Civil War Battles & Skirmishes in Tennessee

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Civil war battles and skirmishes fought in Tennessee

Bean's Station - December 14, 1863 - Grainger County

The Battle of Bean's Station was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on December 14, 1863 in Grainger County, Tennessee.

Lt. Gen. James Longstreet abandoned the Siege of Knoxville, on December 4, 1863, and retreated northeast towards Rogersville, Tennessee. Union Maj. Gen. John G. Parke pursued the Confederates but not too closely. Longstreet continued to Rutledge on December 6 and Rogersville on the 9th. Parke sent Brig. Gen. J.M Shackelford on with about 4,000 cavalry and infantry to search for Longstreet. On the 13th, Shackelford was near Bean’s Station on the Holston River. Longstreet decided to go back and capture Bean’s Station. Three Confederate columns and artillery approached Bean’s Station to catch the federals in a vice. By 2:00 am on the 14th, one column was skirmishing with Union pickets. The pickets held out as best they could and warned Shackelford of the Confederate presence. He deployed his force for an assault. Soon, the battle started and continued throughout most of the day. Confederate flanking attacks and other assaults occurred at various times and locations, but the Federals held until southern reinforcements tipped the scales. By nightfall, the Federals were retiring from Bean’s Station through Bean’s Gap and on to Blain’s Cross Roads. Longstreet set out to attack the Union forces again the next morning, but as he approached them at Blain’s Cross Roads, he found them well-entrenched. Longstreet withdrew and the Federals soon left the area. The Knoxville Campaign ended following the battle of Bean’s Station. Longstreet soon went into winter quarters at Russellville. Their success meant little to Confederate efforts except to prevent disaster
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Blountsville - September 22, 1863 - Sullivan County

The Battle of Blountsville was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on September 22, 1863 in Sullivan County, Tennessee.

Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, commander of the Department of the Ohio, undertook an expedition into East Tennessee to clear the roads and gaps to Virginia, and, if possible, secure the saltworks beyond Abingdon. On September 22, Union Col. John W. Foster with his cavalry and artillery engaged Col. James E. Carter and his troops at Blountsville. Foster attacked at noon and in the four-hour battle, shelled the town and initiated a flanking movement, compelling the Confederates to withdraw. Blountsville was the initial step in the Union’s attempt to force Confederate Maj. Gen. Sam Jones and his command to retire from East Tennessee
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Blue Springs - October 10, 1863 - Greene County

The Battle of Blue Springs was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on October 10, 1863 in Greene County, Tennessee.

Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, commander of the Department of the Ohio, undertook an expedition into East Tennessee to clear the roads and passes to Virginia, and, if possible, secure the saltworks beyond Abingdon. In October, Confederate Brig. Gen. John S. Williams, with his cavalry force, set out to disrupt Union communications and logistics. He wished to take Bull’s Gap on the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad. On October 3, while advancing on Bull’s Gap, he fought with Brig. Gen. Samuel P. Carter’s Union Cavalry Division, XXIII Army Corps, at Blue Springs, about nine miles from Bull’s Gap, on the railroad. Carter, not knowing how many of the enemy he faced, withdrew. Carter and Williams skirmished for the next few days. On October 10, Carter approached Blue Springs in force. Williams had received some reinforcements. The battle began about 10:00 am with Union cavalry engaging the Confederates until afternoon while another mounted force attempted to place itself in a position to cut off a Rebel retreat. Captain Orlando M. Poe, the Chief Engineer, performed a reconnaissance to identify the best location for making an infantry attack. At 3:30 pm, Brig. Gen. Edward Ferrero’s 1st Division, IX Army Corps, moved up to attack, which he did at 5:00 pm. Ferrero’s men broke into the Confederate line, causing heavy casualties, and advanced almost to the enemy’s rear before being checked. After dark, the Confederates withdrew and the Federals took up the pursuit in the morning. Within days, Williams and his men had retired to Virginia. Burnside had launched the East Tennessee Campaign to reduce or extinguish Confederate influence in the area; Blue Springs helped fulfill that mission
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Brentwood - March 25, 1863 - Williamson County

The Battle of Brentwood was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on March 25, 1863 in Williamson County, Tennessee.

Union Lt. Col. Edward Bloodgood held Brentwood, a station on the Nashville & Decatur Railroad, with 400 men on the morning of March 25, 1863, when Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest, with a powerful column, approached the town. The day before, Forrest had ordered Col. J.W. Starnes, commanding the 2nd Brigade, to go to Brentwood, cut the telegraph, tear up railroad track, attack the stockade, and cut off any retreat. Forrest and the other cavalry brigade joined Bloodgood about 7:00 am on the 25th. A messenger from the stockade informed Bloodgood that Forrest’s men were about to attack and had destroyed railroad track. Bloodgood sought to notify his superiors and discovered that the telegraph lines were cut. Forrest sent in a demand for a surrender under a flag of truce but Bloodgood refused. Within a half hour, though, Forrest had artillery in place to shell Bloodgood’s position and had surrounded the Federals with a large force. Bloodgood decided to surrender. Forrest and his men caused a lot of damage in the area during this expedition, and Brentwood, on the railroad, was a significant loss to the Federals
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Brown's Ferry - October 28-29, 1863 - Hamilton and Marion Counties ?

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Bull's Gap - November 11-13, 1864 - Hamblen and Greene Counties

The Battle of Bull's Gap was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on November 11-13, 1864 in Hamblen County and Greene County, Tennessee.

In November 1864, Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge undertook an expedition into East Tennessee, anticipating that Confederate sympathizers would join his force and help drive the Yankees from the area. The Federals initially retired in front of this force and, on November 10, were at Bull’s Gap on the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad. The Confederates attacked them on the morning of the 11th but were repulsed by 11:00 am. Artillery fire continued throughout the day. The next morning, both sides attacked; the Confederates sought to hit the Union forces in a variety of locations but they gained little. The next day firing occurred throughout most of the day, but the Confederates did not assault the Union lines because they were marching to flank them on the right. Before making the flank attack, the Union forces, short on everything from ammunition to rations, withdrew from Bull’s Gap after midnight on the 4th. Breckinridge pursued, but the Federals received reinforcements and foul weather played havoc with the roads and streams. Breckinridge, with most of his force, retired back to Virginia. This victory was a temporary Union setback in the Federal plans to rid East Tennessee of Confederate influence
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Campbell's Station - November 16, 1863 - Knox County

The Battle of Campbell's Station was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on November 16, 1863 in Knox County, Tennessee.

In early November 1863, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, with two divisions and about 5,000 cavalry, was detached from the Confederate Army of Tennessee near Chattanooga, Tennessee to attack Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s Union Department of the Ohio troops at Knoxville, Tennessee. Following parallel routes, Longstreet and Burnside raced for Campbell’s Station, a hamlet where the Concord Road, from the south, intersected the Kingston Road to Knoxville. Burnside hoped to reach the crossroads first and continue on to safety in Knoxville; Longstreet planned to reach the crossroads and hold it, which would prevent Burnside from gaining Knoxville and force him to fight outside his earthworks.

By forced marching, on a rainy November 16, Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s advance reached the vital intersection and deployed first. The main column arrived at noon with the baggage train just behind. Scarcely 15 minutes later, Longstreet’s Confederates approached. Longstreet attempted a double envelopment: attacks timed to strike both Union flanks simultaneously. Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaw’s Confederate division struck with such force that the Union right had to redeploy, but held. Brig. Gen. Micah Jenkins’s Confederate division maneuvered ineffectively as it advanced and was unable to turn the Union left. Burnside ordered his two divisions astride the Kingston Road to withdraw three-quarters of a mile to a ridge in their rear. This was accomplished without confusion. The Confederates suspended their attack while Burnside continued his retrograde movement to Knoxville. Estimated casualties for the battle were 400 for the U.S. and 570 for the Confederates Had Longstreet reached Campbell's Station first, the Knoxville Campaign’s results might have been different.

