Forty-Six Years in the Army by John McAllister Schofield (e ink ebook reader .txt) 📖

compelled us to retire to Nashville, and interposed his cavalry between Nashville and Murfreesboro' that night or early on December 1. Thus Thomas's remaining reinforcements from the south and east would have been cut off, and he might have been attacked in Nashville, not later than December 2, with several thousand fewer men than he finally had there, a large part of his army—A. J. Smith's three divisions —not fully ready for battle, and with fewer effective cavalry; while Hood would have had his whole army, fresh and spirited, without the losses and depression caused by its defeat at Franklin, ready to attack an inferior force at Nashville or to cross the Cumberland and invade Kentucky. In short, the day gained at Duck River and Spring Hill was indispensable to Thomas's success. The time gained by that "temerity" made success possible. The additional time and relative strength gained by Hood's disastrous repulse at Franklin made final success easy and certain. A retreat at any time before nine o'clock A. M. on the 29th would have led to substantially the same result as if begun at 2 A. M.

If the plan adopted and ordered early in the morning of November 29 had been carried out, by which the line of Duck River would have been abandoned in the middle of that day, the head of column from Spring Hill would have arrived at Franklin about midnight, expecting to cross the Harpeth without delay; but, under the conditions actually found to exist at Franklin, not much progress toward providing the means of crossing the Harpeth could have been made before daylight in the morning; therefore our condition for battle at Franklin would not have been materially different, in time or otherwise, from what it actually was. Hood's artillery, as well as his infantry, could have reached Spring Hill before daylight on the 30th, and would have had practically a clear road to Franklin; for the enemy's superior cavalry having been interposed between our cavalry and infantry, it was necessary for our infantry, artillery, and trains to retreat from Spring Hill to Franklin in one compact column. A small force could not have been left at Spring Hill, as had been suggested, to delay Hood's advance, because of the imminent danger that it would be attacked in flank and rear by the enemy's cavalry, and thus cut off and captured; hence Hood could have made his attack at Franklin about noon, instead of at 4:30 P. M., and with a large force of artillery as well as of infantry. Such an attack would, of course, have been far more formidable than that which was actually made; whether it could have been successfully resisted from noon until dark can only be conjectured. It is sufficient here to note that the delay of Hood's advance very greatly diminished the force of his attack at Franklin, besides making his arrival before that place so late that he could not turn that position that day by crossing the Harpeth above. The tenacity with which the crossing of Duck River at Columbia was held was well rewarded at Franklin.

THE ADVANTAGE OF CONTINUING THE RETREAT

The question has been raised whether we ought not to have held our position in front of Franklin after having repulsed Hood's attack and inflicted such heavy losses upon his troops. General Sherman himself impliedly made this suggestion when he expressed the opinion that Thomas ought to have turned on Hood after his repulse at Franklin; and General Jacob D. Cox, who had been in the thickest of the fight all the time, with high soldierly instinct sent me, by one of my staff officers, the suggestion that we stay there and finish the fight the next day. A fight to a finish, then and there, might quite probably have given us the prize. But the reasons for declining that tempting opportunity for complete victory will, I believe, seem perfectly clear when fully stated.

In anticipation of orders from General Thomas to fall back to Nashville that night, the trains had been ordered to the rear before the battle began, so as to clear the way for the march of our troops, and to render impossible any interference by the enemy's cavalry. Our ammunition had been well-nigh exhausted in the battle at Franklin, as is shown by my telegram to General Thomas to send a million rounds to Brentwood, thinking he might want me to hold Hood there until he could get A. J. Smith's troops in position and supplied with ammunition. If I had needed any such warning, that given me by the general in his despatch,( 3) "But you must look out that the enemy does not still persist," would have been sufficient to deter me from fighting him the next day with my "back to the river." Besides, it is not easy to estimate at midnight exactly the results of a desperate battle then just terminated. But all this is insignificant when compared with the controlling reason. I had then fully accomplished the object (and I could not then know how much more) for which the command in the field had for a time been intrusted to me. My junction with reinforcements at Nashville was assured, as also the future success of the army under my superior in command. Why run any further risk? If it had been possible for me, at that moment of supreme satisfaction, to have had any thought of self, I might perhaps have considered the project of turning upon my adversary at dawn the next morning, in hope of routing his dispirited army. But if any man thinks such a thought possible under such circumstances, he knows nothing about the character of a patriotic soldier. If the troops I then had at Franklin had been the sole reliance for ultimate success in the campaign, nothing could have been clearer than my duty to turn and strike with all my might at dawn the next day.

