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The large hill immediately to the south, which rises more than 900 feet above sea level. played an important role in the Civil War. Used as a signal station by Union troops, Roper’s Knob was a key communications link between Nashville and points south and between Franklin and Murfreesboro. After Middle Tennessee was occupied by Federal troops in early 1862, the hill was crowned with entrenchments and an octagonal log blockhouse. A sophisticated pulley system helped lift artillery to the summit. The knob, along with nearby Fort Granger, helped guard the Tennessee & Alabama Railroad. Roper’s Knob was not occupied at the time of the Battle of Franklin.
Williamson County Historical Society
Roper’s Knob (right), looking north, viewed from the intersection of Liberty Pike and Mack Hatcher
Roper's Knob (right)
The 78th Illinois Infantry was used significantly in the spring of 1863 to construct fortifications on Roper’s Knob. Roper’s Knob and Winstead Hill were both used as observation posts by Union forces from 1863 til the end of the war.
Scot Butler, a 33rd Indiana soldier with the U.S. Signal Corps, writes about an observation post, probably either from Roper’s Knob or Winstead Hill.
By 1863 he was in the Signal Corps and stationed in Franklin, Tennessee. The following account is taken from “Affectionately Yours: The Civil War Home-Front Letters of the Ovid Butler Family.” Edited by Barbara Butler Davis. 2004.
“The Signal Corps holds communication from one wing to the other of Rosecran’s army. The station which I am on is situated on a hill near Franklin, several hundred feet above the surrounding country and its warlike occupants. From here we command one of the most beautiful landscape views I ever beheld. This is called the ‘Garden Spot’ of America. Away off to the north stretches a valley of unrivaled beauty. Alternate patches of meadow and woodland, its dashing streams, shining through the mist of morning like threads of silver, and the hills, ranged on each side, clothed with towering trees and stand like eternal sentinels over this scene of seeming quiet beauty and content. What a beautiful place was Franklin & its surroundings of elegant country mansions and extensive plantations before the hearts of the people were corrupted by political leaders, in their lust for power. Franklin is war worn. The shattered glass in her churches and school houses, her lonely streets and the closed shutters of her store houses, the battered doors and ruined machinery of her manufactories, and above all that deathlike, breathless silence, that absence of all sound, that can be felt no where but at the desolate hearthstone, here reigns supreme. Here and there a lounger attired in the butternut garb of chivalry, with hate gleaming in his eyes.” p: 27-28
Historian and author Thomas Flagel spoke for several minutes tonight. He was his usual passionate-self as he talked about how Hood’s charge at Franklin is often compared to Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, but the Franklin-charge was bigger in many ways.
A photo gallery of the event is here.
Also check out my videos on my YouTube folder.
This map shows the six key Civil War sites being interpreted in the Franklin area. They are all withiun just minutes of each other by a short drive.
- The Town Square
- Fort Granger
- The Carter House/farm
- The Eastern Flank, Battlefield Park
- Carnton
- Winstead Hill
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This is a picture taken in 1951 of the home used by CSA Gen. John Bell Hood for his headquarters just before the assault of the Federal army at Franklin, 30 November 1864. This home sat near Winstead Hill.
Image credit: The Williamson County Historical Society
McGavock Cemetery has nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers buried on the grounds in front of Carnton. There is no doubt that scores, if not hundreds of them, were casualties resulting from the mass formations and marching the Confederate Army of Tennessee made on open ground, for nearly two miles, as the Rebels came upon the defended Federal line entrenched near downtown Franklin as the battle opened up.
During the Civil War, mass formations, assaulting defended breastworks, often led to mass casualties for the assaulting army. Franklin was no different.
About 4pm on November 30, 1864, C.S.A. General John Bell Hood launched a frontal attack against the Federal troops of the 23rd and 4th Corps of General John M. Schofield. The Confederate Army of Tennessee marched in mass formation across open ground, mostly flat, for nearly two miles before clashing with the Federal line.
