Battlefield because he was born in a hospital that sits on the battlefield grounds. This is a man who is deeply rooted in that part. He also has a passion for parks that reach beyond the boundaries of his daily work life. He is finishing up work on a book for the emerging civil war series. Earlier this afternoon, davis talked about the rise of John Bell Hood and we will talk about the beginning of the fall of that very same army. Ladies and gentlemen, mr. Lee white. [applause] mr. White i have a special connection there and it is one of the reasons why i tell that story. I became familiar with general patrick cleburne. My first really big civil war biography was on patrick cleburne. His story is set in franklin. I have been interested in it ever since one of the top experiences of my life is when i went to franklin for the 150th on the actual date, november 30, 2014, and i was there and i found out that there was a commemorative march. Hold on a minute. This picture is at the end. Those of you who know ed, it was truly an amazing experience. I have seen him many times. Following him literally, watching him outpace men half his age, so much younger than him, it was a truly amazing experience. One of the things i have always been real keen on was the soldiers, the common soldier. I think franklin plays that out. Chickamauga is said to be a soldiers battle. The soldiers suffer at franklin a great deal. This painting illustrates the army of tennessee as they would have appeared in the fall of 1864 when this Campaign Kicks off. Another thing, we are talking about a battle toward the end of the war. We are talking about a battle in middle tennessee. Why should that interest many of you around here . The rest of the story, so to speak. These are all commanders who will be at franklin who all have connections with this area of virginia. Featherstone, general kimball who fought jackson in the valley. Brigade commander. You have james wilson, whose last stints in the shenandoah valley. We have one of the confederate generals who died in franklin. A brandnew regiment. Still bringing in troops that late in the war. A few miles west of here cedar mountain, he is one of the soldiers there. He is a member of the seventh ohio. Old allegany johnson. Goes off to the prisoner of war camp. When he is released, he is transferred to the army of tennessee. This is the rest of the story, so to speak, with some of the local connections in northern virginia. When you really study franklin, John Bell Hood and his coming into command, franklin is a tragic episode for his army, but also for him. Hood tried, he really did, in some ways, just a guy way over his head. Some of it is his own making and some of it is the army he commanded. Backstabbing, backbiting, these guys spend more time fighting amongst themselves than they do fighting the other side. General hood should have known this. He expects the army to work like lees army does. He said he was a man of the lee and jackson school. Trying to do these flank attacks, tries to pull these things off but he cannot do it. Another thing with hood, his army is unwieldy. When he starts the Tennessee Campaign after the fall of atlanta, he does not have any veteran war commanders. Stewart is his senior Corps Commander and has been in command since june. This thing kicks off in september. As the campaign opens in september, he has Frank Cheetham commanding. After the fall of atlanta, he says, either he goes or i go. Jefferson davis steps in and transfers hardy out of the army. The armys high command is new and it is suffering from within on the lower levels. The Atlanta Campaign had seen a slow bleeding of the army of tennessees junior officers. The war was changing, just as it was changing in georgia, too. They marched out of dalton, georgia, preparing to fight the war the way they had been fighting. Trench warfare is coming in. Sharpshooters. Repeating weapons. These are starting to change the face of the war. By the end of may, 1864, the soldiers would not have recognized the war the year before, it has changed so dramatically. Hood having to deal with this changing mode of warfare, he now has to contend with new officers who are not gelling together either. The bad luck the army of tennessee has. That is what a lot of this comes down to. They just have bad lot. I make the analogy that the army of tennessee is kind of like the Charlie Brown army of the civil war. Every time they think they are going to kick the football, the football gets yanked out from under them. John mcallister schofield i am not a big fan of John Schofield. He is a selfserving little guy. Even with the battle of franklin, he is not so much the guy in charge of the army. He brings it there and he is worried about trying to get it out of franklin. General jacob coxe will actually do the defense. David stanley. This was about we will not spend a whole lot of time with schofield. We will talk about him here. We have the men who will fight this. Example of the western federal troops that herdsman will be facing and the men that hoods men will be facing. This common soldier is one of the things that interests me. Often times around july 3, on the internet, facebook, you see a lot brought up about the intruder in the dust, being the little boy on july 3. Mine is on november 30, on the afternoon waiting for the army of tennessees great attack. Wonderful painting here showing the fighting. It was a horrific fight. Lots of tragedy and drama and it all plays out as some of the worst fighting in the war. Hood suffers just under 7000 casualties. The key thing, of that number, 28 are dead. Gettysburg, closer to 20 . 20 more men die as a result of the battle of franklin then died at shiloh. You end up with 702 men captured. Hood moved into the fight with not his whole army. Against almost equal numbers in the union army. The u. S. Loss is over 2500. It is pretty onesided. The union army does not get out of it completely scotfree. What is also staggering, the number of officer casualties. This becomes a full on gushing wound. 