2023 American Battlefield trust annual conference here in franklin, tennessee. We really appreciate you all coming out here and being a part of this event. And our next speaker is going to talk specifically about the battle here at franklin, which is one of the most famous or infamous battles of the American Civil War, which took place in november of 1864. Many of you will be traveling out to franklin to check out that battlefield site over the next few days. Youll be out there with some great historians, including my boss, gary edelman, as well as Eric Jacobson, who is part of the battle of franklin trust. Eric runs the Historic Sites out there, places like carton, rip avila and of course, the carter house, where really was the epicenter of the battle there at franklin. So were excited to get you out to the battlefield. We know that this is some of your first times to be out here at franklin and at the American Battlefield trust annual conference. And weve done a lot of work with our partners out here. So to hit that 56,000 acre mark, we had to do a lot of work in places like franklin and nashville, parkers, crossroads and beyond. But our next speaker today is dr. Andrew bledsoe and Andrew Bledsoe received his ph. D. In history from Rice University in 2012 and teaches at Lee University in cleveland, tennessee is the author of citizen officers the union and confederate junior officer corps in the American Civil War that was published in 2015. And its a fantastic book. I can say that i have it on my shelf at home. And his latest books, latest book decisions at franklin, the 19 critical decisions that defined the battle is set to publish this may through the university of tennessee press. He has been a fellow at the u. S. Military academy at west point, the Civil War Institute at gettysburg college, the u. S. Army heritage and education center, Ulysses S Grant president ial library, and the Virginia Historical society. Were happy to welcome here him here to the American Battlefield trust 2023 annual conference drew. Well, hello and thank you. Thanks to the battlefield trust. Thanks to all of you for being here. And thanks for allowing an academic historian to serve as a kind of interloper among you and i really appreciate the opportunity. I teach afternoon classes and i understand how difficult it can be to try to stay alert and awake after lunch when you had a long day. So i will try to keep us going and try to keep us engaged a little bit here as we as we talk about the battle of franklin. All right. The night of november 30th and december 1st, 1864, must have seemed endless for the Union Confederate soldiers on the field at franklin, tennessee, with widespread confederate failure to break the union line and with the onset of darkness, the fiercest of the fighting began to wind down by 7 p. M. Sporadic musket fire continued until about 9 p. M. , when the moans and screams of the wounded and dying began to replace the popping of sharpshooters and the crackle of fires. The night turned cold and windy, adding to the misery of the injured on the field. When the eerie sound of music began to echo through the half light within the defensive work, some victorious Union Soldiers began singing the battle cry of freedom, the assault of general john bell, hoods army of tennessee of franklin came at a horrendous cost, including at least 6000 confederate casualties. Among the dead and wounded were some of the best among the union army. Im sorry. The army of tennessees officer corps, including patrick claiborne, john c brown, john adams, Hiram Granbury and others. A huge number of brigade commanders had become casualties as well, and also included among the dead and wounded were 68 fuel officers, including commanders of 55 regiments, 12 of them alone in claiborne division. It remains unclear whether hood comprehended the incredible loss of Senior Commanders in the afternoon assaults along with the obvious damage to his armys command structure. And yet it seems entirely certain that hood in the hours and days and weeks after franklin must have reflected on the sequence of actions and decisions that led his army to this valley of the shadow of death. And the key role that he and others played in charting that course towards ultimate disaster and thinking about the scene. On the night of that battle, the poet walked. Whitman comes to mind and he wrote in leaves of grass, the shadowy forms of men and horses looming large sized, flickering in the sky far, far out of reach, studied breaking out the eternal stars like whitmans anonymous army, huddled between beneath the pitiless stars. Franklins two opposing forces, one bloodied and near the breaking point, the other exhilarated but deeply anxious, awaited at dawn, an uncertainty about their future. These armies in the midst of a desperate effort to shift the momentum of the civil war in the western theater had come to the bloody slopes and dark streets of franklin in consequence of a series of decisions, choices made at various levels of leadership within the armys respective organizations, which were all intended to force a certain outcome in the face of fierce resistance and the complexity and difficulty intrinsic to war. In the 19th century, depending on which historians one chooses to read. The battle of franklin was an epic of heroism, heroism and sacrifice, a lurid tragedy of murderous incompetence, or the final poignant flicker of the confederate confederacy soon to be extinguished, military hopes. The history of the battle is also replete with distortion. Half truths, erroneous assumptions and more than a little postwar myth making all these narratives lend weight to the overall mystique of franklin, but at the cost of obscuring the true nature of the engagement, as well as its factual, actual history. In consequence, franklin invites us to take a crack at unraveling something closer to the essence of the whole episode. Military outcomes usually depend on the decisions and actions of military leaders. War is, after all, organized violence with some political object in mind