Much of the area where the battle was fought is now part of the town of Farragut.
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Chattanooga (Battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge) - November 23-25, 1863 - Hamilton County

The plan for the 24th was a two-pronged attack—Hooker against the Confederate left, Sherman the right. Hooker's three divisions struck at dawn at Lookout Mountain and found that the defile between the mountain and the river had not been secured. They barreled right through this opening; the assault ended around 3:00 p.m. when ammunition ran low and fog had enveloped the mountain. This action has been called the "Battle Above the Clouds" due to that fog. Bragg withdrew his forces from the southern end of the mountain to a line behind Chattanooga Creek, burning the bridges behind him.

Sherman crossed the Tennessee River successfully, but his assault was then delayed and the division of Patrick Cleburne was rushed in to reinforce the Confederate right flank. No attack would occur on this flank on the 24th.

November 25: Battle of Missionary Ridge and the aftermath
On the 25th, Grant changed his plan and called for a double envelopment by Sherman and Hooker. Thomas was to advance after Sherman reached Missionary Ridge from the north. The Ridge was a formidable defensive position, manned in depth, and Grant knew that a frontal assault against it would be suicidal, unless it could be arranged in support of the flanking attacks by Sherman and Hooker. As the morning progressed, Sherman was unable to break Cleburne's line and Hooker's advance was slowed by the burned bridges on the creek. At 3:30 p.m., Grant was concerned that Bragg was reinforcing his right flank at Sherman's expense. Hence, he ordered Thomas to move forward and try to seize the first of three lines of Confederate entrenchments to his front. The Union soldiers moved forward and captured the first line. After capturing the first line, they were subjected to punishing fire from the two remaining Confederate lines up the ridge. Without orders, the Union soldiers continued the attack against the remaining lines. The Union soldiers dashed madly up the ridge, shouting "Chickamauga, Chickamauga!" until they finally overwhelmed and captured the remaining Confederate lines. Bragg had misplaced his artillery on the crest of the ridge, rather than the military crest, and it was unable to provide effective fire. Nonetheless, the Army of the Cumberland's ascent of Missionary Ridge was one of the war's most dramatic events. A Union officer recalled that "little regard to formation was observed. Each battalion assumed a triangular shape, the colors at the apex. ... [a] color-bearer dashes ahead of the line and falls. A comrade grasps the flag. ... He, too, falls. Then another picks it up ... waves it defiantly, and as if bearing a charmed life, he advances steadily towards the top ..."

Grant was initially furious that his orders had not been followed exactly. Thomas was taken by surprise as well, knowing that his head would be on the chopping block if the assault failed. But it succeeded. By 4:30 p.m., Bragg's troops had broken and fled in panic.

One of the Confederacy's two major armies was routed. The Union held Chattanooga, the "Gateway to the Lower South." It became the supply and logistics base for Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign. And Grant had won his final battle in the west, prior to receiving command of all Union armies in March, 1864
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Chattanooga - August 21, 1863 - Hamilton County

The Battle of Chattanooga II was a battle in the American Civil War, beginning on August 21, 1863, as the opening battle in the Chickamauga Campaign. The larger and more famous battle was the Battle of Chattanooga III in November, 1863.

On August 16, 1863, Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, launched a campaign to take Chattanooga. Col. John T. Wilder’s brigade of the Union 4th Division, XIV Army Corps, marched to a location northeast of Chattanooga where the Confederates could see them, reinforcing Gen. Braxton Bragg’s expectations of a Union attack on the town from that direction. On August 21, Wilder reached the Tennessee River opposite Chattanooga and ordered the 18th Indiana Light Artillery to begin shelling the town. The shells caught many soldiers and civilians in town in church observing a day of prayer and fasting. The bombardment sank two steamers docked at the landing and created a great deal of consternation amongst the Confederates. Continued periodically over the next two weeks, the shelling helped keep Bragg's attention to the northeast while the bulk of Rosecrans' army crossed the Tennessee River well west and south of Chattanooga. When Bragg learned on September 8 that the Union army was in force southwest of the city, he abandoned Chattanooga
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Chattanooga - June 7-8, 1862 - Hamilton County

The Battle of Chattanooga I was a minor battle in the American Civil War, occurring from June 7 to June 8, 1862. The larger and more famous battle was the Battle of Chattanooga III in November, 1863.

In late spring 1862, the Confederacy split its forces in Tennessee into several small commands in an attempt to complicate Federal operations. The Union army had to redistribute its forces to counter the Confederate command structure changes. Maj. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel received orders to take his division to Huntsville, Alabama, to repair railroads in the area. Soon, he occupied more than 100 miles along the Nashville & Chattanooga and Memphis & Charleston railroads. In May, Mitchel and his men sparred with Maj. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith’s men.

After Mitchel received command of all Federal troops between Nashville and Huntsville, on May 29, he ordered Brig. Gen. James Negley with a small division to lead an expedition to capture Chattanooga. This force arrived before Chattanooga on June 7. Negley ordered the 79th Pennsylvania Volunteers out to reconnoiter. It found the Confederates entrenched on the opposite side of the river along the banks and atop Cameron Hill. Negley brought up two artillery batteries to open fire on the Rebel troops and the town and sent infantry to the river bank to act as sharpshooters. The Union bombardment of Chattanooga continued throughout the 7th and until noon on the 8th. The Confederates replied, but it was uncoordinated since the undisciplined gunners were allowed to do as they wished. On June 10, Smith, who had arrived on the 8th, reported that Negley had withdrawn and the Confederate loss was minor. This attack on Chattanooga was a warning that Union troops could mount assaults when they wanted.
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Collierville - November 3., 1863 - Shelby County

The Battle of Collierville was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on November 3, 1863 in Shelby County, Tennessee.

Four minor battles occurred in 1863 at Collierville, Tennessee, during a three-month period. The November 3 fight was intended to be a Confederate cavalry raid to break up the Memphis & Charleston Railroad behind Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s XV Army Corps, then in the process of marching to the relief of Chattanooga. But, when Confederate Brig. Gen. James R. Chalmers, leading a cavalry division riding up from Mississippi, learned that only two Union regiments defended Collierville, he decided to attack. Union Col. Edward Hatch possessed more men than Chalmers supposed, stationed at Collierville and at Germantown, five miles to the west. Scouts warned Hatch of Chalmers’s approach from the south, so he ordered Collierville’s defenders to be prepared and rode from Germantown with cavalry reinforcements. Chalmers, as he had done only three weeks earlier, attacked from the south. Col. Hatch arrived with help. Surprised by the unexpected appearance of the enemy on his flanks, Chalmers concluded that he was outnumbered, called off the battle, and, to ward off Union pursuit, withdrew back to Mississippi. The Memphis & Charleston Railroad remained open to Tuscumbia, Alabama, for Union troop movements.
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Columbia - November 24, 1864 - Maury County

The Battle of Columbia was fought November 24–29, 1864 in Maury County, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War.

The battle constituted a Confederate diversion as part of a maneuver designed to cross the Duck River upstream and interdict the Union army’s line of communications with Nashville. As Gen. John Bell Hood’s army advanced northeastward from Florence, Alabama, Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield’s force quickly withdrew from Pulaski to Columbia, arriving on November 24, just ahead of Forrest’s Rebel cavalry. The Federals built two lines of earthworks south of the town while skirmishing with enemy cavalry on November 24 and 25. Hood advanced his infantry on the following day but did not assault. He made demonstrations along the front while marching two corps of his army to Davis Ford, some five miles eastward on the Duck River. Schofield correctly interpreted Hood’s moves, but foul weather prevented him from crossing to the north bank before November 28, leaving Columbia to the Confederates. The next day, both armies marched north for Spring Hill. Schofield had slowed Hood’s movement but had not stopped him.
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Dandridge - January 14, 1864 - Jefferson County

The Battle of Dandridge was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on January 17, 1864 in Jefferson County, Tennessee.