55 regimental commanders are casualties in this battle, not including general patrick cleburne. It is truly a devastating fight. Today, there is not much left of it. There has been some extraordinary preservation efforts centering around the carter house. That becomes the heart and soul of the story. The family who finds their home on the fullscale view of an attack. This is looking across the ground at which the attack occurred. Looking from some of the union fortification lines. Franklin is a sad story in a lot of ways because such a dramatic story, although great efforts there, Still Development going on. What remains behind, some of the haunted reminders of the battle. One of the most bullets marked buildings in north america. You can still see the bullet holes, still visible there today. This is the dead of the battle of franklin buried on the plantation, visible in the distance. The attack moved over it all starts out as the result of a Long Campaign that has really not gotten much attention. Hood had to get from atlanta to franklin and it did not happen simply. It starts out, his initial plan, he will strike at the railroad. Sherman had this fascination on destroying southern railroads. Now it is hoods turn. Striking at the railroad, trying to draw sherman northward. His whole idea, he will get hood to give up atlanta by following him north into the mountains of georgia. He can let sherman attacked him and beat sherman in north georgia. That does not really happen. So then, he will move his army into northern alabama. A plan to strike into middle tennessee. To draw sherman, cause sherman to give up. He is going to eventually move over, developing another plan. When this is all going on, hood goes to alabama and sherman throws his hands up in the air. He throws his hands up and goes to atlanta and then starts moving on savannah. Two armies turned their backs on one another and go in opposite directions. But he did not completely leave hood alone. He sent George Thomas to nashville to gather a force to deal with hood. But that will take time, and time becomes a factor. If hood can cross the river, that could cause some real trouble. Grant and sherman express a good deal of concern about what is going on. Sherman also detaches two corps from his army. They end up in pulaski, tennessee. The birthplace of the ku klux klan after the war. That is where hood strikes across the river to drive off schofield. He has this reputation of being a guy, John Bell Hood is not tactically innovative. There is only one frontal attack that John Bell Hood ever orders as an Army Commander franklin. Most of his moves are trying to do flanking maneuvers. Schofield gets wind of it. There is a race to columbia, tennessee, and schofield gets in town just ahead of hood. Hood will then flank columbia, trying to hit the little town of spring hill, tennessee. Hood, his army gets there and all he needs to do is pull the trigger, but something happens. This gives a little bit more clarification. One of the people at fault is general Frank Cheetham. He says, i dont do night attacks. Only had to do was push his men across a few yards and it could have blocked schofield and history mightve been a little different. That leads everything to the evening of november 29. It ends with such Great Potential for hood. His men have the opportunity by 4 00, all they have to do is manage to get one division across the columbia turnpike, only a few hundred yards away most of one division out of the whole army and none of it happens. It is a huge bumbled mess. The union army slips right past. The confederates never push across. Some commanders pleaded to let them push on and it does not happen. The next morning, how do you think John Bell Hood feels . He would later write in his memoirs, the best move of my career as a soldier came and knocked. Came to naught. The next morning, he has a breakfast meeting. That is the one thing about this late in the war, sometimes we do not have the records that give us these answers. When sam hood found these papers, it was such a great thing because they helped us understand. There is still so much we do not know. We do not know who was at this meeting. Another little myth about John Bell Hood was that he was addicted to opium. There is no period evidence that hood was taking opiates. Hear, hear. [laughter] mr. White one little story becomes accepted fact. Anyway, he begins marching northward. He thinks John Schofield will march on. He will march all the way into nashville. He is gripping at this. That is why he will be absolutely stunned, and a little bit elated when he gets to franklin. He sees that schofield is still there. Schofield wants to get back to safety. When he gets to franklin, the river has risen in all of the bridges are washed out. His army is stuck until his engineers can get his army across. He does not think hood is going to attack him but he will order general jacob coxe to prepare the defense of the town. He will have a little bit to work with. There were some preexisting fortifications on the south side of town but his men were veterans of that Atlanta Campaign. It is wonderful to read how creative they are. They take all of the pews out of the chapel and start throwing dirt on top of them. They are taking parts of the Railroad Ties and adding them for fortification. He will have two natural advantages as well. On the eastern side of the battlefield, this area, some Property Owners have put up a natural barrier, osage orange. How would you describe osage orange . [inaudible] mr. White it is a nasty, thick prickly they will align their line along that. A few feet in front of them. They will cut it in half. They will take the tops of it and lay it out, intertwining the branches together. They will have that advantage. On the other side, right in front of the works, they will do the same thing with it, leaving the natural barrier there. These are going to play out pretty devastating, have pretty devastating results. Franklin had seen the presence of the union army before hand. There is a fort. It had not been in use since 1863. It will also play out devastating results as the