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I understand I’m treading on thin ice here with some folk when it comes to critiquing John Bell Hood, especially for his actions at Franklin. So let me clearly state my biases because we all have them; I’m just honest enough to admit them.
My biases and background?
- I was born in Kentucky, which was neutral in the Civil War officially.
- Until ten years ago (late 30s), I was very ‘pro-Southern’ and totally leaned to the so-called States’ rights side of the aisle. I espoused the Lost Cause ideology with conviction then, though I was not even aware how much I had descended into it.
- Today, I have completely shed the Neo-Confederate mindset and its accompanying arguments.
- I now believe that the American Civil War, at least for the last two years, was mostly (but not entirely) fought over the issue of slavery.
- I believe that human slavery was a moral scourge on this nation and wished it would have been effaced from our landscape without the shedding of blood.
If you still have an objective bone in your body I submit the following six items as evidence that John Bell Hood made at least six fatal errors at Franklin. These six are mainly related to his direct frontal massed assault at Franklin.
Hood’s blunder-failure (i.e., his frontal assault) at Franklin can be summed up thus:
a. His assault had virtually zero artillery support.
b. He had too large an army to perform an assault that only had roughly 1.7 miles of width-to-width from flanks once the works were reached. His columns were terribly constrained and inter-mixed.
c. He went against the better judgment of his subordinate commanding generals.
d. His cavalry played virtually no role in the assault strategically.
e. He started the assault too late in the day.
f. He apparently had very little true knowledge of the topography of Franklin, and/or had the knowledge and ignored it.
John Bell Hood
a. His massed assault had virtually zero artillery support.
b. He had too large an army to perform an assault that only had roughly 1.7 miles of width-to-width from flanks once the works were reached. His columns were terribly constrained and inter-mixed.
c. He went against the better judgment of his top subordinate commanding generals.
d. His cavalry played virtually no role in the assault strategically.
e. He started the assault too late in the day. By the time his men reached the works it was nearly dark.
f. He apparently had very little true knowledge of the topography of Franklin, and/or if he had the knowledge, he ignored it.
I’d love to know your opinion. Please comment.
However, I will NOT approve any comment that descends into plain silliness and ad hominem attacks. I revealed my biases so fair-play suggests you will too , then lay out your arguments.
Let the readers make up their own minds.
By the way, don’t forget the Hood Legacy Discussion at Carnton coming November 6th.
Carnton will host a Hood panel discussion on Friday, November 6 at 6 p.m. in the event room of the Fleming Center. It is FREE to the public and will last about 1 ½ hours. Panelists will include Eric A. Jacobson (author, historian), Sam Hood (Hood expert, descendant), Sam Elliot (author, historian) and Brandon Beck (University of Mississippi).
I blogged earlier about the John Bell Hood exhibit at Carnton. Hundreds of people have seen the exhibit and the feedback has been very good.You can read all my previous posts related to John Bell Hood by clicking on this link.
I recently sat down with Carnton collections manager Joanna Stephens to ask her a few questions about the exhibit.
Drawing of Hood courtesy of artist Andy Amato.
BoF: How long did it take to get this exhibit installed from it’s inception?
Stephens: It took about a year, which is really not all that long for an exhibit. We wanted this exhibit to coincide with the opening of the Fleming Center. We were originally trying to find enough items on Gen John Schofield (U.S.) and General John Bell Hood (CSA). But there just weren’t many accessible artifacts belonging to Schofield so we ended up just with Hood artifacts.
BoF: How does this Hood exhibit compare to previous Hood exhibits around the country?
Stephens: This is the largest exhibit of John Bell Hood artifacts ever assembled for a museum exhibit.
BoF: What is your favorite item in the exhibit?
Stephens: I like the personal items best. I like daily-use things best. My favorite Hood artifact in this exhibit are the gauntlets. It is not too hard to imagine his withered left arm still wearing the glove!
I love personal artifacts . . . Those kind of things . . . but to really see a picture of what a person was like in daily life is really important.
BoF: What does this exhibit tell us about Hood that many people might be surprised of?
Stephens: My goal was to inform people that there was a lot more to this man than the decision he made at Franklin. So much before and so much more after. He’s a whole man. You have to take everything into consideration.
John Bell Hood's coat on display in the Museum of the Confederacy.
Accompanying this exhibit will be a panel discussion about Hood. This discussion will be held Friday, November 6 at 6 p.m. The panel will include Sam Elliott, biographer of Confederate General A.P. Stewart, Sam Hood, a descendent of General Hood’s grandfather, and Eric Jacobson, Carnton’s Interim Executive Director. Topics to be covered include the early life, military career, Tennessee Campaign, and legacy of General Hood. More information about the exhibit and panel discussion will be available at www.carnton.org or 615-794-0903.
