The Battle of Columbia was a series of military actions that took place November 24–29, 1864, in Maury County, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It concluded the movement of Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Confederate Army of Tennessee from the Tennessee River in northern Alabama to Columbia, Tennessee, and across the Duck River. A Union force under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield skirmished with Hood's cavalry, commanded by Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and fortified a defensive line south of Columbia, but soon withdrew north across the Duck River, abandoning the town. Hood's invasion of Tennessee continued as he attempted to intercept Schofield's retreating army at Spring Hill.
Following his defeat in the Atlanta campaign, Hood had hoped to lure Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman into battle by disrupting his supply lines from Chattanooga to Atlanta. After a brief period in which he pursued Hood, Sherman elected instead to conduct his March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. He left forces under the command of Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, the commander of the Army of the Cumberland, to defend Tennessee and defeat Hood: principally the IV Corps from the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by Maj. Gen. David S. Stanley, and the XXIII Corps from the Army of the Ohio, commanded by Maj. Gen. John Schofield.
Hood moved through northern Alabama and his corps under Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee crossed the Tennessee River at Florence from October 30 to November 2, with the remainder of his army encamped south of the river at Tuscumbia. He waited there for almost three weeks while his commissary officers attempted to provide 20 days' supply of rations for the upcoming campaign. This was a difficult assignment because the supply line was tenuous, requiring transport on two railroads, followed by 15 miles on poor roads to Tuscumbia, using wagons pulled by undernourished horses and oxen. Hood also wanted to wait for the arrival of Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was engaged in a cavalry raid against Thomas's supply lines, highlighted by his victory at the Battle of Johnsonville on November 4–5.
During the first week of November, raids by the 2nd Michigan Cavalry under Brig. Gen. John T. Croxton damaged the pontoon bridge that Hood had erected across the Tennessee River. After repairs were effected, Hood transferred his headquarters to Florence on the morning of November 13 and Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham's corps marched across the river that day with the army's supply trains and cattle following on November 14. The final corps, under Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart, crossed the Tennessee on November 20.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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