On a few battlefields, massed enemy formations could be seen at a considerable distance, at least before the firing began in earnest. Robert G. Carter of the 22nd Massachusetts wrote of the sight of oncoming Confederates on the second day of Gettysburg: “The indistinct form of masses of men, presenting the usual, dirty, greyish, irregular line, were dimly visible and moving up with defiant yells, while here and there the cross-barred Confederate battle flags were plainly to be seen.” Rebel lines also were fully visible at Antietam, Franklin, Bentonville, and a number of other engagements.
The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat. Earl J. Hess, p. 12
View of terrain, looking south, Confederate Army of Tennessee marched across for over one mile at Battle of Franklin
Confederate General John Bell Hood had this basic view of the (then) open ground between Winstead Hill and the entrenched Federal line near Fountain Branch Carter’s property in November 1864. The entire Confederate Army of Tennessee (about 20,000) was positioned here, facing north as in the picture, before they started the quick-step march toward the Federal army (about 22,000).
Original view
Picture credit: Historical Markers of Williamson County, Rick Warwick, p. 174
Contemporary view
Picture credit: author of blog
As mentioned in the last post, the Confederate Army of Tennessee marched across over open ground for over a mile before they finally reached the Federal line near downtown Franklin. A soldier in the 104th Ohio wrote about that scene. Hess writes about this kind of troop assault movement then quotes the Ohio soldier:
When the terrain and vegetation allowed the troops to fire at longer ranges, they could maximize the damage done to attacking forces. At the battle of Franklin, Confederate division advanced over open, rolling ground for a mile before they attacked heavy fortifications. The Federals were ready for them and opened fire as soon as they could. Andrew Moon of the 104th Ohio scampered over the battlefield that night before his regiment pulled out of the works.
“Well, for 400 yards in front, I could hardly step without stepping on dead and wounded men. The ground was in a perfect slop and mud with blood and, oh, such cries that would come up from the wounded was awful.”
The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat. Earl J. Hess, p. 156
Massed troop formation in the re-enactment of the Battle of Franklin.
Sergeant Major Sumner A. Cunningham wrote of the demeanor of Hood’s troops in “Confederate Veteran” magazine in April, 1893,
“…the march to Spring Hill, where the Federal retreat was so nearly cut off, a failure for which it was
understood General Hood was not to blame, created an enthusiasm for him equal to that entertained for Stonewall Jackson after his extraordinary achievements. The soldiers were full of ardor, and confident of success. They had unbounded faith in General Hood, whom they believed would achieve a victory that would give us Nashville.”
“The next (Nov 30) morning, as we marched in quick time toward Franklin, we were confirmed in our impressions of federal alarm. I counted on the way thirty-four wagons that had been abandoned on the smooth turnpike. In some instances whole teams of mules had been killed to prevent their capture.”
Arriving at Winstead Hill, two miles south of Franklin, at about 2:00 P.M., Hood observed the situation. Sergeant Major S. A. Cunningham, standing near to Hood on the hill as Hood contemplated the attack, recalled,
“The enemy were greatly excited. We could see them running to and fro. Wagon trains were being pressed across the Harpeth River, and on toward Nashville…but I was absorbed in the one man whose mind was deciding the fate of thousands. With an arm and a leg in the grave, and with the consciousness that he had not until within a couple of days won the confidence which his army had in his predecessor, he had now a very trying ordeal to pass through.”
Battle of Franklin veteran L.A. Simmons wrote in his 1866 work, The History of the 84th Regiment Illinois Volunteers,
“In speaking of this battle, very many are inclined to wonder at the terrible pertinacity of the rebel General Hood, in dashing column after column with such tremendous force and energy upon our center — involving their decimation, almost their annihilation? Yet this we have considered a most brilliant design, and the brightest record of his generalship, that will be preserved in history. He was playing a stupendous game, for enormous stakes. Could he have succeeded in breaking the center, our whole army was at his mercy. In our rear was a deep and rapid river, swollen by recent rains — only fordable by infantry at one or two places — and to retreat across it an utter impossibility. To break the center was to defeat our army; and defeat inevitably involved a surrender. If this army surrendered to him, Nashville, with all its fortifications, all its vast accumulation of army stores, was at his mercy, and could be taken in a day. Hence, with heavy odds — a vastly superior force — in his hands, he made the impetuous attack upon our center, and lost in the momentous game. His army well understood that they were fighting for the possession of Nashville. Ours knew they were fighting to preserve that valuable city, and to avoid annihilation.”