and the choices and behaviors of the leaders of military organizations dictate the cause and consequences of war. Theres also, i think, important historical value to a thoughtful engagement with ideas like command generalship and the decision sions that inform these things. History is a story, of course, about people in the past only truly becomes legible to us when we start seeing those connections between decision and agency. The people who are making these choices and their experiences as consequence decisions illuminate an idea of contingency, which is a foundational but very complicated historical concept that considers things like options and decisions and outcomes, and certainly i think tries to push back against the idea that the past is predetermined, which i believe certainly that it is not necessarily predetermined. All right. So how do you arrive and unravel something as complicated as a civil war battle and the decisions that led to it . Well, im glad that you asked, although you didnt ask the way i approached the study and the idea of command decisions in war is through a methodology that is, interestingly enough, part of the methodology applied to a series in which i am publishing. Not coincidentally, the university of tennessees presses command decisions in the civil war series, which is at this point, 15 books and counting all of which apply a certain method methodology where we, as different authors attempt to look at the what happened of a battle in campaign and also why did it happen and what caused it to happen. And these are, i think, deceptively simple questions with very complicated, often answers. But these critical decisions that we try to look at in the series are decisions that had they not been made the way that they were made, or if a different decision had been reached, then the sequence of events of that particular operation, that battle, that Camp Campaign might have unfolded differently, resulting in a very different history, a very different past for us here in 2023. All right. I want to introduce you to my favorite of these books. This one, my. Yes decisions at franklin, which, of course, as chris pointed out, involves an analysis of 19 discrete, critical decisions, of which i promise we will not cover all 19 this afternoon. So fear not if youre starting to worry and look for the doorway out of here in fact, my purpose is not to assess the merits and faults of every possible decision that civil war commanders made in the franklin operation. That would be impossible. There are literally thousands of decisions that go into everyones day, including the days of civil war generals and commanders. Everything from what you had for breakfast this morning and or in the case of the confederates or the unions forces at franklin, where do i deploy this brigade or that division . And at what time and in what sequence . So thats not what we are, i think, here to do. I dont know that thats necessarily the best use of our time and mental energy. Also, i want to also point out and suggest that there can be a temptation, certainly for historians when looking at decisions of past actors to play monday morning quarterback and to engage in a kind of command performance, performance evaluation approach, which i also suggest is potentially problematic. Certainly the decisions that are made under pressure, under time constraints with limited information, 150, 260 years ago are sometimes very different than decisions that we might make with the safety and comfort of our easy chairs and armed with hindsight. So i think that certainly a measure of humility and even a measure of empathy are important when youre starting to do things like analyze critical command decisions in certainly when you begin to critique those decisions. So with that, rather lengthy wind up, youre probably wondering when is this guy going to talk about franklin . Well, lets talk about franklin. Lets jump in to what i humbly submit are just a very, very few, a small fraction of some of the critical decisions that helped shape the battle of franklin. November 30th, 1864. And here we see the first of what i think are these important, critical decisions. Davis retains good in command. All right. On paper at least, john bel hood looked like the right man for the job. Hoods rise to command was nothing short of meteoric, having begun at the regimental level and eventually Division Command in a Major General c in the army of Northern Virginia who had carved out a reputation for physical courage and aggressiveness in battle. Leading his texas brigade in a costly but overwhelming charge at jamess mill in 1862 and guiding his division in pivotal attacks at second, manassas and antietam the very same year he was wounded in the left arm at gettysburg in july 1863, and he returned to the field that september temporarily commanding an entire corps under James Longstreet during the confederate victory at chickamauga, it was at chickamauga that he had received his most devastating injury shot in the right leg. He had the leg amputated just below the hip. He recuperate from the wound in richmond and he was back in the field by the next spring and summer. Its a pretty remarkable turnaround if you think about it. During his recuperation time in the capital, who had struck up a fortuitous relationship of friendship even with the president of the confederacy, jefferson davis, along with Braxton Bragg, now somewhat disgraced, certainly, but now serving as the president s personal military adviser. Davis, who, of course, as you probably know greatly valued loyalty and he seemed to have seen the young hood as a loyal ally and a source of intelligence information. And on matters in the army of tennessee, which, of course, under joe johnson was experiencing some problems and controversies of its own by that time, fort hood, of course, traded very heavily on his reputation as a brave and aggressive combat leader. And one of the rising stars of the confederacy. All right. So these political and personal connections helped to pave the way for hoods promotion