(A copy of all the correspondence between General Thomas and myself, with annotations showing the time of receipt of the several despatches from General Thomas, thereby showing their influence upon my actions, has been placed on file at the War Department. These copies of despatches, with annotations, are intended mainly for the military student who may care to make a close and critical study of such military operations. The original records of such correspondence are often worse than useless, for the reason that the exact time of sending and receipt of a despatch is so often omitted. All sent or received the same day are frequently printed in the records indiscriminately, so that the last if as likely to come first as otherwise; and, sometimes, historians have used despatches as if they had been received at the time they were sent, though in fact many hours or some days had elapsed. My annotations were made in 1882-3, at Black Point, San Francisco, California, with the assistance of my ever faithful and efficient aide, Colonel William M. Wherry, now lieutenant-colonel of the 2d United States Infantry, and were attached to the copies of the records in 1886.)

[( 1) War Records, Vol. XLV, part I, p. 1108.]

[( 2) War Records, Vol. XLV, part I, pp. 241 and 413. The loss at Franklin of Opdycke's six regiments was 205, while the 12th and 16th Kentucky regiments lost 106 men.]

[( 3) War Records, Vol. XLV, part I, p. 1171.]

CHAPTER XI The Correspondence with General Thomas previous to the Battle of Franklin—The Untenable Position at Pulaski—Available Troops which were not Sent to the Front—Correspondence with General Thomas— Instructions Usually Received too Late—Advantage of Delaying the Retreat from Duck River—No Serious Danger at Spring Hill—General Thomas Hoping that Hood might be Delayed for Three Days at Franklin.

I will now add to the foregoing sketch what seems to me necessary to a full understanding of the operations preceding and immediately following the battle of Franklin, referring briefly, as necessary to an exact understanding of some things that occurred, to the relation in which I stood to General Thomas. He was my senior by thirteen years as a graduate of the Military Academy, where I had known him well as my highly respected instructor. He had won high distinction in Mexico, and had been twice brevetted for gallant services in that war. He had seen far more service in the field than I had, and in much larger commands, though almost always under the immediate command of a superior—Buell, Rosecrans, and Sherman. Even in the Atlanta campaign, then recently ended, his command was nearly five times as large as mine. In 1864 he had already become a brigadier-general in the regular army, having risen to that rank by regular stages, while I was only a captain thirty-three years of age. It will also be necessary for the reader to realize that when I asked for and received orders to report with the Twenty- third Corps to General Thomas in Tennessee, I felt in the fullest degree all the deference and respect which were due to his seniority in years and rank and services.

When I went back to Tennessee my only anxiety respecting the situation, so far as General Thomas's personality affected it, was on account of his constitutional habit of very deliberate action. I was apprehensive that, in some emergency created by the action of the daring and reckless, though not over-talented, antagonist he would have to meet, General Thomas might not be able to determine and act quickly enough to save from defeat his army, then understood to be so far inferior to the enemy in numerical strength. I had far too high an opinion of his capacity as a general to doubt for a moment that with sufficient time in which to mature his plans to resist Hood's invasion and to execute those plans so far as was in his power, he would do all that the wisest generalship could suggest.

I will also refer to the official returns of that period, which show what troops General Thomas had elsewhere in his department and available for service, as well as the effective strength of the force then under my immediate command in the field, and that of General A. J. Smith's three divisions, which had been ordered from Missouri to join the forces of General Thomas. In his entire department, excluding the Fourth and Twenty-third Corps in the field, the infantry and artillery force, present for duty equipped, officers and men, November 20, 1864, amounted to 29,332; the two corps in the field, to 24,265; and A. J. Smith's corps, to about 10,000. The entire cavalry force, mounted and equipped, was about 4800; that unmounted, about 6700.

THE CORRESPONDENCE WITH GENERAL THOMAS

It is necessary to exclude from this statement of troops available for service in middle Tennessee those in Kentucky and East Tennessee, belonging to the Department of the Ohio, for the reason that just at that time unusual demand was made upon those troops for service in East Tennessee, where some of the State forces had met with disaster. This probably accounts in part for the discrepancies in General Sherman's estimates referred to later.

Hood's forces were then understood by General Thomas to consist of from 40,000 to 45,000 infantry and artillery, and 10,000 to 12,000 cavalry, including Forrest's command. I find from General Sherman's despatch to Thomas, dated October 19, that his estimate of Hood's strength, October 19, 1864, was about 40,000 men of all arms.

I do not find in General Thomas's report or despatches any exact statement of his own estimate; but the following language in his official report of January 20, 1865, seems quite sufficiently explicit on that point: "Two divisions of infantry, under Major- General A. J. Smith, were reported on their way to join me from Missouri, which, with several one-year regiments then arriving in the department, and detachments collected from points of minor importance, would swell my command, when concentrated, to an army nearly as large as that of the enemy. Had the enemy delayed his advance a week or ten days longer, I would have been ready to meet him at some point south of Duck River. . . . "

This must of course be accepted as