confederates attacked. The natural barrier of the river, franklin is nestled in this bend through the river. Hood will form his army down here. The ground will funnel his army in together. They will be condensed as they move in and that will play all sorts of problems with command and control and the unit will stack up and become a mob. This is the terrain itself. Hood will arrive on the scene in the early afternoon of november 30 and the union rearguard will fall back. That was general george wagner. He will pull his men across the valley to a point about half a mile from the main union line where he will stop and ordered his men to halt. Two of his brigades do. His main brigade has been carrying the big load of the rearguard. We have been covering this, they marched all night from spring hill. His men did not have breakfast. He tells wagner to take a flying leap. He will move his troops all through the mainline and form them back here. An act of insubordination. He and wagner screaming at each other. Think about that as far as getting away with that with a commanding officer. He will play a pretty big role in things coming up. Once the rearguard looks over the hill in the field, they decide to we will make the fight. He will meet with his commanders and tell them what they are going to do and they do not like it. It does not look promising. Hood sees this is the last chance he has. If they get to franklin, they get to nashville and there is no getting them. This will be a hail mary pass. It will be a frontal assault and hood will launch it with less than an hour of daylight. He may be looking back to his earlier career when a similar situation near richmond, that is where he earned his reputation. A lot of similarities. But it worked and he has been trying these flanking maneuvers. The semiinfamous confederate calvary men will urge another flank maneuver. Lets go straight up the middle. What will play out is he only has two of his corps with him. Ap stewarts corps and Frank Cheethams corps and they are going to deploy. Stewart will deploy down here. Cheetham will deploy here. The plan is to hit them in the center and try to break the line, try to drive the army into the river. So thats what you are going to have happening basically hood states about this, the country around franklin is open and exposed to the full view of the federal army. I cannot mask the movement of my troops so the out of flank of the enemy and if i attempt it he will withdraw and precede me into nashville. While his immediate center is very strong his flight is we. His flanks are weak. He is also trying to overrun the flanks of the army. He states that stewarts core will attack that side, cleburne and she them will attack the center and move the division northward before cleburne and brown in order to attack concurrently with them. Thats basically what will happen. Generals go back and have meetings with their commanders and explain what will happen. He said give orders to your men not to in your front then press them and shoot them in the back while running to the mainline and fix your bayonets charge and breach the enemys line at all hazards. Cleburne looks at it and says general i will take those works or fall in the attempt. He is fatalistic in this campaign. At this point it is starting to really happen, sees the war effort falling apart. He stated in an earlier speech that said this cause that is so dear to may fall. That afternoon they start getting ready for the attack, soldiers, the union Center Writing back to family noted, brother john is a few steps away , far to the south i hear a band. Looking around i see willie crying and told he just received word of the dying of his only daughter by smallpox. I hear captain are saying to lieutenant, you think the war will be with us today . The lord will be with us today . Silently i said a prayer. Some of the boys check hands with our captain. The air is hazy and i see a few rebels being deployed in the line of battle in the far distance. It is 3 30 p. M. , 30 minutes before the attack again. The Union Soldiers dont believe this is happening. But it has happened. The confederates form up and they are having the same type of reaction. Some are shaking hands and going to their chaplain, even in some cases, sharpshooters that the army of tennessee had, they are supposed to operate at a distance and even they start showing up, to go into this attack. There is a fatalism that has settled over the Confederate Army not only cleburnes fall, they know their cause is lost. Many of them are willing to go down fighting. One of the heating units the missouri brigade, kind of like marilyn stewarts troops, and the missourians were seen as orphans sense missouri was seen as a border state. They had a large number of st. Louis irish and the soldiers are trying to break the heavy tension, one of this. One pops up. England expects every man to do his duty today. One of the irishman says dam fine little duty that england will get out of this irish crowd. And the last laugh was raised long and hardy. Prospects dont look good. As the meeting breaks up, general daniel who commands the arkansas brigade says well general, there are few of us boys going to get back to arkansas after this and claver cleburne looks at him and says, if we are to god, let us die like men. Die, let us die like men. And they ride down and start deploying at 4 00 the attack against and they step off the missouri brigade right shoulder shift arms, brigade forward, guide to center, quick time march. One soldier will note that their brass bands go into attack with them, saying it was an unusual thing for the toot to goe and charger with the shooters. They keep up for most of the way. Playing dixie. The army starts off moving in this grand pageant. The flags are flying. This army has lost so many men that the units are now very small and they start going across the field. Franklin is said to be pickets charge of the west. They were both attacks and they didnt work. They lead to legends and that is how this is. But they are covering two miles of open ground. It is not fla