our faces blackened with

powder and smoke.

Our dead and wounded were piled indiscriminately amongst us.

By early afternoon, Sherman recognized the futility of further attacks and

canceled the operation.

The Federals had lost 3,000 killed and wounded and had no gains to show for

them. Though Sherman never admitted that the assault on Kennesaw had been a

mistake, he would never again order an attack on a fortified and strongly held

enemy position.

After the repulse at Kennesaw Mountain, Sherman returned to a war of maneuver,

and once again, the Federals slipped around Johnston and made for the

Confederate rear.

On July 2nd, the Yankees disengaged at Kennesaw and resumed their relentless

march on Atlanta.

As Sherman's army streamed toward the city, Jefferson Davis suddenly removed

Joe Johnston from command.

Johnston had been very good for the Army of Tennessee.

When he had taken it over from Braxton Bragg, it had been a dispirited mess,

and he had rebuilt it into a fighting force with very high morale.

Now the Army went... to John Bell Hood, and Hood's promotion actually generated

some protests from Robert E. Lee, who thought that Hood was too reckless for

the job.

In fact, he wrote home to Richmond and said that Hood was all lion and no fox,

and subsequent events really bore out this assessment of Hood. For his part,

Sherman was pleased with the Confederate change of command, seeing in Hood a bold

fighter more likely to put himself out on a limb, which the federal commander

had every intention of cutting off.

He didn't have long to wait.

On July 20th, just two days after taking command, Hood sent his army against the

Union forces of George Thomas, hoping to catch the Yankees as they crossed

Peachtree Creek.

The attack was late, however, and by the time the Southerners reached position,

the Federals were across the creek and well deployed.

Five Union divisions drove an equal number of rebels back with heavy losses.

Hood sacrificed 3,000 of his men for no gain.

And as the Confederates withdrew, word came that McPherson was marching on

Atlanta from the east.

Determined to remain on the offensive, Hood sent Hardy's Corps on a wide march

designed to get his men behind the Union left flank.

Hardy was supposed to drive into the Union lines just as another Confederate

corps struck McPherson's main line astride Bald Hill.

Hardy breaks contact with the Union forces to his front, withdraws his

corps, and they begin an all-night march to attack McPherson. But they're moving

at night through unfamiliar terrain, and they're slowed down by a variety of

obstacles, so it isn't until noon or thereabouts when they're finally ready

to attack.

The Confederates advanced, expecting to find the open rear of McPherson's corps.

Instead, they encountered Union troops under the command of General Thomas

Sweeney, well-positioned to delay their attack.

The Federals quickly deployed into skirmish lines, and firing broke out as

the men of Bates' and Walker's divisions advanced.

Instead of achieving surprise, the Confederates had a real fight on their

hands. The Battle of Atlanta had begun.

Confederates, exhausted by their all-night march, failed to make any

headway against the resolute defense of Sweeney's Bluecoats, and eventually the

rebel divisions pulled back into the woods.

To Walker's left, Cleburne's division of crack troops found a gap in the Union

lines and poured through it, nearly reaching the base of Bald Hill in the

Federal rear.

By early afternoon, McPherson was fully aware of the danger to his command.

He summoned General Logan's men from the Federal White, then went forward to

inspect the imperiled Union position.

During this action, McPherson went forward and ran into a rebel skirmish

line. And while he was trying to get away, the skirmisher shot him in the

back and he subsequently died.

Well, General Logan at that point assumed command of the Army.

In a superb display of personal leadership, Logan rallied the Union

troops and held Hardy's men at bay.

As the Confederate assault wave was stopped, then finally repulsed, Hood

ordered Benjamin Cheatham's Corps to attack the western approaches to Bald

Hill.

Falling upon a thinly held section of the line, the Confederates quickly drove

the defenders back.

Logan shifted his men to meet the rebel assault, and the Union reinforcements

swiftly reestablished control of the situation.

The Confederates gradually fell back in the face of the Union counterattack.

