After the Battle of Franklin--The Arrival at Nashville--General
Thomas's Greeting--A Refreshing Sleep--Services of the Cavalry
Corps and the Fourth Army Corps--Hood's Mistake after Crossing Duck
River--An Incident of the Atlanta Campaign Bearing on Hood's
Character--An Embarrassing Method of Transmitting Messages in Cipher
--The Aggressive Policy of the South.
Early the next morning (December 1), after receiving at Brentwood
oral orders from General Thomas to continue the retreat to Nashville,
I lay on the ground until the main body of the troops had passed
and I had learned from the cavalry and from the infantry rear-guard
that nothing could occur in the rear which would require my attention.
I then rode forward and reported to General Thomas, whom I found
waiting for me at the place he had selected for the Twenty-third
Corps in the defensive line about Nashville. He greeted me in his
usual cordial but undemonstrative way, congratulated me, and said
I had done "well." I have often thought that I may not have shown
due appreciation of his kindness at that moment, for I did not then
feel very grateful to him; but he gave no indication that he
thought me unappreciative of his approbation. On the contrary, he
said in the kindest manner that I appeared "tired." To which I
replied, "Yes, I am very tired." That was about all the conversation
we had that day.
AFTER THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN
As soon as I saw that my troops were moving into the position he
had indicated to the division commanders before my arrival, I rode
to the hotel in Nashville, went to bed, and slept from about noon
of the 1st, without awakening to full consciousness, until about
sunset the next day. I only hope my weary soldiers enjoyed their
rest as much as I did mine, for they must have needed it even more.
When I awoke after that thoroughly refreshing sleep the annoyance
I had felt on account of the embarrassments experienced during the
retreat was replaced by reflections of a much more satisfactory
character. From that time forward my relations with General Thomas
were of the same cordial character as they always had been; and I
was much gratified by the flattering indorsement he placed on my
official report, of which I then knew the substance, if not the
exact words.
The Fourth Army Corps and the cavalry corps of the Military Division
of the Mississippi having been under my command during only the
few days occupied in the operations between Pulaski and Nashville
(November 14 to December 1), no reports of the operations of those
two corps were ever made to me after the close of that brief period.
Hence it was not possible for me to give any full account of the
distinguished services of those two corps. The cavalry were never
seen by me. They were far in front or on the flank, doing all the
"seeing" for me, giving me information of vital importance in
respect to the enemy's movements. How important that information
was then regarded may be learned by a perusal of the despatches to
and from General Thomas during those days of anxious uncertainty
as to the enemy's plans. I believe no cavalry ever performed that
important service more efficiently. At no time in that short
campaign did I suffer any inconvenience from lack of information
that cavalry could possibly give. If it is true that the operations
of our cavalry were to some extent influenced by apprehension of
a cavalry raid on Nashville or other vital point in our rear, that
was only what General Thomas had been apprehending all the time,
and to meet with which he had assembled eight thousand troops in
Nashville, perhaps not informing the commander of his own cavalry
of that fact quite as early as he might have done.( 1)
In fact, the redoubtable Forrest had become famous, and his troopers
were esteemed a very large factor in the problem then undergoing
solution--greater in some respects, as I have pointed out, than
the events justified. In my report of the battle of Franklin I
gave all the information in my possession of the gallant action of
our cavalry in driving that of the enemy back across the Harpeth
at the very time when his infantry assault was decisively repulsed.
I have always regarded it as a very remarkable, and to me a very
fortunate, circumstance that the movements of my infantry columns
were at no time seriously interfered with by the enemy's more
numerous cavalry--not even at Spring Hill, where Stanley was attacked
by cavalry as well as infantry. Hence I have had no inclination
to make any investigation respecting the details of the action of
troops, only temporarily under my command, whose gallant conduct
and untiring vigilance contributed all that was needed to the
complete success of the military operations intrusted to my immediate
direction by our common superior, the department commander. I have
now, as always heretofore, only words of highest praise for the
services of the cavalry corps under my command.
The Fourth Corps was under my own eye nearly all the time; and
sometimes, in emergencies, I even gave orders directly to the
subordinate commanders, without the formality of sending them
through the corps commander. Hence I have spoken of that corps
with the same freedom as of my own Twenty-third; and I hope I have
not failed to give, so far as the very restricted scope of my
account would permit, full justice to that noble corps of veteran
soldiers, as well as to its officers. As I have had special occasion
to say of the action of Opdycke's brigade and of the 12th and 16th
Kentucky of the Twenty-third Corps at Franklin, the conduct of
those troops was beyond all praise.
