Columbia was a Civil War engagement fought in Tennessee, 1864. It was a Confederate victory.
Conflict near Columbia, during Hood's 1864 Tennessee invasion, 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.
Between November 24 and 29, 1864, a string of engagements unfolded in Maury County, Tennessee, forming part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign fought during the American Civil War. Known as the Battle of Columbia, this fighting marked the endpoint of Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's march with the Confederate Army of Tennessee, which had begun along the Tennessee River in northern Alabama and pushed forward to Columbia before crossing the Duck River. On the Union side, Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield's troops clashed with Forrest's cavalry, led by Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and constructed defenses along a line south of the town. These positions were held only briefly, however, as Schofield's men soon pulled back across the Duck River to the north, leaving Columbia in Confederate hands. Hood pressed onward with his Tennessee campaign from there, seeking to cut off Schofield's retreating force at Spring Hill.
After suffering a setback in the Atlanta campaign, Hood pinned his hopes on drawing Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman into a fight by cutting the rail link that supplied Sherman's forces between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Sherman gave chase for a short time, then abandoned the pursuit in favor of marching his army from Atlanta toward Savannah, Georgia, the campaign that became known as the March to the Sea. To hold Tennessee and handle Hood, he assigned Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, who led the Army of the Cumberland, along with two key formations: the IV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. David S. Stanley, and the XXIII Corps of the Army of the Ohio under Maj. Gen. John Schofield.
Hood's army pushed through the northern part of Alabama, and the corps commanded by Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee made the crossing of the Tennessee River near Florence between October 30 and November 2, while the rest of the force camped south of the river at Tuscumbia. Nearly three weeks passed there as supply officers struggled to assemble twenty days of rations for the campaign ahead. The task pro
On the morning of November 24, Confederate horsemen under Forrest pushed Capron's troopers back through Cox's defensive line south of Columbia and launched probing assaults meant to find a gap. That line ran across the Mount Pleasant Pike, now known as U.S. Route 43, just above Bigby Creek, then stretched eastward over the Pulaski Pike and into town before bending north toward the river. A day later, on November 25, an inner line went up as well, ringing nearly the whole residential quarter of Columbia. Confederate guns pounded these positions and several skirmishes flared, yet the Federal defenders soon recognized that the assault involved only one infantry division backed by dismounted horsemen. This told them Hood was simply staging a demonstration, his real aim being to slip across the Duck River above or below the town and sever Schofield's force from Thomas, who was still gathering the rest of his army at Nashville.
At daybreak on November 26, Schofield got word from Thomas directing him to keep control of the Duck River's north bank until A. J. Smith's reinforcements could arrive from Nashville. His plan called for shifting the wagon trains by day and moving the infantry after dark, relying on a railroad bridge along with a newly built pontoon span, but a downpour that day left the bridge approaches too muddy to use. By nightfall, most of the Army of Tennessee had reached the earthworks south of the town.
Two days later, on November 28, Forrest's cavalry crossed the river east of Columbia meeting almost no opposition, having successfully tricked Wilson into shifting his men to the northeast, well clear of the real crossing point. Around the same time, Hood kept the greater part of Lee's corps and nearly all his artillery positioned at Columbia, letting Schofield think a large assault on the town was imminent. In truth, he sent Cheatham's and Stewart's corps over the Duck River by way of a pontoon bridge laid at Davis's Ford.
No official casualty figures exist for the "Battle of Columbia," an engagement made up largely of demonstrations, artillery fire, and maneuvers that met almost no resistance. From there, Hood's army pushed past Schofield's position and marched north toward Spring Hill, seeking to cut off the Union force and wipe it out.
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