The fighting continued late into the afternoon, but the Confederates

succeeded only in adding to the growing list of casualties.

In two battles, Hood's attacks cost the southern cause about 8,000 men.

As night fell, the exhausted rebels filed back into Atlanta.

With Hood's Confederates behind the defenses of Atlanta and a frontal

assault out of the question, Sherman began searching for a way to force them

out. Lacking sufficient manpower to stage an effective siege, Sherman turned

his attention to the one rail line to the city that remained in southern

hands. Sherman sent two detachments of cavalry under General McCook and General

Stoneman down to tear up the rail line, but they were intercepted by a very

strong Confederate force and defeated.

In the process, about 700 Union troops, cavalry troopers, fell into Confederate

hands and were taken to Andersonville.

Ironically, Andersonville prison had been one of Stoneman's secondary

objectives.

With the failure of the Union cavalry, the job of cutting the Confederate

supply line fell to the infantry.

Hood attempted to block the Union move, and on July 28th, the two forces met at

Ezra Church.

Though they succeeded in preserving the rail line, in

less than a month, Hood had lost nearly 20,000 men.

and his army was rapidly losing its offensive capacity.

While the combatants glared at each other from behind their line of trenches

around Atlanta, Admiral David Farragut laid his sights on Mobile Bay, the last

port on the Gulf of Mexico open to the Confederacy.

Farragut, who had been so successful at New Orleans, now decides to literally

sail past the guarding forts of the bay, into the bay, confront the ironclad and

other vessels in the bay, and capture it as a naval operation.

And he succeeds in doing so along with the famous quote,

dammed the torpedoes full speed ahead, referring to what were called torpedoes

then, which were actually mines in the water, that sank the very first ironclad

that tried to enter the bay.

And Farragut, taking a look at this, said, keep sailing forward, we're not

stopping. And the line of battle did, in fact, penetrate into the harbor and

batter the ironclad into submission, and they captured Mobile Bay. And finally,

the last port on the Gulf of Mexico open to the Confederates was closed.

Though it was months before Mobile itself fell to the Union, the naval

engagement at Mobile Bay signaled the end of an era.

Never again in this or any other war would ironclad and wooden ships battle

for supremacy on the sea.

Indeed the American Civil War was one of the last major conflicts in which fights

between opposing fleets were conducted primarily by wooden vessels.

More than just the end of an important source of supply Mobile Bay brought down

the curtain on the age of wood and sail.

After a strategic pause to gather his forces for a final push to capture

Atlanta, Sherman set his army in motion in late August, wheeling toward

Jonesboro and the vital rail line south of the city.

Hood responded to the threat with predictable zeal.

On August 30th, he sent Hardy's Corps down to block the federal move.

But when the leading Confederate divisions reached Jonesboro, they found

a strong Union force already entrenched.

The next day, Sherman's forces launched an attack of their own. At a bend in the

rebel position, two Union regiments broke into the Confederate lines.

The Union attack wiped out the entire color guard of the 6th Kentucky

Infantry. And as the Southerners reeled back, the attackers captured the

regimental flag and waved it over their heads to taunt the dispirited,

retreating rebels.

The defeated Jonesboro gave Sherman control of the lines of communications

into Atlanta, which presented Hood with little choice.

After blowing up his military stores, his army withdrew.

On September 2nd, 1864, Atlanta surrendered.

Sherman gleefully telegraphed Washington the news.

Atlanta is ours and fairly won.

The twin victories at Atlanta and Mobile Bay really doomed the Confederacy

because they ensured Lincoln's re-election chances for November of

1864. And with Lincoln in the White House and the Republicans controlling

Congress, there would be no negotiated peace that assured the Confederacy's

independence. From this point on, they were fighting a lost cause.

An air of gloom descended over much of the Confederacy after the fall of

Atlanta. Mary Boykin Chestnut, a South Carolina diarist, saw doom approaching.

Since Atlanta, I felt as if all were dead within me. There is no hope.