Union forces under Maj. Gen. John G. Parke advanced on Dandridge, Tennessee, near the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad, on January 14, forcing Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s Confederate troops to fall back. Longstreet, however, moved additional troops into the area on the 15th to meet the enemy and threaten the Union base at New Market. On the 16th, Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis, commanding the Cavalry Corps, Army of the Ohio, rode forward to occupy Kimbrough’s Crossroads. Within three or four miles of his objective, Sturgis’s cavalry met Rebel (Confederate) troops, forcing them back towards the crossroads. As the Union cavalry neared the crossroads, they discovered an enemy infantry division with artillery that had arrived the day before. The Union cavalry could not dislodge these Rebels and was compelled to retire to Dandridge. About noon the next day, Sturgis received information that the Confederates were preparing for an attack so he formed his men into lines of battle. About 4:00 pm, the Confederates advanced and the battle quickly turned to general fighting. The battle continued until after dark with the Union forces occupying roughly the same battle line as when the fighting started. They fell back to New Market and Strawberry Plains during the night, but the Rebels were unable to pursue because of the lack of cannons, ammunition, and shoes. For the time being, the Union forces left the area. The Confederates had failed to destroy or capture the Federals as they should have.
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Fair Garden - January 27, 1864 - Sevier County
The Battle of Fair Garden was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on January 27, 1864 in Sevier County, Tennessee.

Since the Battle of Dandridge, the Union cavalry had moved to the south side of the French Broad River and had disrupted Confederate foraging and captured numerous wagons in that area. On January 25, 1864, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, commander of the Department of East Tennessee, instructed his subordinates to do something to curtail Union operations south of the French Broad. On the 26th, Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis, having had various brushes with Confederate cavalry, deployed his troopers to watch the area fords. Two Confederate cavalry brigades and artillery advanced from Fair Garden in the afternoon but were checked about four miles from Sevierville. Other Confederates attacked a Union cavalry brigade, though, at Fowler’s on Flat Creek, and drove it about two miles. No further fighting occurred that day. Union scouts observed that the Confederates had concentrated on the Fair Garden Road, so Sturgis ordered an attack there in the morning. In a heavy fog, Col. Edward M. McCook’s Union division attacked and drove back Maj. Gen. William T. Martin’s Confederates until about 4:00 pm. At that time, McCook’s men charged with sabers and routed the Rebels. Sturgis set out in pursuit on the 28th, and captured and killed more of the routed Rebels. The Union forces, however, observed three of Longstreet’s infantry brigades crossing the river. Realizing his weariness from fighting, lack of supplies, ammunition, and weapons and the overwhelming strength of the enemy, Sturgis decided to evacuate the area. But, before leaving, Sturgis determined to attack Brig. Gen. Frank C. Armstrong’s Confederate cavalry division which he had learned was about three or four miles away, on the river. Unbeknownst to the attacking Federals, Armstrong had strongly fortified his position and three infantry regiments had arrived to reinforce him. Thus, the Union troops suffered severe casualties in the attack. The battle continued until dark, when the Federals retired from the area. The Federals had won the big battle but the fatigue of continual fighting and lack of supplies and ammunition forced them to withdraw
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Fort Donelson - February 11-16, 1862 - Davidson County

The Battle of Fort Donelson was fought February 12–16, 1862 in the American Civil War. The capture of the fort by Union forces opened the Cumberland River as an avenue of invasion of the South and elevated Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant from an obscure and largely unproven leader to the rank of major general and the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.
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Fort Henry - February 6, 1862 - Stewart and Henry Counties

The Battle of Fort Henry was fought February 6, 1862, in western Tennessee, during the American Civil War. It was the first important victory for the Union and Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater.

In February 1862, Grant advanced south along the Tennessee River with gunboats and more than 15,000 troops. His objective was to take Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, which protected the important Tennessee and Cumberland rivers.

The first objective, Fort Henry, a Confederate earthen fort on the Tennessee River with outdated guns, was partially inundated and the river threatened to flood the rest. On February 4–5, Grant landed his divisions in two different locations, one on the east bank of the Tennessee River to prevent the garrison’s escape and the other to occupy the high ground on the Kentucky side, which would ensure the fort’s fall; Flag-Officer Andrew H. Foote’s seven gunboats began bombarding the fort.

Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, commander of the fort’s garrison, realized that it was only a matter of time before Fort Henry fell. While leaving artillery in the fort to hold off the Union fleet, he escorted the rest of his force out of the area and sent them safely off on the overland route to Fort Donelson, 10 miles away. Tilghman then returned to the fort and, soon afterwards, surrendered to the fleet, which had engaged the fort and closed within 400 yards. Fort Henry’s fall opened the Tennessee River to Union gunboats and shipping as far as Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

After the fall of Fort Donelson, ten days later, the two major water transportation routes in the Confederate west, bounded by the Appalachians and the Mississippi River, became Union highways for movement of troops and material.
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Fort Pillow - April 12, 1864 - Lauderdale County

On April 12, Forrest led his 2,500 men against the Union-held fortification, occupied by 292 black and 285 white soldiers. The battle's details remain disputed and controversial to this day. What is known is that Forrest's men stormed the lightly guarded fort, inflicting heavy casualties on its defenders, who quickly fell into disarray as the Union command—already short by several officers—collapsed. Conflicting reports of what happened next are the source of controversy. Union sources claimed that despite the fact that these men surrendered, Forrest's men massacred the Union soldiers in cold blood, burning and burying some alive. President Abraham Lincoln condemned the incident. Confederates and Forrest denied this claim.

Casualties were high and only sixty-two of the U.S. Colored Troops survived the fight. The Confederates evacuated Fort Pillow that evening so they gained little from the attack except a temporary disruption of Union operations. The "Fort Pillow Massacre" became a Union rallying cry and cemented resolve to see the war through to its conclusion.

In the aftermath of this incident, Lincoln demanded that Confederates treat captured black Union soldiers as prisoners of war. This demand was refused, and as a result, the exchanges of prisoners that had gone on during the war were ended.
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Fort Sanders - November 29, 1863 - Knox County

The Battle of Fort Sanders (precipitated by the Siege of Knoxville, which began on November 17, 1863) was an engagement of the American Civil War fought in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The Confederacy had never had effective control of large areas of East Tennessee. There had been little slavery practiced in East Tennessee, partly due to moral opposition to the practice and partly due to the fact that little of the land was suitable to plantation agriculture; pro-Union and Republican sentiment ran high and most East Tennesseans had not been in favor of secession. Therefore, Union forces had little trouble occupying Knoxville early in the conflict. They built several fortifications in the form of bastioned earthworks near Knoxville. One was Fort Sanders, just west of downtown Knoxville across a creek valley. Another, smaller one, Fort Byington, was atop a nearby hill that is the site of the central part of the campus of the University of Tennessee (then East Tennessee University).

As Confederate fortunes declined, a detachment under the command of General James Longstreet, a trusted subordinate of Robert E. Lee, was sent to harass Knoxville with the intent of distracting Union forces from their ultimately-successful Atlanta Campaign. On November 23, 1863, Longstreet's forces seized Cherokee Heights, a tall bluff south of the Tennessee River from Knoxville but only about 2400 yards (2200 m) from Fort Sanders. His intent was to use cannon to "soften up" Fort Sanders in preparation for a frontal assault; however his artillery was largely ineffective from what was not truly a long range even by the standards of the era, at least part of the problem being attributed to gunpowder of a very low quality. The assault, conducted on November 29, 1863, was both a tactical and a strategic failure; Longstreet failed to capture Knoxville or even any of its significant fortifications and the distraction of the Union from the Atlanta Campaign was minimal.

The Fort Sanders area was to become the site of many Victorian homes being built approximately three decades later. Several, especially those located on the uphill sides of steets, are most impressive; some have been restored in recent decades. A few were incorporated into the grounds of the 1982 World's Fair. Many more have been divided into apartments and are rented out to University of Tennessee students at low cost. The author James Agee was from this area; the exteriors for the motion picture version of All the Way Home were shot outside one of the more palatial homes, which has since burned.
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Franklin - November 30 , 1864 - Williamson County

The Battle of Franklin) was fought at Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. While the Union army left the field after the battle, the Confederate army paid a horrible price for it.

