Spring Hill

On November 29, 1864, Confederate and Union troops clashed at Spring Hill, Tennessee, in an engagement that formed part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign during the American Civil War. Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood led his Army of Tennessee against Union forces under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield, who were withdrawing from Columbia and passing through Spring Hill on their way north. A string of failures among Confederate commanders, combined with capable leadership on the U.S. Army side, kept Hood's men from doing any real harm to Schofield's troops, and the Federals managed to slip through to Franklin under cover of darkness. Hood renewed the chase the following day, striking Schofield's fortified positions at Franklin, an assault that cost the Confederates heavily in casualties.

Background

After his setback in the Atlanta campaign, Hood aimed to draw Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman into a fight by severing the rail link that supplied

Battle

Forrest's horsemen came up the Mount Carmel Road toward Spring Hill, and around 11:30 a.m. they collided with pickets belonging to the IV Corps. Stanley, having pushed his men north with speed, arranged Wagner's division so that it shielded the village from three directions. Northwest of the settlement, Col. Emerson Opdycke's brigade guarded the massive wagon trains alongside Brig. Gen. Luther P. Bradley's brigade. Lane's men surged ahead and shoved back the dismounted troopers, most of whom belonged to Brig. Gen. Frank C. Armstrong's Mississippi brigade. A dispatch from Hood re

Aftermath

In casualty terms Spring Hill amounted to little, roughly 350 men lost on the Union side and 500 among the Confederates. Yet the real story of that night was one of confusion and poor generalship: while the Confederate command slept, Schofield's entire force, Cox included, slipped past them on the road running through Spring Hill from Columbia. Some soldiers noticed the army filing by, but nobody organized a real effort to seal off the pike. Brig. Gen. Lawrence S. Ross did try to stop the wagon trains with his cavalry brigade at Thompson's Station, north of town, but Federal infantry traveling with the trains pushed his men back. At two in the morning a private roused the commanding general to tell him Union troops were marching north, yet Hood's only response was to send word to Cheatham ordering fire on the passing column.

By six o'clock the next morning, November 30, Schofield had gotten his whole army safely beyond Spring Hill, and his leading elements were already at Franklin, throwing up breastworks on the town's southern edge. When Hood realized that morning that Schofield had gotten away, he called his subordinates together and, in a furious meeting, laid the blame on everyone but himself. He then pushed the army forward again in pursuit, a decision that led directly to the ruinous fighting at Franklin later that day.

Many have called Spring Hill Hood's best opportunity to cut off and crush the Federal army, though the historian Thomas L. Connelly cautions against overstating its significance, noting that Schofield actually had three other paths available toward Franklin or Nashville. Blame for the missed chance spread quickly afterward. Whispers arose that Brown had been drunk, though nothing ever proved it, and he went on to be elected governor of Tennessee. Hood himself pointed mainly at Cheatham, while also faulting two of his division commanders, Cleburne and Brown. In his official account he wrote that Cheatham had been ordered to attack at once and seize the pike, and that despite repeated and urgent instructions, he mounted only a weak, partial assault that never reached its objective. Later historians such as Connelly, Eric Jacobson, and Wiley Sword have spread responsibility between both Hood and Cheatham rather than settling on one man.

Speculation about what personally undid Hood that night has persisted among historians for decades. One recurring claim holds that he was impaired by laudanum taken that evening, used to dull the pain from riding long hours over rough, wet roads with his amputated leg. Eric Jacobson, in his book For Cause & for Country, catalogs the many writers who have repeated this claim, but concludes that no evidence exists showing Hood used any drug, or even alcohol, at Spring Hill.