Wow.
Maybe because it was on the heels of the reburial of the unknown Civil War soldier this past weekend, or maybe because Monday Night Football was unappealing – whatever the cause . . . some 120+ people came out to Carnton plantation tonight to hear and participate in a lecture with Carnton historian and author Eric Jacobson, and professor and author Thomas Flagel.
Thomas Flagel is an energetic and provocative speaker.
They came to learn about the “cause(s) of the American Civil War.” And learn they did. The historians laid the ground-work for the evening by taking 5-7 minutes each – for the first 45 minutes – and hitting topics like; the major political events prior to 1860 in America that influenced the environment for a divided country in 1860; the demagoguery and manipulations of the politicians in the mid 19th century; the political principles and values of the politicians who were protecting the interests of the wealthy elite in the South, and many other pertinent issues.
The discussion was balanced, rational, and moved quickly through the evening. After the historians talked for 45 minutes combined, they opened the floor for Q/A. Hands immediately flew up. Many hands were raised by young people in their 20s and 30s. In fact, the demographics of the 120+ crowd had as many under-30s as over-30s. There were excellent questions asked as the historians spontaneously responded through a generous give-and-take style.
Carnton will host a November lecture on the 6th; the topic? John Bell Hood!
Get there early, the seats will fill quickly.
Historian Eric Jacobson engages the 120+ person standing room only crowd at Carnton tonight.
Civil War son Harold Becker got to tour Carnton plantation Saturday. His guide was historian Eric Jacobson.
Franklin, Tennessee, probably only had a population between 2,000 residents in 1864. That includes children. The Battle of Franklin resulted in up to 10,000 casualties: killed, wounded, missing, etc. Franklin residents banded together on the morning of December 1st, 1864, and opened their homes, churches and businesses to tend to the incredible suffering and carnage. One of those homes was that of John and Carrie McGavock.
Historian Eric Jacobson recounts that challenge in this video.
Also: see this video of Dr. Chris Lossom talk about the carnage after the battle too.
Eric Jacobson describes A.P. Stewart’s Confederate Corps made up of the Divisions of Loring, Walthall and French, coming across the Eastern flank, across the McGavock farm, as the battle unfolded [Watch now, 1:42]
Read about the dedication of the marker to Loring’s Division on the Eastern flank in June 2008.
Scores of people came out to the McGavock Confederate Cemetery at the Carnton plantation in Franklin, Tennessee, Sunday June 1st at 2 p.m., to commemorate the service and sacrifice that some 1,500 Confederate soldiers made on November 30, 1864, during the Battle of Franklin. This is an annual event hosted by The Daughters of the Confederacy. Boy Scouts Troop #137 serves the event by placing flags near every headstone.
Fourteen Confederate reenactor soldiers attended and gave a 21-gun salute to the nearly 1,500 Confederate-dead soldiers who are buried at McGavock. The 46th Tennessee Infantry was also specially honored.
The service was well-attended with probably nearly 75 people in attendance.
Outgoing Director of the Carter House, Thomas Cartwright, was the key-note speaker. He cited from memory several letters and accounts of soldiers who fought and died at Franklin. Cartwright cited the bravery and sacrifice of such men as Colonel Michael Farrell from 15th Mississippi.
Jim Drury, was the lone pipe musician, with the TN Scots Pipe Band. Drury ; the reenactors into the cemetery to begin the service with overcast skies and he walked singularly down the 14 feet path of the cemetery to end the service playing the well-known hymn Amazing Grace.
Many more pictures of the event can be found here.
The Col. John and Carrie McGavock home – Carnton – was situated less than one mile from the epicenter of the action that took place on the Union Eastern flank at Franklin. Because of close proximity geographically, and the compassion of Carrie McGavock, hundreds of Confederate soldiers were tended and cared for immediately after the battle at Carnton. As many as 300 soldiers found care inside the home and possibly hundreds spread out on the plantation grounds. Confederate surgeons worked tirelessly to save as many boys as possible.
Source: excerpted from the Wikipedia article (authored by Tellinghistory, the owner of this blog site)
“Our loss of officers in the battle of Franklin on the 30th was excessively large in proportion to the loss of our men. The medical director reports a very large proportion of slightly wounded men.”
- John Bell Hood, writing two days after the battle to Confederate Secretary of War, James A. Seddon.