HOOD'S MISTAKE AFTER CROSSING DUCK RIVER
I believe little disputes always arise out of the honorable rivalry
which exists between bodies of troops acting together in a great
battle. Franklin was no exception to that general rule. For the
purpose of "pouring oil on the troubled waters" after Franklin, I
said that in my opinion there was glory enough won in that battle
to satisfy the reasonable ambition of everybody who was on the
field, and of some who were not there, but who were at first given
"the lion's share"; but if the disputants were not satisfied with
that, they might take whatever share of credit was supposed to be
due to me, and divide it among themselves. I was then, as I am
now, perfectly satisfied with the sense of triumph which filled my
soul when I saw my heroic comrades hurl back the hosts of rebellion
with slaughter which to some might seem dreadful, but which I
rejoiced in as being necessary to end that fratricidal war. It is
not worth while to conceal the fact that most earnest patriotism
sometimes arouses in the soldier's breast what might seem to be a
fiendish desire to witness the slaughter of his country's enemies.
Only a soldier of fortune or a hireling can be a stranger to such
feelings. Yet I aver that I had not the slightest feeling of
personal enmity toward my old friend and classmate General Hood,
or his comrades. It was the "accursed politicians" who had led
them into such a fratricidal strife who were the objects of our
maledictions. But even that feeling has been softened by time,
and by reflection upon the deeper and more remote causes of the
war, and that the glorious fruits of final victory have amply
repaid, and will continue to repay in all time, for all those
immense sacrifices and sufferings.
Hood undoubtedly made a mistake in his plan of operations after he
crossed Duck River above Columbia on the night of November 28-9.
His march on Spring Hill would have been the best _if it had
succeeded_. But he failed to estimate accurately what he could
accomplish in a short winter day over a very bad road. In a long
day of summer, with that road in the usual summer condition, he
might have reached Spring Hill early in the afternoon, with force
enough to accomplish his purpose before night, if he had found a
single division, or even two divisions, there. But he failed simply
because he tried to do what was not possible.
When Hood crossed the river he was not more than five miles (his
own journal says three) from the left flank of my position on the
north bank. The intervening space was open fields, not much, if
any, more difficult for the march of infantry than the dirt road
he actually used. If he had moved directly upon my flank, he could
have brought on a general engagement about noon, with a force at
least equal to mine. In anticipation of such a movement, I sent
a brigade toward Huey's Mill to watch Hood's movements, and formed
line of battle facing in that direction and covering the turnpike
to Spring Hill, for which purpose I detained one of the two divisions
of Stanley's corps which, at first, had been ordered to Spring
Hill. I was willing to fight Hood in that position, and expected
to do so. But I felt relieved when I found he had undertaken the
much more difficult task of marching to Spring Hill, where I believed
sufficient preparations had been made to oppose him until I could
reach that place by a broad macadamized road over which I could
march rapidly by day or by night.
I now believe my judgment at that time was correct: That what I
had most to apprehend was not an attempt to get in my rear at Spring
Hill, but one to dislodge me from my position on Duck River by
defeating me in open battle. But I believed I could fight Hood,
even where I was, from noon until dark, and then retreat to Spring
Hill or Franklin in the night. At least I was willing to try it
rather than disappoint the expectation of General Thomas that I
would hold Hood in check until he could concentrate his reinforcements.
It seems to me clear that Hood's best chance at Duck River was to
force a general engagement as early in the day as possible, so as
to occupy the attention of all my infantry while his superior
cavalry was sent to occupy some point in my rear, and try to cut
off my retreat in the night. Perhaps Hood did not appreciate the
very great advantage a retreating army has in the exclusive use of
the best roads at night, especially when the nights are long and
the days correspondingly short--an advantage which cannot be overcome
by any superiority of numbers in the pursuing force, except by a
rapid circuitous march of a detachment.
HOOD'S MISTAKE AFTER CROSSING DUCK RIVER
As illustrating my accurate knowledge of Hood's character before
we ever met in battle, the following incident seems worthy of
mention. When Sherman's army, after crossing the Chattahoochee
River, was advancing on Atlanta,--my troops being in the center,--
General Sherman was on the main road, a little in rear of me. My
advance-guard sent back to me an Atlanta paper containing an account
of the visit of President Davis, and the order relieving General
Johnston and assigning General Hood to the command of the army.
General Sherman erroneously says one of General Thomas's staff
officers brought him that paper. General Thomas was then off to
the right, on another road. I stopped until Sherman came up, and
handed him the paper. After reading it he said, in nearly, if not
exactly, the following words: "Schofield, do you know Hood? What
sort of a fellow is he?" I answered: "Yes, I know him well, and
I will tell you the sort of man he is. He'll hit you like h--l,
now, before you know it." Soon afterward, as well described by
Sherman, the sound of battle to our right gave indication of the
heavy attack Hood's troops made upon Thomas's advancing columns
that day, which failed of serious results, as I believe all now
admit, mainly if not entirely because Thomas himself was near the
head of the column which received the first blow. Soon after, a
still more heavy attack was made on the Army of the Tennessee, our
extreme left, which resulted in one of the severest and most closely
contested battles of the war, and in which the knightly McPherson
was killed.