Franklin followed the Battle of Spring Hill of the previous day. The Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded by General John Bell Hood, had failed to destroy part of the Union force in Tennessee, allowing the Union Army of the Ohio, commanded by Major General John M. Schofield, to escape. Hood had hoped to destroy Schofield before he could link up with the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, farther north in Nashville, Tennessee. That combined Union force would be over 60,000 men, almost twice as large as Hood's army. As the armies met at Franklin, Hood had approximately 38,000 men to Schofield's 32,000.

Schofield's advanced guard arrived in Franklin at about 6:00 a.m., after a forced march north from Spring Hill. Brigadier General Jacob Dolson Cox, a division commander temporarily commanding the Union XXIII Corps (and later governor of Ohio), immediately began preparing strong defensive positions around breastworks originally constructed for the First Battle of Franklin in 1863. The defensive line formed approximately a semicircle around the city, from northwest to southeast; the other half of the semicircle was the Harpeth River.

Schofield's decision to defend at Franklin with his back to a river seems odd. The reason was that he had insufficient pontoon bridges available to cross the river; the bridges had been left behind in his advance to Spring Hill due to lack of wagons to transport them. Now he needed time to repair the permanent bridges spanning the river and calculated that the breastworks were well positioned and adequate to delay Hood's inevitable assault.

By noon the Union line was ready. Clockwise from the northwest were the divisions of Maj. Gen. Nathan Kimball (from the IV Corps), Thomas H. Ruger (XXIII), and Cox (XXIII). Two brigades of the IV Corps division under George D. Wagner were forward, screening the Confederate approach. Thomas J. Wood's IV Corps division was posted north of the Harpeth. Schofield planned to withdraw across the river by 6:00 p.m. if Hood had not arrived by then.

Hood's army arrived at 3:00 p.m. He was noted for his aggressive, sometimes reckless battlefield leadership. Over the objections of his top generals, he ordered a frontal assault in the dwindling afternoon light against the Union forces, now strongly entrenched behind three lines of breastworks. Many historians believe that Hood, still angry that the Federal army had slipped past his troops the night before at Spring Hill, acted irrationally in ordering the attack. The Confederates attacked on the southern end of the Union line, with Benjamin F. Cheatham's corps on the left of the assault, Alexander P. Stewart's on the right.

Hood's attack initially enveloped Wagner's forward brigades, which fled back to the main breastworks. Blue and gray troops were intermingled, which made the Union soldiers defending the line reluctant to fire on the approaching masses. This caused a weak spot in the Union line at the Carter House as an inexperienced regiment, just arrived from Nashville, broke and fled with Wagner's troops. The Confederate divisions of Patrick Cleburne, John C. Brown, and Samuel G. French converged on this spot. An heroic counterattack by the brigade of Emerson Opdycke and two of Cox's regiments sealed the gap after thirty minutes of fierce hand-to-hand combat.

Over and over the Confederates smashed headlong and futilely into the Union line. Just before dark, the division of Maj. Gen. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson arrived and it had no more luck than its predecessors. By 9:00 p.m. the fighting subsided. The overall attack had been awesome, described by some as a tidal wave, and known as the "Pickett's Charge of the West". But it was actually much larger than than the famous charge at Gettysburg. In the East, 12,500 Confederates crossed a mile of open ground in a single assault that lasted about 50 minutes. In Franklin, some 20,000 marched into the guns across two miles and conducted seventeen distinct assaults lasting over five hours.

Across the river to the east, Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest attempted to turn the Union left flank, but the Union cavalry under James H. Wilson repulsed his advance.

Schofield, who spent the battle in Fort Granger (just across the Harpeth River, northeast of Franklin), ordered a nighttime withdrawal to Nashville, starting at 11:00 p.m. Although there was a period in which the Union army was vulnerable, straddling the river, Hood was too stunned to take advantage of it. The Union army reached the works of Nashville on December 1.

The devastated Confederate force was left in control of Franklin, but its enemy had escaped again. Typically, a Civil War battle is deemed a victory for the army that forces its opponent to withdraw, but Hood's "victory" came at a frightful cost. More men of the Confederate Army of Tennessee were killed in five hours at Franklin than in two days at the Battle of Shiloh. The Confederates suffered 6,252 casualties, including 1,750 killed and 3,800 wounded. Their military leadership in the West was decimated, including the loss of such skilled generals as Patrick Cleburne. Fifteen Confederate generals were casualties (6 killed, the rest wounded and/or captured), and 65 field grade officers were lost. Union casualties were 189 killed, 1,033 wounded, 1,104 missing.

The Army of Tennessee was all but destroyed at Franklin. Nevertheless, Hood immediately advanced against the entire Union Army of the Cumberland, firmly entrenched at Nashville with the Army of the Ohio, leading his battered forces to further, and final, disaster in the Battle of Nashville.
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Hartsville - December 7, 1862 - Trousdale County

The Battle of Hartsville was fought on December 7, 1862, in central Tennessee at the opening of the Stones River Campaign the American Civil War.

The Stones River Campaign started in early November 1862 when Union General William S. Rosecrans moved his Army of the Cumberland southeast from Nashville, Tennessee, toward Murfreesboro. Confederate General Braxton Bragg, commanding the Army of Tennessee, had retreated there after his defeat at the Battle of Perryville. Bragg ordered Colonel John Hunt Morgan to move north with his cavalry and operate along Rosecrans's lines of communications, to prevent him from foraging for supplies north of Nashville. The action at Hartsville, a crossing point on the Cumberland River about 40 miles upstream from Nashville, north of Murfreesboro, was an incident in Morgan's raid to the north, before Rosecrans had the bulk of his infantry forces on the move.

Guarding the river crossing at Hartsville was the 39th Brigade, XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland, consisting of the 106th Ohio Infantry, the 108th Ohio, the 104th Illinois, and the 2nd Indiana Cavalry. The brigade was commanded by Col. Absalom B. Moore. Under the cover of darkness, Morgan crossed the river in the early morning of December 7, 1862, with about 2,000 men, mainly Kentuckians, a force roughly equal to the Union brigade. Another Union force, three times that size, was encamped 9 miles away at Castalian Springs, close enough to hear the guns, but too far away to interfere.

Morgan's attack took the Union camp by surprise. One account from a participant indicates that the Confederates were able to get past the picket line by wearing blue uniforms, another that they wore civilian clothes and posed as refugees. The attack began at 6:45 a.m. with a simultaneous artillery bombardment and an infantry attack, while cavalry struck the flanks and rear. One of Moore’s units ran after an hour, which caused confusion and helped to force the Federals to fall back. By 8:30 a.m., the Confederates had surrounded the Federals, convincing Col. Moore to surrender.

Morgan inflicted more than 300 Union casualties, at the cost of 125 Confederate, but also left the battlefield with 1,762 Union prisoners and a wagon train heavily loaded with captured equipment and supplies. General Joseph E. Johnston, who was in overall command of Confederate forces in the Western Theater, called this a "brilliant feat" and recommended that Morgan be appointed brigadier general immediately. Jefferson Davis happened to be in the vicinity at Murfreesboro and promoted Morgan in person when he arrived.

The action at Hartsville foreshadowed the Confederate cavalry raids by Nathan Bedford Forrest into West Tennessee, December 1862 to January 1863, and by Morgan into Kentucky, December 1862 to January 1863. Rosecrans would arrive in Murfreesboro on December 29, setting the stage for the Battle of Stones River
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Hatchie’s Bridge - October 5, 1862 - Hardeman and McNairy Counties

The Battle of Hatchie's Bridge was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on October 5, 1862 in Hardeman County and McNairy County, Tennessee.

Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn’s Confederate Army of West Tennessee retreated from Corinth on October 4, 1862. Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans did not send forces in pursuit until the morning of the 5th. Maj. Gen. Edward O.C. Ord, commanding a detachment of the Army of West Tennessee, was, pursuant to orders, advancing on Corinth to assist Rosecrans. On the night of October 4-5, he camped near Pocahontas. Between 7:30 and 8:00 am the next morning, his force encountered Union Maj. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut's 4th Brigade, Army of West Tennessee, in the Confederates’s front. Ord took command of the now-combined Union forces and pushed Van Dorn’s advance, Maj. Gen. Sterling Price’s Army of the West, back about five miles to the Hatchie River and across Davis’ Bridge. After accomplishing this, Ord was wounded and Hurlbut assumed command. While Price’s men were hotly engaged with Ord’s force, Van Dorn’s scouts looked for and found another crossing of the Hatchie River. Van Dorn then led his army back to Holly Springs. Ord had forced Price to retreat, but the Confederates escaped capture or destruction. Although they should have done so, Rosecrans’s army had failed to capture or destroy Van Dorn’s force
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Hoover's Gap - June 24-26, 1863 - Bedford and Rutherford Counties

The Battle of Hoover's Gap was the principal battle fought in the Tullahoma Campaign (also known as the Middle Tennessee Campaign) of the American Civil War.

Following the Battle of Stones River, Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, commanding the Army of the Cumberland, remained in the Murfreesboro, Tennessee, area for over five months. In an effort to block further Union progress, Confederate General Braxton Bragg, commander of the Army of Tennessee, established a fortified line along the Duck River from Shelbyville to Wartrace. On the Confederate right, infantry and artillery detachments guarded Liberty, Hoover’s, and Bellbuckle gaps through the mountains. Rosecrans’s superiors, fearing that Bragg might detach large numbers of men to help break the Siege of Vicksburg, urged him to attack the Confederate positions.

On June 23, 1863, Rosecrans deployed forces to feign an attack on Shelbyville while massing forces against Bragg’s right. His troops struck out toward the gaps, Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's men, on June 24, forced Hoover’s Gap. The Confederate 3rd Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, under Colonel J. Russell Butler, held Hoover’s Gap, but the Federals easily pushed it aside. As this unit fell back, it ran into Brig. Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson’s and Brig. Gen. William B. Bate’s Brigades, Alexander P. Stewart’s Division, William J. Hardee’s Corps, Army of Tennessee, which marched off to meet Thomas and his men.

Fighting continued at the gap until just before noon on June 26, when Stewart, the Confederate division commander, sent a message to Johnson and Bate stating that he was pulling back and they should also. Although slowed by rain, Rosecrans moved on, forcing Bragg to retreat from his defensive line and fall back to Tullahoma. Rosecrans sent a flying column (Wilder’s Lightning Brigade, the same that had spearheaded the thrust through Hoover’s Gap on the 24th) ahead to hit the railroad in Bragg’s rear. Arriving too late to destroy the Elk River railroad bridge, the Federals destroyed railroad track around Decherd. Bragg then evacuated his forces from Middle Tennessee.

Hoover's Gap was an unambiguous Union battlefield victory and strategic advance. Bragg withdrew to the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and maneuvering continued in the Chickamauga Campaign.
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Jackson - December 19, 1862 - Madison County

The Battle of Jackson was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on December 19, 1862 in Madison County, Tennessee.

The engagement at Jackson occurred during Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Expedition into West Tennessee, between December 11, 1862, and January 1, 1863. Forrest wished to interrupt the rail supply line to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s army, campaigning down the Mississippi Central Railroad. If he could destroy the Mobile & Ohio Railroad running south from Columbus, Kentucky, through Jackson, Grant would have to curtail or halt his operations. Forrest’s 2,100-man cavalry brigade crossed the Tennessee River on December 15-17, heading west. Maj. Gen. Grant ordered a troop concentration at Jackson under Brig. Gen. Jeremiah C. Sullivan and sent a cavalry force out under Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, to confront Forrest. Forrest, however, smashed the Union cavalry at Lexington on December 18. As Forrest continued his advance the next day, Sullivan ordered Col. Adolph Englemann to take a small force northeast of Jackson. At Old Salem Cemetery, acting on the defensive, Englemann’s two infantry regiments repulsed a Confederate mounted attack and then withdrew a mile closer to town. To Forrest, the fight amounted to no more than a feint and show of force intended to hold Jackson’s Union defenders in place while two mounted columns destroyed railroad track north and south of the town and returned. This accomplished, Forrest withdrew from the Jackson area to attack Trenton and Humboldt. Thus, although the Federals had checked a demonstration by a portion of Forrest’s force, a major accomplishment, other Confederates had fulfilled an element of the expedition’s mission.
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Johnsonville - November 4-5, 1864 - Benton County

The Battle of Johnsonville was fought November 4–5, 1864, in Benton County, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War

In an effort to check the Union army’s advance through Georgia, Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest led a 23-day raid culminating in an attack on the Union supply base at Johnsonville, Tennessee. Swinging north from Corinth, Mississippi, toward the Kentucky border and temporarily blockading the Tennessee River at Fort Herman, Forrest moved southward along the Tennessee River’s west bank, capturing several U.S. steamers and a gunboat, which he later had to abandon. On November 4, Forrest positioned his artillery across the river from the Federal supply base and began landing at Johnsonville. In the afternoon, Federal observers discovered the Confederates finishing their entrenchments and battery emplacements. The Union gunboats and land batteries across the river engaged the Confederates in an artillery duel. The Rebel guns, however, were so well-positioned that the Federals were unable to hinder them, and Confederate artillery soon disabled the gunboats.

Fearing that the Rebels might cross the river and capture the transports, the Federals set fire to them. A strong wind extended the fire to piles of stores on the levee and to a nearby warehouse filled with supplies. Seeing the blaze, the Confederates began shelling the steamboats, barges, and warehouses to prevent the Federals from extinguishing the fire. An inferno illuminated Forrest’s night withdrawal, and he escaped Union clutches without serious loss. Damages totaled $2.2 million. The next morning, Confederate artillery bombarded the depot before departing. Although his brilliant victory strengthened Forrest’s reputation and destroyed a great amount of enemy war materiel, it failed to stem the tide of Union success in Georgia.
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Memphis - August 21, 1864 - Shelby County

The Battle of Memphis II was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on August 21, 1864 in Shelby County, Tennessee.

At 4:00 am on the morning of August 21, 1864, Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest made a daring raid on Union-held Memphis, Tennessee, but it was not an attempt to capture the city, occupied by 6,000 Federal troops. The raid had three objectives: to capture three Union generals posted there; to release Southern prisoners from Irving Block Prison; and to cause the recall of Union forces from Northern Mississippi. Striking northwestward for Memphis with 2,000 cavalry, Forrest lost about a quarter of his strength because of exhausted horses. Surprise was essential. Taking advantage of a thick dawn fog and claiming to be a Union patrol returning with prisoners, the Confederates eliminated the sentries. Galloping through the streets and exchanging shots with other Union troops, the raiders split to pursue separate missions. One Union general was not at his quarters and another escaped to Fort Pickering dressed in his night-shirt. The attack on Irving Block Prison also failed when Union troops stalled the main body at the State Female College. After two hours, Forrest decided to withdraw, cutting telegraph wires, taking 500 prisoners and large quantities of supplies, including many horses. Although Forrest failed in Memphis, his raid influenced Union forces to return there, from northern Mississippi, and provide protection.
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Memphis - June 6, 1862 - Shelby County

After defeating the Confederates at the Battle of Island Number Ten, the Union fleet was able to steam downriver to threaten Memphis. Opposing them was a small floatilla of makeshift crafts. Confederate gunboats, some of them converted paddleboats armored with cotton bales, were pitted against Union ironclads and rams. The battle lasted one and a half hours and was watched by the civilian population from the Chickasaw Bluffs. The Union fleet quickly captured or sunk most of the Rebel forces, with the survivors retreating southwards down the river towards Vicksburg, Mississippi. Casualties were extemely lopsided with 180 Southerners killed or injured and only one casualty for the North. The battle ended with Union commanders landing at the city docks and taking control of Memphis, giving the Union army a port for moving supplies down the river.