to Lieutenant General in 1864. Keep this in mind. Hood was only 32 years old when he returned to the war that spring. With that rank. And this time he was in georgia who had helped, of course, his own prospects for retaining army command by engaging in some, lets just say, extrajudicial politicking with the president while he was commanding a corps under joe johnston in the army of tennessee. Now, while considering hood as a possible replacement for the unpopular, at least in davis, his mind, joe johnston, who had reached out to im sorry, davis reached out to hoods old mentor, robert e lee for an opinion he wanted an assessment of john bel hood. And lee, of course, praised his proteges ability. But he was he did so very carefully and not without some ambiguous duty. And he famously lee famously told davis that, quote, hood is a bold fighter. Im doubtful as to other qualifications necessary, which is not exactly, i think, a ringing endorsement, something i wouldnt want on a letter of reference myself, i dont think. But case, despite these reservations, evans davis eventually is going to remove johnson from command in place, hood in charge and fortunately for the city of atlanta, it was too little, too late. Moreover, once hood was given command, once he assumed command of the army of tennessee, he quickly demonstrated his aggressive ness and attempted to counterpunch against William Sherman. Outside atlanta, at peachtree creek, at ezra church, jonesboro. And by the end of september, he had managed to reduce the army of tennessee greatly to around 40,000, effective at that point, with these losses from combat, from desertion, morale had dropped principally ously among hoods army, and atlanta was firmly at this point in enemy hands, who had somehow, through all this, managed to convince himself that it was the army of tennessees fault, that the army itself lacked nerve, particularly as he thought, when confronted with a wellentrenched enemy force behind bruce works. Although i would have wanted to ask him what army would not be intimidated by the situation in the civil war. Your case by september of 1864, who had had enough fumbles under his belt to sow some seeds of doubt, even in his staunchest allies mind . President davis, as well as engendering fierce criticism among the southern press, something that i think its important to remember is that the southern media, like the northern media, was critiquing constantly the performance of their generals in the field. And so media consideration are something that generals had to account for eventually, davis and hood held several conferences, one of them in particular in palmetto, georgia, planning next steps after the fall of atlanta and hoping, of course, to try to reverse the confederacys decline in fortunes. Davis in particular, had to consider every possible option that fall, including possibly even relieving hood of command and replacing him with yet another general. So its not just president lincoln who has trouble with his generals. Certainly, davis had tremendous difficulty, as we know, with the army of tennessee, who had had, of course, done exactly as expected, in fact, exactly as asked. That is behaving aggressively, focusing his energy upon attacking, upon trying to regain the initiative and seize the offensive. Back from sherman and the union army outside atlanta. But the problem was that this offensive mindedness, while it was consistent with his experience as a protege of lee and of Stonewall Jackson to a degree that had cost the army tremendously in heavy, heavily in men and materiel, and it had not achieved really any significant success. So any additional defeats of that kind from the fall of 64 on would likely be unsourced, attainable, and certainly losses would be largely irreplaceable given the confederacys inability to do so. So during this conference at palmetto, which took place in the late summer, early fall of 1864, hood proposed a new plan who had had an idea that he wanted to cut off shermans lines of communication into atlanta and try to switch over to what he thought of as an offensive, defensive posture rather than a merely defensive one. This appealed to davis in particular because it kept the possibility of recovering atlanta, at least alive. Theoretically, or at least promised that shermans own plans to continue invading into the confederate heartland might be disrupted. So the question that davis faced was whether hood was the man for the job. Now there are the here are some several options facing davis at the time. Obviously, the first and probably the most obvious one is that davis could retain hood in command of the army of tennessee. Just stay the course and hope that things turned around. Of course, davis and hood alike had to think about their critics, particularly their critics in the press and so they also needed to think about the best way forward that would indicate that they were concerned and aware of the problems that that came along with a guy like john bell who had in command one of the proposals that davis apparently broached to it was in putting a more senior general in place, a man like joe johnston, which, of course, to hood was at this point probably out of the question, but also pgti beauregard, who of course, a very Senior Commander with a great deal of experience, who could be given a role as a theater commander or a kind of babysitter or a supervisor, if you will, who could oversee operations in georgia and alabama and tennessee and could be drawn on for advice and for counsel, perhaps under this arrangement, hood would retain field command and execute his campaigns as he saw fit, while the theater commander, whoever that would be for. As you can see from the slide, we know who thats going to be here. The theater commander could advise and assist and help. Now, the problem, of course, is there are as twofold. There were very few candidates for that senior supervisory position available. Johnston was probably out of the question who had had just replaced him. The most senior Corps Commander in hoods army a