METHOD OF TRANSMITTING MESSAGES IN CIPHER
Under the system enforced by the War Department in 1864-5, the
commanders of troops in the field were compelled to communicate
with each other either in plain language which the enemy could read
if a despatch fell into his hands, or else in a cipher which neither
of the commanders nor any of their staff officers could decipher.
They were made absolutely dependent upon the cipher-operators of
the telegraph corps. Of course all this cipher correspondence
between commanding generals was promptly transmitted to the War
Department, so that the Secretary could know what was going on as
well as anybody. Whatever may have been the object of this, perhaps
not difficult to conjecture, its effect was to make rapid correspondence
in cipher impossible when rapidity was most important and secrecy
most necessary. In previous years I and one at least of my staff
officers were always familiar with the cipher code, so that we
could together, as a rule, quickly unravel a knotty telegram.
Indeed, I once had to decipher a despatch to which I had no key,
except I knew from internal evidence that it must be under the War
Department code, though written in a different key. It was a
despatch from Grant, who was then besieging Vicksburg. It had been
sent to Memphis by steamer, and thence by telegraph to St. Louis,
the place from which Grant's army drew its supplies. A cipher
despatch sent under the circumstances from Grant to me, who was
not at that time under his command, must necessarily be of great
importance. My staff officer at once informed me that it was in
some key different from that we had in use. So I took the thing
in hand myself, and went to work by the simplest possible process,
but one sure to lead to the correct result in time--that is, to
make all possible arrangements of the words until one was found
that would convey a rational meaning. Commencing about 3 P. M.,
I reached the desired result at three in the morning. Early that
day a steamer was on the way down the river with the supplies Grant
wanted. I never told the general how he came to get his supplies
so promptly, but I imagined I knew why he had telegraphed to me
rather than to the quartermaster whose duty it was to furnish
supplies for his army--and a most capable and efficient quartermaster
he was. I had only a short time before voluntarily sent General
Grant 5000 men, and I inferred that there was some connection
between the incidents.
The immense change in the whole military situation which was produced
in a few minutes at Franklin (for the contest there was in fact
decided in that time, by the recovery of the breach in the line),
and that by a battle which had not been contemplated by either
General Thomas or myself (that is, on the south side of the Harpeth
River, with that stream in the rear of the army), nor yet by General
Hood until he saw the apparent opportunity to destroy his adversary;
and the fact that that dangerous situation had been produced and
the battle rendered necessary by slight accidents or mistakes which
might easily have been foreseen or avoided, cannot, it seems to
me, but produce in every thoughtful mind some reflection upon the
influence exercised by what is called "accident" or "chance" in
war. The "fortune of war" was, upon the whole, always in my favor,
in spite of adverse accidents; yet I have always acted upon the
principle that the highest duty of a commander is to anticipate
and provide for every possible contingency of war, so as to eliminate
what is called chance.
THE AGGRESSIVE POLICY OF THE SOUTH
Both Johnston and Hood refer in their narratives to the earnest
desire of their commander-in-chief, President Davis, that the army
they in succession commanded should undertake an aggressive campaign.
Johnston demonstrated that, under the circumstances existing while
he was in command, such an undertaking could not possibly have been
successful. Hood tried it under far more favorable circumstances,
and yet he failed, as had every former attempt of the Confederate
armies. The result in every case was costly failure, and in the
last overwhelming defeat. How much greater would have been the
military strength of the South if those losses had been avoided,
and how much greater would have been her moral strength if she had
maintained from the start a firm, consistent, and humane defensive
policy! How long would the conservative people of the North have
sustained the "invasion" of States where the people were fighting
only to "defend their homes and families." Did not the South throw
away a great moral advantage when it waged aggressive war upon the
North? No doubt it was necessary at first, from the secession
point of view, to "fire the Southern heart" by attacking Fort
Sumter. And, also from that point of view, that attack was fully
justifiable because that fort was in "Confederate" territory. The
invasions of Maryland and Pennsylvania were far different, and much
more so were the relentless guerrilla war waged in the border
States, attended with horrible massacres like that of Lawrence,
Kansas, which, though no one charges them to the government or
generals of the South, were unavoidable incidents of that species
of warfare; and the inhuman cruelties incidentally suffered by
Union prisoners.
It is true that the slavery question was a very powerful factor in
our Civil War, and became more and more so as the war progressed.
But opinion on that question at the North was very far from unanimous
at the first, and it is a fair and important question how far the
growth of sentiment in the free States in favor of emancipation
was due to the slaveholders' method of carrying on the war.
My desire here is to refer to these questions solely from the
military point of view, and for the consideration of military
students. The conditions upon which depends success or failure in
war are so many,--some of them being more or less obscure,--that
careful study of all such conditions is demanded of those who aspire
to become military leaders.
[( 1) See Thomas's despatch of 8 P. M., November 29, to Colonel H.
C. Wharton, Wilson's staff officer: War Records, Vol. XLV, part
I, p. 1146.]