Blunders at Battle of Franklin Cost South 6 Generals

Fact #1: John Bell Hood sought to defeat John Schofield’s Union force at Franklin before they could unite with fresh troops around Nashville.

After taking Atlanta, Union general William Sherman turned east in his “March to the Sea.” In response, Confederate general John Bell Hood led the Army of Tennessee north out of Georgia and towards the supply and communications hub of Nashville, Tennessee, aiming to draw Sherman into a fruitless pursuit before swinging through Kentucky and joining Robert E. Lee in Virginia with a legion of new recruits and cartloads full of Yankee food and munitions. General John Schofield, commanding Sherman’s rearguard, parried Hood’s thrusts in a series of small engagements as both forces raced towards Nashville. Hood’s hopes for a decisive campaign lay on defeating Schofield before the Union general reached the city, where another 25,000 Federals under General George Thomas waited. Hood caught Schofield at Franklin on November 30, 1864, about twenty miles south of Nashville. As the sun began to set, Hood ordered an attack.