The Battle of Franklin
On the afternoon of Nov. 30, 1864, General John Bell Hood made a decision, despite the objections of Generals Cleburne, Cheatham and Forrest. He chose to march his Army of Tennessee down Winstead Hill to the south of Franklin, Tenn., and into battle.
As Union soldiers sang hymns, and Confederate bands played “Dixie,” Confederate infantrymen, exhausted, hungry and ill-clothed, charged the well-fortified Union line. The fighting was immediately brutal and savage. So much so, that the hours that followed were widely considered the bloodiest of the Civil War.
More soldiers from the Confederate Army alone were killed in those five hours than the Union Army lost in the Seven-Day Battle, or the Battle of Shiloh lasting three days. Yet only the enduring, twisted osage orange trees bear witness to the events that occurred there 140 years ago.
The Battle of Franklin remains that turning point in the war in the West that sealed the end of the Southern Confederacy, and out of which our country was reborn. Serious Civil War historians consider Franklin to be one of the most consequential battles of the war. And what once was written off as lost to development has become the nation’s largest public/private Civil War battlefield reclamation project ever attempted. Franklin’s Charge has achieved much, but much work still remains.
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