Another Civil War military engagement also took place in Memphis. In April, 1864 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest led a nighttime cavalry raid on his hometown of Memphis with the intent of freeing Confederate prisoners and capturing General Washburn, then encamped in Memphis. Washburn barely escaped capture out a back alley behind his headquarters.
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Mossy Creek - December 29, 1863 - Jefferson County

The Battle of Mossy Creek was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on December 29, 1863 in Jefferson County, Tennessee.

Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis received a report on the night of December 28, 1863, that a brigade of enemy cavalry was in the neighborhood of Dandridge that afternoon. Surmising that the Rebel cavalry force was split, Sturgis decided to meet and defeat, and possibly capture, this portion of it. He ordered most of his troopers out toward Dandridge on two roads. After these troops had left, Maj. Gen. William T. Martin, commander of Longstreet’s Confederate cavalry, now reunited, attacked the remainder of Sturgis’s force at Mossy Creek, Tennessee, which included the First Brigade, Second Division, XXIII Army Corps, commanded by Col. Samuel R. Mott, at 9:00 am. First, Sturgis sent messages to his subordinates on the way to Dandridge to return promptly if they found no enemy there. The Confederates advanced, driving the Federals in front of them. Some of the Union troopers who had set out for Dandridge returned. Around 3:00 pm, fortunes changed as the Federals began driving the Confederates. By dark, the Rebels were back to the location from which they had begun the battle. Union pursuit was not mounted that night, but Martin retreated from the area. After the victory at Mossy Creek, the Union held the line about Talbott’s Station for some time
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Murfreesboro - December 5-7, 1864 - Rutherford County

The Third Battle of Murfreesboro was fought December 5–7, 1864, in Rutherford County, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War.

In a last, desperate attempt to force Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s Union army out of Georgia, Gen. John Bell Hood led the Army of Tennessee north toward Nashville in November 1864. Although he suffered a terrible loss at Franklin, he continued toward Nashville. In operating against Nashville, he decided that destruction of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad and disruption of the Union army supply depot at Murfreesboro would help his cause. He sent Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, on December 4, with an expedition, composed of two cavalry divisions and Maj. Gen. William B. Bate’s infantry division, to Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

On December 2, Hood had ordered Bate to destroy the railroad and blockhouses between Murfreesboro and Nashville and join Forrest for further operations. On December 4, Bate’s division attacked Blockhouse No. 7 protecting the railroad crossing at Overall Creek, but Union forces fought it off. On the morning of the 5th, Forrest headed out toward Murfreesboro, splitting his force, one column to attack the fort on the hill and the other to take Blockhouse No. 4, both at La Vergne. Upon his demand for surrender at both locations, the Union garrisons did so. Outside La Vergne, Forrest hooked up with Bate’s division and the command advanced on to Murfreesboro along two roads, driving the Yankees into their Fortress Rosecrans fortifications, and encamped in the city outskirts for the night. The next morning, on the 6th, Forrest ordered Bate’s division to "move upon the enemy’s works." Fighting flared for a couple of hours, but the Yankees ceased firing and both sides glared at each other for the rest of the day. Brig. Gen. Claudius Sears’s and Brig. Gen. Joseph B. Palmer’s infantry brigades joined Forrest’s command in the evening, further swelling his numbers.

On the morning of the 7th, Maj. Gen. Lovell Rousseau, commanding all of the forces at Murfreesboro, sent two brigades out under Brig. Gen. Robert Milroy on the Salem Pike to feel out the enemy. These troops engaged the Confederates and fighting continued. At one point some of Forrest’s troops broke and ran causing disorder in the Rebel ranks; even entreaties from Forrest and Bate did not stem the rout of these units. The rest of Forrest’s command conducted an orderly retreat from the field and encamped for the night outside Murfreesboro. Forrest had destroyed railroad track, blockhouses, and some homes and generally disrupted Union operations in the area, but he did not accomplish much else. The raid on Murfreesboro was a minor irritation.
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Murfreesboro - July 13, 1862 - Rutherford County

The First Battle of Murfreesboro was fought on July 13, 1862, in Rutherford County, Tennessee, as part of the American Civil War.

On June 10, 1862, Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, commanding the Army of the Ohio, started a leisurely advance toward Chattanooga, which Union Brig. Gen. James S. Negley and his force threatened on June 7–8. In response to the threat, the Confederate government sent Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest to Chattanooga to organize a cavalry brigade. By July, Confederate cavalry under the command of Forrest and Col. John Hunt Morgan were raiding into Middle Tennessee and Kentucky. Perhaps the most dramatic of these cavalry raids was Forrest’s capture of the Union Murfreesboro garrison on July 13, 1862.

Forrest left Chattanooga on July 9 with two cavalry regiments and joined other units on the way, bringing the total force to about 1,400 men. The major objective was to strike Murfreesboro, an important Union supply center on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, at dawn on July 13. The Murfreesboro garrison was camped in three locations around town and included detachments from four units comprising infantry, cavalry, and artillery, under the command of Brig. Gen. Thomas T. Crittenden, who had just arrived on July 12. Between 4:15 and 4:30 a.m. on the morning of July 13, Forrest’s cavalry surprised the Union pickets on the Woodbury Pike, east of Murfreesboro, and quickly overran a Federal hospital and the camp of the 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment detachment. Additional Rebel troops attacked the camps of the other Union commands and the jail and courthouse. By late afternoon all of the Union units had surrendered to Forrest’s force. The Confederates destroyed much of the Union supplies and tore up railroad track in the area, but the main result of the raid was the diversion of Union forces from a drive on Chattanooga. This raid, along with Morgan’s raid into Kentucky, made possible Bragg’s concentration of forces at Chattanooga and his early September invasion of Kentucky.
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Nashville - December 15-16, 1864 - Davidson County

Thomas finally came out of his fortifications to attack on December 15. Before he did so, however, Hood made a terrible mistake. On December 5 he sent away most of his cavalry, commanded by the highly effective Nathan Bedford Forrest, to attack the Union garrison at Murfreesboro. By doing so, he further weakened his already weaker force. When the Union forces finally went into action on December 15, they had 49,000 men, compared to the Confederates' 31,000.

Thomas planned a two-phase attack on the Confederates. The first, but secondary, attack was to be on the Confederate right flank, by Steedman. The main attack would be on the enemy left, by Smith, Wood, and Brig. Gen. Edward Hatch (commanding a dismounted cavalry brigade). Steedman attacked at 6 a.m. and kept Cheatham on the Confederate right occupied for the rest of the day.

The main attack launched at dawn and wheeled left to a line parallel to the Hillsboro Pike. By noon, the main advance had reached the Pike and Wood prepared to assault the Confederate outposts on Montgomery Hill, near the center of the line. Hood became concerned about the threat on his left flank and ordered Lee to send reinforcements to Stewart. Wood's corps took Montgomery Hill in a gallant charge by Brig. Gen. Samuel Beatty's division.

At about 1 p.m., there was a salient in Hood's line at Stewart's front. Thomas ordered Wood to attack the salient, supported by Schofield and Wilson. By 1:30 p.m., Stuart's position along the Pike became untenable; the attacking force was overwhelming. Stewart's corps broke and began to retreat toward the Granny White Turnpike. However, Hood was able to regroup his men toward nightfall in preparation for the battle the next day. The Union cavalry under Wilson had been unable to put enough force on the turnpike to hamper the Confederate movement, due to many of its troopers participating as dismounted infantry in the assault. The exhausted Confederates dug in all night, awaiting the arrival of the Federals. The new line was in the Brentwood Hills, extending from Shy's Hill to Overton Hill, covering his two main routes of retreat—the Granny White Pike and the Franklin Pike. Hood moved troops from Cheatham on the right flank to reinforce his left.

The first day's fight had been a simple matter of the Union forces bringing overwhelming power and numbers to bear upon the Confederate forces. For example, when one strategic Confederate outpost manned by 148 soldiers and 4 cannons resisted more than expected, the Union calmly regrouped and attacked the outpost with 28 cannons and 7,000 soldiers.