We're going to be wiped off the earth.

Toward that end, General Sherman would soon begin a campaign into the very

heart of the Confederacy.

After the capture of Atlanta, Sherman struggled to protect his extended

communication lines that stretched all the way to Nashville.

Confederate cavalry constantly raided his line of supply, and Hood had moved

his depleted army north of Atlanta to further threaten Sherman's rear.

Sherman soon became exasperated with the Southern strategy.

To General Grant, he made a bold proposal.

He wanted to ignore Hood and embark on a march to the Georgia coast.

I could cut a swath through to the sea and divide the Confederacy in two. It

would demonstrate to the world that we have a power which Jefferson Davis

cannot resist.

I can make the march and make Georgia howl.

President Lincoln, who, like Sherman, subscribed to the concept of total war,

resisted the idea at first, but in the end, he approved Sherman's plan.

Leaving General George Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland behind to defend

Tennessee, Sherman cut loose from his supply lines and disappeared into the

southern countryside in mid-November, embarking upon one of the most famous

military operations in American history, the March to the Sea.

The military art is a logistic art, is the art of moving armies to a

concentrated goal.

The part of Georgia he's going through is one of the richest parts of the

South. He's not moving away from his supplies, he's moving through them.

With the exception of scattered militia units and a small force of southern

cavalry, nothing stood between Sherman's army and Savannah.

There was no stopping the Bluecoats in their relentless drive across Georgia.

Sherman's march to the sea not only

damaged everything that it came across in terms of factories, homes, and

foodstuffs that will not go now to feed the Southern armies, obviously. But

psychologically, it was a huge blow to the South, because here's a Union army

able to do whatever it damn well pleases.

ripping through the heart of the South and basically saying, we're going to go

through every inch of the South. We're going to come through the Carolinas.

Anywhere we want to go, we can go.

Anything we want to burn, we can burn. Anything we want to take, we can take.

And this psychologically really did a lot to destroy whatever morale was left

among a lot of Confederates.

By December 11, Sherman was within four miles of Savannah.

Unwilling to risk a frontal assault against the city's defenses, the Union

commander ordered an assault on Fort McAllister, several miles south of

Savannah, to secure a line of communications.

After a fight that lasted less than an hour, the southern fortress surrendered.

Fearing a similar fate, the defenders of Savannah abandoned their fortifications

on the night of December 20th. The next day, Lincoln received a jocular telegram

from Sherman.

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with 150 heavy guns

and about 25,000 bales of cotton.

The swath of destruction that lay in Sherman's wake bore testament to the

devastation wrought by his men.

Mary Chestnut wrote, They say no living thing is found in Sherman's track, only

chimneys like telegraph poles to carry out the news of his attack backwards.

While Sherman burned his way through Georgia, General Hood struggled to

defend the heart of Dixie.

Knowing his 35,000 men could not hold off Sherman directly, Hood decided to

launch a counteroffensive into Tennessee with the idea of cutting Sherman off

permanently from his supply lines.

If successful, Hood's strategy would force Sherman to turn back and fight for

Nashville. Sherman was bewildered and delighted by the move.

If he will go to the Ohio River, I'll give him rations.

My business is down south.

When Sherman decided to march to the sea, he couldn't take everybody with

him, and he also had to contend with the Confederate Army that was still in

Georgia under John Bell Hood. So he put the defensive forces in Tennessee under

Thomas, and John Bell Hood obliged by moving north instead of chasing Sherman.

went north with the purpose of trying to recapture Nashville and reverse the

situation of the loss of Atlanta.

In one of the Civil War's most bizarre scenarios, the Confederate and Union

armies turned their backs to one another and marched in opposite directions.

Both would leave their own unique legacy of destruction.

As Hood's army of some 39,000 veterans crossed the Tennessee River and moved

north, General Thomas was engaged in assembling and training a force at

Nashville. The Confederate move prompted the Union commander to send John

Schofield with some 34,000 men south to Pulaski to delay Hood.