The bodies of several dead Confederate Generals (Cleburne, Granbury, Strahl, and Adams) were laid out on the porch at Carnton (see above) after the battle on November 30, 1864.
The South lost 53 of 100 regimental commanders in the field at Franklin. Granbury’s brigade alone lost 70% of their regimental commanders. Undeterred, Hood would unmercilously throw his beleaguered Army of Tennessee against Thomas in another suicidal attack just two weeks later, effectively destroying his army. He would be replaced within weeks of the loss at Nashville, having led the Army of Tennessee for roughly six months.
“Following the battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864, the house became a Confederate field hospital. During the night following the five-hour battle, the McGavocks and their two children Hattie (age nine) and Winder (age seven) assisted the surgeons and tended to the needs of the wounded. Several hundred eventually came to Carnton and 150 died that first night. Bloodstains are still visible in several rooms. They are heaviest in the children’s bedroom, which was used as an operating room. The bodies of Confederate Generals Cleburne, Granbury, Strahl, and Adams were brought to Carnton’s rear porch and placed on its lower level awaiting removal to their final burial places. Most of the over 1,750 Confederate dead were buried on the battlefield, their graves marked by wooden headboards inscribed with the soldier’s name, company, and regiment. Over the months, the writing faded, and the markers began to disappear. “
The Carnton Plantation is a historic house museum located in Franklin. Randal McGavock (1768-1843), builder of Carnton, emigrated from Virginia in 1796 and settled in Nashville. He was involved in local and state politics and eventually served as mayor of Nashville, 1824-25. Around 1826 McGavock moved his family to the recently completed Carnton to farm and raise thoroughbred horses until his death in 1843. After his death, his son John inherited the plantation and continued to farm the land until his own death in 1893. The McGavocks grew wheat, corn, oats, hay, and potatoes, in addition to raising thoroughbred horses”
Robert Hicks, author of Widow of the South
“The setting for Hicks’ novel is Carnton Plantation, home of the McGavock family. The house was used as a field hospital in the days and weeks after the battle, and though many other homes in the area were used for the same purpose, it was at Carnton that, as legend has it, at least four dead generals were laid out on the back porch during the battle itself, and where the discarded arms and legs of wounded soldiers made a pile that reached as high as a second floor window. More importantly, Carnton was the home of the legendary “Widow of the South.” Rather than let the original battlefield and its shallow graves be plowed over, Carrie and John McGavock donated two acres of land adjacent to their own family cemetery for the reburial of the nearly 1,500 Confederates’ remains. Until the day she died, Carrie McGavock tended to the cemetery, taking care to mark the graves, record the names of the dead, and give some closure to those left behind.”
The Nashville Scene
As Hicks writes, “Those men were the chains that bound the living. They were the missing whose absence shackled the survivors in place, people afraid to move on for fear of being gone for their sudden return. They drew the living back to the war, back to that battlefield over and over and over again, reenacting its rituals and its skirmishes until they all would be dead.”
Visit author Robert Hick’s official web site.
John and Carrie McGavock’s describes the scene at Carnton after the Battle of Franklin.
‘Every room was filled, every bed had two poor, bleeding fellows, every spare space, niche, and corner under the stairs, in the hall, everywhere. And when the noble old house could hold no more, the yard was appropriated until the wounded and dead filled that.’
‘Our doctors were deficient in bandages and [Carrie McGavock] began by giving her old linen, then her towels and napkins, then her sheets and tableclothes, then her husband’s shirts and her own undergarments. … Unaffrighted by the sight of blood, unawed by horrid wounds, unblanched by ghastly death, she walked from room to room, from man to man, her very skirts stained in blood.’
Carnton is open Monday-Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday 1-5 p.m.
$10 for adults
$9 for seniors
$5 for children 6-12
$3 for grounds tour
Carnton is off Highway 431 (Lewisburg Pike) south of Franklin at 1345 Carnton Lane. For more information, call 615-794-0903.
Randal McGavock (d. 1843) was a prominent local politician, even serving as Mayor of Nashville for a one-year term in 1824. Randal knew President James K. Polk and was good friends with President Andrew Jackson who stayed in the McGavock home on more than one occasion. Jackson gave a rocking chair to the McGavocks and it is one of the several original artifacts or pieces of furniture one can see when touring the home today.
The home was ready for the McGavock family to permanently occupy in the late 1820s. At the time it was 1400 acres of which 500 acres was used for farming. McGavock – in the 1830s – had 250 hogs, cattle and sheep.