It took most of the morning on December 16 for the Federals to move into position against Hood's new line. Once again, Thomas planned a two-phase attack, but concentrating on Hood's left. Schofield was to drive back Cheatham, and Wilson's cavalry was to swing to the rear to block the Franklin Pike, Hood's only remaining route of withdrawal. At noon, Wood and Steedman attacked Lee on Overton's Hill, but without success. On the left, Wilson's dismounted cavalry was exerting pressure on the line.

At 4 p.m., Cheatham, on Shy's Hill, was under assault from three sides and his corps broke and fled to the rear. Wood took this opportunity to renew his attack on Lee on Overton's Hill and this time the momentum was overwhelming. Darkness fell and heavy rain began. Hood collected his forces and withdrew to the south toward Franklin.
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Parker's Crossroads - December 31, 1862 - Henderson County

The Battle of Parker's Cross Roads was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on December 31, 1862 in Henderson County, Tennessee.

As Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's expedition into West Tennessee neared its conclusion, Union Brig. Gen. Jeremiah C. Sullivan, with the brigades of Col. Cyrus L. Dunham and Col. John W. Fuller, attempted to cut Forrest off from withdrawing across the Tennessee River. Dunham’s and Forrest’s march routes, on December 31, 1862, brought them into contact at Parker’s Cross Roads. Skirmishing began about 9:00 am, with Forrest taking an initial position along a wooded ridge northwest of Dunham at the intersection. Confederate artillery gained an early advantage. Dunham pulled his brigade back a half mile and redeployed, facing north. His Federals repelled frontal feints until attacked on both flanks and rear by Forrest’s mounted and dismounted troops. During a lull, Forrest sent Dunham a demand for an unconditional surrender. Dunham refused and was preparing for Forrest’s next onset when Fuller’s Union brigade arrived from the north and surprised the Confederates with an attack on their rear; Confederate security detachments had failed to warn of Fuller’s approach. "Charge 'em both ways," ordered Forrest. The Confederates briefly reversed front, repelled Fuller, then rushed past Dunham’s demoralized force and withdrew south to Lexington and then across the Tennessee River. Both sides claimed victory, but the Confederate claims appear to have more credence.
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Shiloh - April 6-7, 1862 - Hardin County

At 6:00 a.m. on April 6, 1862, Johnston's army was deployed for battle, straddling the Corinth Road. In fact, the army had spent the entire night bivouacking undetected in order of battle just two miles away from the Union camps. His approach and dawn assault achieved almost total strategic and tactical surprise. The Union army had virtually no patrols in place for early warning. Grant telegraphed to Halleck on the night of the 5th, "I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack (general one) being made upon us, but will be prepared should such a thing take place." Unfortunately for Grant, his preparedness was greatly overstated. Major General William T. Sherman, Grant's senior commander in the encampment, refused to believe that the Confederates were anywhere nearby; he discounted any possibility of an attack from the south, expecting that Johnston would eventually attack from the direction of Purdy, Tennessee, to the west. Sherman should have known something was up. Early that morning Major General Benjamin Prentiss had sent forward part of the 25th Missouri Infantry on a reconnaissance, and they became engaged with Confederate outposts at 5:15 a.m. The spirited fight that ensued did help a little to get Union troops better positioned, but the command of the Union army was figuratively asleep that morning.

Faulty planning on Johnston's part reduced the effectiveness of the attack. There were insufficient forces on the Confederate right to roll up the Union from that direction as planned. The corps of William J. Hardee and Braxton Bragg began the assault with their divisions in one long line. As these units advanced, they became intermingled and difficult to control. Corps commanders attacked in line without reserves. Beauregard, serving in the rear as second in command, ordered the corps of Leonidas Polk and John C. Breckenridge forward on the left and right of the line, diluting their effectiveness. The attack turned into a simple, but massive, frontal assault, with insufficient mass to break through.

The assault was nevertheless ferocious, and in its face, some of the many inexperienced Union soldiers of Grant's new army fled for safety to the Tennessee River. Others fought well, but were forced to withdraw under strong pressure and attempted to form new defensive lines. Major General John A. McClernand's division temporarily stabilized the position. Overall, however, Johnston's forces made steady progress until noon, rolling up Union positions one by one.

General Grant himself was downriver about ten miles on a gunboat at Savannah, Tennessee, that morning. He heard the sound of artillery fire and raced to the battlefield, arriving about 8:30 a.m. He worked frantically to bring up reinforcements that were nearby: Brigadier General William Nelson's division from across the river at the Landing; Lew Wallace's division from Savannah. These reserves did not arrive hastily however, due (perhaps) to decisions Wallace made.

Wallace's group had been left as reserves at a place called Stoney Lonesome to the rear of the Union line. Almost immediately after the appearance of the Confederates, Grant sent orders for Wallace to move his unit up to support Sherman, who was being hammered. Wallace later claimed there was ambiguity to Grant's order and he took a route different from the one Grant intended. Wallace arrived at the end of his march only to find that Sherman had been forced back, and was no longer where Wallace thought he was. Moreover, the battle line had moved so far that Wallace now found himself in the rear of the advancing Southern troops.

A messenger arrived with word that Grant was wondering where Wallace was, and why he had not arrived at Pittsburg Landing, where the Union was making its stand. Wallace was confused. He felt sure he could viably launch an attack from where he was and hit the Confederates in the rear. Nevertheless, he decided to turn his troops around and march back to Stoney Lonesome. For some reason, rather than realign his troops so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace chose to march the troops in a circle so that the original order was maintained, only facing in the other direction. Wallace marched back to Stoney Lonesome and then to Pittsburg Landing, not arriving at Grant's position until about 7 p.m., at a time when the fighting was practically over. Grant was not pleased.

Buell's army was still too far away to affect the action that morning.

Map of Shiloh Battle, afternoon of April 6, 1862Elsewhere, starting at about 9:00 a.m., about 2,500 men of the Union division commanded by Prentiss established and held a line, nicknamed the Hornet's Nest, along and within a sunken road. The Confederates assaulted the position for several hours rather than simply bypassing it; the latter course would have been a more sound tactical and strategic decision. The Confederates suffered heavy casualties during these assaults. The Union forces to the left and right of the Nest were forced back under the weight of the continued pressure and Prentiss' position became a salient in the line. Coordination among units in the Nest was poor and units withdrew based solely on their individual commanders' decisions. Regiments became disorganized and companies disintegrated. However, it was not until the attackers assembled 62 cannons to blast the line that they were able to surround the position and the Hornet's Nest fell after holding for seven hours. A large part of Prentiss' division was captured, but their sacrifice bought time for Grant to establish a final defense line near Pittsburg Landing.

On the Union right flank, resistance was stiff and Johnston's forces bogged down in a savage fight around Shiloh Church. Throughout the day, the Confederates repeatedly assaulted the Union right, which gave ground but did not break.

The Union survivors established a solid front around Pittsburg Landing, including a ring of over 50 cannons, and repulsed the last Confederate charge as dusk ended the first day of fighting. Naval guns from the river assisted the defense. The Confederates' plan had failed; they had pushed Grant to the river, but they had not forced him west into the swamps.

In another setback, Johnston was mortally wounded at about 2:30 p.m. while personally leading attacks on the Union left. He had sent his personal surgeon away to care for troops, and in the doctor's absence, he bled to death from a leg wound that didn't seem serious at first. This was an enormous loss for the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis and many in the army considered Albert Sidney Johnston to be the most effective general they had. (This was two months before Robert E. Lee emerged as the pre-eminent Confederate general.) Beauregard assumed command.

The evening of April 6 was a dispiriting end to the first day of one of the bloodiest battles in recorded history. In the Civil War, medics were not sent into the field to collect and treat wounded soldiers. Hence, many soldiers were abandoned to bleed to death, or in the case of Shiloh, be eaten alive by scavenging animals as a thunderstorm went through Pittsburg Landing. The desperate screams of soldiers could be heard in the Union and Confederate camps throught the night, an image whose bleakness foreshadowed the exhausted soldiers at the World War I battle of Passchendaele, collapsing in mud pits from illness and hyperfatigue. As the exhausted Confederate soldiers bedded down in the abandoned Union camps, Sherman encountered Grant under a tree, sheltering himself from the pouring rain, smoking one of his cigars, considering his losses and planning for the next day. Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

Grant had reason to be optimistic, for Don Carlos Buell's army had arrived that night, in time to turn the tide the next day.