The stage was set for an epic struggle by veteran troops on both sides.

Hood moved rapidly north in an effort to swing behind Schofield and seize the

crossings over the Duck River at Columbia.

A cavalry engagement alerted Schofield to Hood's intentions and he quickly

pulled his men out of Pulaski and beat a hot path back to Columbia, arriving

there just ahead of the rebel troopers.

Hood's infantry was slow in coming up and it wasn't until the 27th of November

that the majority of his units arrived.

That same night, Schofield moved his men to positions north of the Duck River,

burning the bridges behind him as he withdrew.

Deciding against a frontal assault, Hood left two divisions at Columbia to harass

the Federals on the opposite bank and took the bulk of his army east in search

of a river ford. With General Nathan Bedford Forrest's troopers again in the

lead, the Confederates began crossing on the 29th and headed for Spring Hill,

hoping to cut off the Union forces and crush them.

However, a Union force under David Stanley was underway north with Wagner's

division and most of the Army's wagons and artillery.

As the leading Confederates closed on the town, Forrest's troopers dismounted

and moved forward in a skirmish line, expecting to brush aside the small

Federal force stationed there.

Stanley, however, had other plans.

arriving at spring hill just ahead of the rebel troopers he calmly deployed

his units and threw the surprised gray cavalry back in disarray before forrest

could regroup union reinforcements were brought up and they deployed just in

time to meet a second confederate attack though the federal spoiled

hood's initial bid to seize spring hill He could still carry the day, for at

that very moment, the division of Patrick Cleburne was approaching the

town from the south.

Withering fire from the Yankees devastated Cleburne's flank, and he

pulled his division back to reform.

As both sides maneuvered reinforcements into position, the ever-lengthening

shadows paralleled the odds of a Confederate success on this day.

Night had fallen by the time the rebels were finally in position to attack.

Schofield was well aware of the situation at Spring Hill and moved

rapidly to get out of the trap Hood had set.

On the night of November 29th, he marched his army north towards Spring

Hill.

Inexplicably, Hood had failed to block the road leading into the town, and the

long Union columns were able to bypass the encamped Confederates throughout the

night. By daybreak, Schofield and his army were digging in near Franklin, just

15 miles south of Thomas at Nashville.

Hood was incensed when he discovered that the Federals had escaped once

again. He immediately set his army off in pursuit, and so it was that late on

the afternoon of November 30th, Hood's forces hove into view before the hastily

prepared Union line.

The Confederate veterans studied the Yankee entrenchments with a practiced

eye, yet did not quail before them.

Sam Watkins was there.

We were willing to go anywhere.

or to follow anyone who would lead us. We were anxious to fight.

For their part, the Federals believed that the Confederates would not attack

and expected to pull out and march to Nashville.

Schofield had deployed his forces just south of Franklin with his line anchored

on the left and right by the Harpeth River.

It was a strong position, but due to a misunderstanding of orders, two brigades

from Wagner's division were deployed forward of the main line.

Their presence in the middle of the field would soon be a factor in the

sequence of events that followed.

At a council of war with his generals, Hood rejected the urging of Forrest for

a flanking maneuver and launched into a tirade, berating his commanders and

questioning the will of their men.

As the meeting broke up, the outspoken Forrest vented his frustration.

Let me tell you something, General Hood.

If you were a whole man, I'd whip you within an inch of your life.

damn it orderly at about 4 p.m the gray columns moved forward to

mount a frontal assault that would leave an unequaled legacy of bravery and

hopelessness

The Yankees stood in disbelief as a seemingly endless line of Confederates

marched steadily forward, shocked that the rebels would assault on such a

heavily defended position.

One federal soldier wrote that it seemed as if the whole South had come.

In front of the main line, Wagner's men realized that their position would be

quickly overcome.

After firing a few volleys, they broke and ran.

Seeing Wagner's brigades in flight, the Rebel line surged forward with a yell,

following the Yankees and using them to shield their advance.