Randal died in 1843 leaving his property to two sons, James and John (1815 – 1893). John (pictured right) took possession of the Carnton property. He continued to farm it until his death in 1893. John married Carrie Winder (1829 – 1905), who is famously known as the “Widow of the South” based on Robert Hicks’s novel.
Randal started renovating the home in the late 1840s preferring a Greek revival style to the Federal style it was birthed from. Thus, he added a two-story Greek revival portico and two dormers in the attic. In the 1850s McGavock added a two-story porch on to the rear of the home. It was on this porch that four Confederate Generals’ bodies – Patrick Cleburne, John Adams (Confederate Army officer), Otho F. Strahl and Hiram B. Granbury – were laid out for a few hours of the Battle of Franklin (November 30, 1864).
In December 1848 John married his cousin Carrie Winder of Ducros Plantation House in Thibaudaux, Louisiana. The couple had five children but only two would survive past 1864. McGavock sent his slaves to Alabama in 1862 so in 1864 there were no McGavock slaves present.
Source: excerpted from the Wikipedia article (authored by Tellinghistory, the owner of this blog site)
The famous back porch were the four Confederate Generals were laid out after the Battle of Franklin, the evening of November 30, 1864.
George Cuppett wrote the names and information related to the identity of each soldier in the McGavock cemetery book (Jacobson: McGavock, pp. 39-44). After he finished the re-burials in mid 1866 he turned over the care of the book, and the dead, to the McGavock’s. Wood headboards were replaced with granite markers in 1896 by the John McEweb Bivouac veterans organization. The ongoing responsibility of maintaining the cemetery would fall on to the able and compassionate hands of Carrie McGavock, a labor of love she shouldered until her death in 1905. The original book is on display upstairs in Carnton.
It would fall to the McGavock’s to care for the nearly 1,500 Confederate dead for the remainder of their lives. John died in 1893 and Carrie in 1905. Carrie’s shepherding of the fallen of Franklin lasted 41 years. Rev. John W. Hanner was quoted in The Confederate Veteran magazine praying, mentioning about Carrie in 1905 (CV 30, p. 448):
We thank thee for the . . . feeble knees she lifted up, for the many hearts she comforted, the needy ones she supplied, the sick she ministered unto, and the boys she found in abject want and mothered and reared into worthy manhood. In the last day they will rise up and call her blessed. Today she is not, because thou hast taken her; and we are left to sorrow for the Good Samaritan of Williamson County, a name richly merited by her. (Quoted in Jacobson:McGavock, p. 37)
Time has not been favorable to the identities of the soldiers though. Today 780 Confederate soldiers’ identities are positively identified, leaving some 558 as officially listed as unknown.
Today, the McGavock Confederate Cemetery is the largest privately owned-maintained military cemetery in the United States. The Franklin Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy have maintained the cemetery now since 1905.
Source: excerpted from the Wikipedia article (authored by Tellinghistory, the owner of this blog site)
“To preserve the graves, John McGavock designated two acres of land adjoining his family cemetery to which the remains could be removed for a more secluded and protected resting place. He, as well as other concerned Franklin citizens, raised the necessary money to have the bodies disinterred and reburied in order by state in the spring of 1866. The inscriptions on the grave markers, which had remained in place on the battlefield, were carefully preserved by Carrie McGavock in the Cemetery Record Book. The numbers on the present markers correspond to numbers in the book. John and Carrie McGavock cared for the McGavock Confederate Cemetery for the rest of their lives.
Winder McGavock lived at Carnton with his family until his death in 1907. His widow sold the house out of the family in 1911. The McGavock Confederate Cemetery has been maintained since then by the Franklin Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Carnton passed through several owners from the time it left the McGavock family until September 1978, when the Carnton Association acquired the house and ten acres and opened it as a historic site. Today, Carnton is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark for its role in the battle of Franklin.”
Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture excerpt
John and Carrie McGavock describe the scene at Carnton after the Battle of Franklin.
‘Every room was filled, every bed had two poor, bleeding fellows, every spare space, niche, and corner under the stairs, in the hall, everywhere. And when the noble old house could hold no more, the yard was appropriated until the wounded and dead filled that.’
‘Our doctors were deficient in bandages and [Carrie McGavock] began by giving her old linen, then her towels and napkins, then her sheets and tableclothes, then her husband’s shirts and her own undergarments. … Unaffrighted by the sight of blood, unawed by horrid wounds, unblanched by ghastly death, she walked from room to room, from man to man, her very skirts stained in blood.’
Carnton is open Monday-Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday 1-5 p.m.
Visit their web site for more info.
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