April 7

Map of Shiloh Battle, April 7, 1862On April 7, 1862, the combined Union armies numbered 55,000 men. Beauregard had planned to continue the attack and drive Grant into the river, unaware that he was now outnumbered. Union forces started attacking at dawn; Grant and Buell launched their attacks separately and coordination occurred only down at the division level. Confederate lines stabilized around 9:00 a.m. By 10:00, the Union attack was occurring in concert along the entire line. The weight of the attack, which included the efforts of 25,000 fresh troops, was too much for the Confederates to withstand.

Realizing that he had lost the initiative, and that he was low on ammunition and food and with 15,000 of his men killed, wounded, or missing, Beauregard knew he could go no further. He withdrew beyond Shiloh Church, using Breckenridge as a covering force, and began marching back to Corinth. The exhausted Union soldiers did not pursue much past their original encampments. The battle was over.

Aftermath
On April 8, Grant sent Sherman south along the Corinth Road in pursuit of the retreating Confederates. Meeting resistance from the cavalry screen under Nathan Bedford Forrest, Sherman abandoned the pursuit.

In late April and May the Union advanced toward Corinth and captured it, while an amphibious force on the Mississippi was destroying the Confederate River Defense Fleet and capturing Memphis. From these bases Grant pushed on down the Mississippi to besiege Vicksburg. After the surrender of Vicksburg and the fall of Port Hudson in the summer of 1863, the Confederacy was cut in half.

The two-day battle of Shiloh, the costliest in U.S. history up to that time, resulted in the defeat of the Confederate army force and frustration of Johnston's plans to prevent the joining of the two Union armies in Tennessee. A total of 23,746 men were killed, wounded, captured, or missing, more than the American casualties of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War combined. The dead included the irreplaceable Albert Sidney Johnston; the highest ranking general on the Union's side killed was W.H.L. Wallace. Both sides were shocked at the carnage. Little did they know that three more years of such bloodshed remained in the war and that eight larger and bloodier battles were yet to come. Grant learned a valuable lesson on preparedness that (mostly) served him well for the rest of the war.
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Spring Hill - Novemeber 29, 1964 - Maury County

The Battle of Spring Hill was fought November 29, 1864, in Maury County, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War.

Spring Hill was the prelude to the Battle of Franklin. On the morning of November 29, 1864, following the inconclusive Battle of Columbia, Confederate General John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee marched from Columbia toward Spring Hill to separate major portions of Union forces from each other, hoping to defeat each in turn before they could unite and overwhelm him. Union Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's Army of the Cumberland was north of Spring Hill in Nashville, Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield’s Army of the Ohio was south in Pulaski.

Hood sent the corps of Lt. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham and Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart on the march north, leaving the corps of Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee on the southern bank of the Duck River at Columbia, facing a Union division under Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox across the river. Hood rode near the head of the column and hoped to catch Schofield by surprise.

Cavalry skirmishing between Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson’s Union cavalry and Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Confederate troopers continued throughout the day as the Confederates advanced. Forrest had executed a wide turning movement with 4,000 troopers that forced Wilson north to Hurt's Corner, preventing the Union horsemen from interfering with Hood's infantry advance. However, Wilson did manage to warn Schofield of Hood's advance and the Union trains—800 wagons—were sent north in the direction of Franklin.

While Hood’s infantry crossed the Duck River and converged on Spring Hill, Schofield sent troops to hold the crossroads there: Maj. Gen. David S. Stanley, commander of the IV Corps, with two divisions under Maj. Gen. George D. Wagner and Maj. Gen. Nathan Kimball. Starting at 4:00 p.m., close to sunset, the Federals repulsed infantry attacks launched by Cheatham's corps. The attacks failed for four reasons: poorly coordinated, piecemeal attacks by Cheatham; excellent Union defensive artillery support and a decision by Hood to leave most of his artillery pieces in the rear; mispositioning by Hood of Stewart's corps, left too far to the south at Rutherford Creek to support Cheatham until Hood released it after dark; and the failure of Forrest to arrive before dark.

By nightfall, the Confederates had finally positioned their corps where they could attack and severely damage Schofield's force, but they erred by allowing the Union army to maintain possession of the road and keep a route open for withdrawal. Believing the battle largely finished, Hood left command of the field to his most capable commander, Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne (the "Stonewall of the West"), after sending the order to attack Schofield. However, due to a communications failure of unknown cause, Cleburne never received the message, and never attacked. When Stewart arrived, his corps merely went into bivouac next to Cheatham and the soldiers of both corps cooked their supper and went to bed.

The result of miscommunication and simply bad military management was that during the night, all of Schofield’s command, including Cox, passed from Columbia through Spring Hill to Franklin while the Confederate army slept. By 6:00 a.m. on November 30, all of Schofield's army was north of Spring Hill and Hood was forced to resume his pursuit, setting up the Battle of Franklin that afternoon. This had been, perhaps, Hood’s best chance to isolate and defeat the Union army. The engagement has been described as "one of the most controversial non-fighting events of the entire war". A Texas lieutenant in Cleburne's division said afterwards, "The most charitable explanation is that the gods of war injected confusion into the heads of our leaders."
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Stones River - December 31, 1862 - January 3, 1863 - Rutherford County

The Battle of Stones River or Second Battle of Murfreesboro (in the South, simply the Battle of Murfreesboro), was fought from December 31, 1862, to January 3, 1863, in central Tennessee, as the culmination of the Stones River Campaign in the American Civil War. Of the major battles of the Civil War, Stones River had the highest percentage of casualties on both sides. Although the battle itself was tactically indecisive, the Union army's repulse of the Confederate attack was a much-needed boost to U.S. morale after the defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg and dashed Confederate aspirations for control of central Tennessee
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Thompson's Station - March 5, 1863 - Williamson County

The Battle of Thompson's Station was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on March 5, 1863 in Williamson County, Tennessee.

In a period of relative inactivity following the Battle of Stones River, a reinforced Union infantry brigade, under Col. John Coburn, left Franklin to reconnoiter south toward Columbia. Four miles from Spring Hill, Coburn attacked with his right wing, a Confederate Army force composed of two regiments; he was repelled. Then, Major General Earl Van Dorn seized the initiative. Brigadier General W.H. “Red” Jackson’s dismounted 2nd Division made a frontal attack, while Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s division swept around Coburn’s left flank, and into his rear. After three attempts, characterized by hard fighting, Jackson carried the Union hilltop position as Forrest captured Coburn’s wagon train and blocked the road to Columbia in his rear. Out of ammunition and surrounded, Coburn surrendered. Union influence in Middle Tennessee subsided for a while.
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Vaught's Hill - March 20, 1863 - Rutherford County

The Battle of Vaught's Hill was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on March 20, 1863 in Rutherford County, Tennessee.

During the inactivity following the Battle of Stones River, a Union brigade-sized reconnaissance force, under Col. Albert S. Hall, left Murfreesboro on March 18. Circling to the northeast, Hall encountered Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan’s cavalry command which caused him to fall back to a position east of Milton. Pursuing Hall, Morgan’s men caught up with him on the morning of the 20th, at Vaught’s Hill. Dismounted, Morgan struck at both Union flanks, even to the point of encircling Hall’s hilltop position. Hall conducted a perimeter defense and withstood all Confederate attacks, which lasted till after 2:00 pm. Morgan continued to bombard the Yankees until 4:30 pm, when he broke off the engagement, after learning that Union reinforcements were en route from Murfreesboro. Union forces continued to strengthen their position in Middle Tennessee
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I will update this page as soon as more information becomes available

rustycoinUT

[David@DixieMetalDetectors]

Excellent thread rustycoin! Well done, David