The Confederate assault fell on the weakest section of the Federal line, the

point at which the road to Franklin intersected the Union fortifications.

Cleburne's division surged through the gap and it looked for a moment as if the

whole position would be carried.

But the Federals rallied almost immediately.

Emerson Opdyke's brigade had been placed in reserve for just such an event.

He led his men forward in a counterattack that struck the rebels

with full fury.

Exhausted by their charge through the Federal line and the intensity of the

fighting, the Southerners were driven back by the determined Federals.

Opdyke's men poured fire on the retreating Confederates and General

Cleburne was killed, along with scores of his men.

Private Sam Watkins recalled the scene.

I have never seen an army so confused and demoralized.

We were anxious to flee, and the whole thing seemed to be tottering and

trembling.

Schofield's veterans had succeeded in meeting this first attack, but the fight

was far from over.

To Cleburne's right, Stuart was compressed by the river as it advanced.

Hit on the flank by Federal artillery from north of the river, the attack was

further broken up when it encountered Osage Orange hedges.

To make matters worse, Stuart's men encountered federal troops armed with

repeating rifles.

The inability to advance cohesively in conjunction with the intense rifle and

artillery fire doomed the Confederate assault.

In spite of suffering appalling losses, the rebels continued to throw themselves

against the federal line.

The 1st Missouri Brigade lost more than 60% of its men in a matter of minutes.

In other units, the story was much the same.

Elsewhere on the line, John Brown's division forced its way through the

Union lines just west of the Columbia Plank.

Once again, the veteran Yankees stood their ground and forced the rebels back

over the barricade.

Further to the left, the men of Bates' division could make no headway against

the stubborn and well-positioned Federals.

As the sun began to slip toward the horizon, Hood sent wave after wave

forward, only to have them cut down by vicious fire from Schofield's troops.

Rebel officers fell at an unprecedented rate.

A dozen Confederate generals and more than 50 regimental commanders were

either wounded or killed.

Many units lost virtually all their ranking officers until captains led

brigades and sergeants led regiments.

Eventually, darkness, exhaustion, and despair halted the Confederate attacks.

Late that night, the Federals quietly abandoned their works, leaving in their

wake the shattered dreams of one Confederate general and the decimated

remains of a once proud army.

As Hood fought his way to Nashville, General George Thomas' army of some 80

,000 Union troops had plenty of time to dig in and clear fields of fire.

Methodically preparing for Hood's arrival, Thomas' men ensured that when

the Confederates arrived, their attacking brigades would be trapped in

one of the worst killing fields in American history.

Pausing only briefly to bury his dead, hood set out in pursuit of schofield on

december 1st terribly depleted and poorly supplied the confederate army of

tennessee that marched on nashville was a shadow of its former self hood's

forces settled into positions near the city on december 2nd while thomas's warm

and well-fed yankees continued to train and prepare the union general was in no

hurry to fight believing that when the battle was joined he would rout the

southern army lincoln however grew impatient with thomas and threatened to

replace him unless immediate action were taken against hood on december fifteenth

eighteen sixty four thomas struck and in a series of battles lasting two days the

federals completely destroyed the last remnants of hood's army John Bell Hood's

smaller army was thoroughly crushed by a very well-deployed and well-led army

under Thomas.

And unfortunately for Thomas, instead of getting credit for this, all that Grant

remembered was he kept ordering Thomas to attack.

The weather was terrible and it had to be delayed.

And Grant only remembered that Thomas seemed to take his own sweet time to do

this and not that he had inflicted a major defeat on the Confederates, which

was really unfortunate because Thomas deserves more credit. credit than that.

He was a good general and he won an important battle for the North.

It was over in Tennessee.

It had ended at Nashville, but in reality the die was cast at Franklin.

The Western Confederacy died with the Army of Tennessee, but in the East there

remained the Army of Northern Virginia and Robert E. Lee.

It would be in the East, in Virginia and the Carolinas, that the final chapters

of this long and deadly Civil War would be written.