Franklin-Nashville Campaign

• General John Bell HoodDecatur, Columbia, Spring Hill, Franklin, Nashville
• Major General Nathan Bedford ForrestJohnsonville, Murfreesboro
• Major General Samuel G. FrenchAllatoona

• Brigadier General John M. CorseAllatoona
• Brigadier General Robert S. GrangerDecatur
• Colonel C.R. ThompsonJohnsonville
• Lieutenant Commander Edward M. KingJohnsonville
• Major General John M. SchofieldColumbia, Spring Hill, Franklin
• Major General Lovell H. RousseauMurfreesboro
• Brigadier General Robert MilroyMurfreesboro
• Major General George H. ThomasNashville

Fought between September 18 and December 27, 1864, across Alabama, Tennessee, and parts of northwestern Georgia, the Franklin-Nashville campaign (sometimes called Hood's Tennessee campaign) formed one chapter of the wider Western Theater fighting during the American Civil War.

Lieutenant General John B. Hood led the Confederate Army of Tennessee northward out of Atlanta, aiming to threaten both Middle Tennessee and the supply lines of Major General William T. Sherman. Sherman chased after Hood only briefly before turning back toward Atlanta to begin his March to the Sea, leaving the job of countering Hood to Union forces commanded by Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas.

Before Thomas and Maj. Gen. John Schofield could join forces, Hood sought to strike Schofield's army on its own. He made this attempt on Tuesday, November 29, at the Battle of Spring Hill, but disorganized Confederate assaults, paired with skillful leadership on the Union side, let Schofield slip away. The next day brought the Battle of Franklin, where Hood ordered repeated frontal attacks against Schofield's entrenched positions, all in vain, and his army paid dearly in casualties. Schofield then pulled his troops back and joined Thomas at Nashville, Tennessee. When Thomas's united force struck the weakened Confederates on December 15 and 16, the resulting Battle of Nashville ended in a rout, driving Hood's army into retreat toward Tupelo, Mississippi. Soon afterward, Hood stepped down from command, and the Army of Tennessee was left too shattered to function as a viable fighting force.

Union

When the campaign opened, command of the Military Division of the Mississippi rested with Sherman, who directed operations from Atlanta, though he remained personally engaged in the fighting only through the end of October. Beneath him stood the Army of the Cumberland, led by Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, known as the "Rock of Chickamauga," a force that had once answered to Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans. Once Sherman withdrew from the scene, Thomas emerged as the chief Union commander in the field. Under his authority served the Army of the Ohio, headed by Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield, numbering 34,000 troops. This army combined the IV Corps, led by Maj. Gen. David S. Stanley, with Brig. Gen. Jacob D. Cox's XXIII Corps and a Cavalry Corps under Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson. Beyond these forces, Thomas could also draw on another 26,000 men stationed at Nashville and dispersed throughout his department.

Confederate attacks on Sherman's supply line

The plan Hood pursued still bore fruit, since it compelled Sherman to spread his forces thin just to hold his communications open. Newspapers across the north seized on Hood's maneuvers, and the War Department watched with mounting unease. From Washington came pressure demanding that Sherman confront Hood directly. Yet Sherman had no wish to walk fully into whatever snare Hood had laid. His aim was to leave Thomas with enough troops to handle both Forrest and Hood, all while he finalized his own scheme to march toward Savannah.

Hood set his army in motion on September 29, crossing the Chattahoochee River and pushing northwest with some 40,000 troops, aiming to menace the Western & Atlantic Railroad that kept Sherman supplied. Two days later, on October 1, Union horsemen under Brig. Gens. Judson Kilpatrick and Kenner Garrard caught up with Hood's cavalry during a raid on the rail line near Marietta, though Sherman remained unsure exactly where Hood himself was. Over the following three weeks, tracking Hood proved a persistent struggle. Hood covered ground swiftly, kept his march hidden from view, and never surrendered the initiative. Compounding matters, the Union cavalry, a force Sherman had never bothered to train properly, struggled both to keep pace with Hood and to relay word of where he was heading.

On October 3, the same day Thomas reached Nashville, Stewart's corps seized Big Shanty, known today as Kennesaw, taking its 175-man garrison, and struck Acworth the next day, capturing 250 more. Sherman, leaving Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum behind in Atlanta, pushed toward Marietta with roughly 55,000 men. Meanwhile Hood divided his army, dispatching the bulk of it toward Dallas, Georgia, while the rest, a division led by Maj. Gen. Samuel G. French, followed the rail line in the direction of Allatoona.

Allatoona (October 5)

Colonel John Tourtellotte held Allatoona with only a partial brigade of Federal troops when the fighting there began. Sherman, anticipating the approach of the Southern division, had already dispatched Brig. Gen. John M. Corse with reinforcements, and Corse assumed overall command once the two brigades combined. The position itself was formidable: twin earthen redoubts flanked a railroad cut 180 feet wide and 65 feet deep, and many of the defenders, the entire 7th Illinois among them, carried Henry repeating rifles.

At dawn on Wednesday, October 5, Major General Samuel Gibbs French brought his division within striking distance of the town. His artillery pounded the Federal works for two hours before he sent word demanding that Corse surrender, an offer Corse turned down. French answered this refusal by sending his brigades forward, one striking from the north at the rear of the defenses while two others pressed in from the west. The heaviest fighting centered on the Star Fort, the main stronghold on the western side of the cut, where Corse's men held out through two grueling hours of assault. Though pinned in place, they got help when Tourtellotte pushed reinforcements over from the eastern fort. For a time it looked as though the Federal garrison could not avoid surrendering under such relentless pressure. Then, around noon, French's cavalry brought him an inaccurate account claiming that a sizable Union force was moving in from Acworth. Wary of this threat, French pulled his men back at two in the afternoon, though clearly against his own wishes. Small in scale as engagements go, the clash at Allatoona proved brutal, leaving behind casualty rates far out of proportion to its size.

Aftermath

Hood chose to fault his officers and enlisted men for the catastrophe of his campaign, yet this did nothing to salvage his own prospects; he never held another field command again. Withdrawing his army to Tupelo, Mississippi, he stepped down from command on January 13, 1865. Forrest, for his part, made his way back to Mississippi, only to be pushed into Alabama by James H. Wilson during 1865, a blow that left his once-formidable command scattered and largely useless.

Meanwhile, as Hood's forces crumbled at Nashville, Sherman's troops were closing in on Savannah, taking the city just days before Christmas arrived. Later, five thousand troops drawn from the Army of Tennessee were sent into South Carolina under Joseph E. Johnston to oppose Sherman as part of the Carolinas campaign, an effort that ultimately failed to change the outcome.