Hood pondered thet critical dilemma that Nashville lay unprotected, and with only three hours of daylight remaining, decided to order an immediate frontal assault. As Cunningham later wrote,
“While making ready for the charge, General Hood rode up to our lines, having left his escort and staff in the rear. He remained at the front in plain view of the enemy for, perhaps, half an hour making a most careful survey of their lines. It was all-important to act, if at all, at once. He (Hood) rode to Stephen D. Lee, the nearest of his subordinate generals, and, shaking hands with him cordially, announced his decision to make an immediate charge.
Following the evacuation of Atlanta, Confederate General John Bell Hood formulated an elaborate plan to draw General William T. Sherman away from that city and place his own army in position to recapture Middle Tennessee. Hood planned to march his army north, capture the vital Union supply depot of Nashville, and take the war into Kentucky and Ohio.
Initially Hood’s plan worked. Sherman withdrew from Atlanta and followed the Army of Tennessee into North Georgia. There, Sherman realized the numerical superiority of his forces and detached a portion of his army to stay ahead of Hood’s advance north, while he returned with the main force to implement his March to the Sea. General John Schofield, Hood’s West Point classmate, was placed in command of the Fourth and Twenty-third Army Corps and given the task of slowing the Confederate advance to Nashville.
On the afternoon of November 29, 1864, the Army of Tennessee managed to get between Schofield’s command and the federal stronghold at Nashville at the town of Spring Hill. When the Confederate forces failed to cut the road north, the Union troops marched by their enemy in the middle of the night. By the next morning, they had entered Franklin and occupied a series of earthen fortifications on the southern edge of town. During the day, Union soldiers strengthened their already formidable position as Schofield made plans to evacuate Franklin and march to Nashville.
When Hood awoke on November 30 and found that the Union army had escaped, he blamed everyone but himself for the missed opportunity and immediately marched the Army of Tennessee to Franklin. Arriving at Winstead Hill (two miles south of Franklin), Hood determined to make a fight despite the warnings from Generals Nathan Bedford Forrest and Benjamin Cheatham to avoid a frontal assault. The Confederate commander accepted no counsel and ordered his subordinates to prepare for the assault.
Cannon sitting on present-day Winstead Hill, facing north toward downtown Franklin.
At 4:30 in the afternoon, as the sun began to set, the Army of Tennessee stepped off in a three-mile-long battle line to launch the last grand charge of the war in Tennessee. Marching forward in near-parade formation, the leading elements of the Confederate line overwhelmed the advanced Union position one-half mile in front of the main line. Chasing the fleeing Federals, the men of Generals Patrick Cleburne’s and John C. Brown’s divisions smashed into the Union earthworks along the Columbia Pike. Driving the Federals through the front and back yard of Fountain B. Carter’s house and into the front yard of Albert Lotz’s home, the advancing Confederates met a counter charge by Colonel Emerson Opdycke’s brigade. In fierce hand-to-hand fighting, the Federal soldiers forced the Confederates back to the outer ditch of the main earthworks.
Present-day view of Albert Lotz house, adjacent (east) of the farm belonging to F.B. Carter. The Lotz house sits right on the east side of Columbia Pike.
The Confederates made as many as eighteen separate charges but failed to make a significant breach in the Union defenses. Some Confederate attacks occurred so late at night that the soldiers used torches to guide their lines forward. The fight lasted until ten o’clock, leaving Union troops inside the works and Confederates in the outer ditches only a few feet apart. Many soldiers sat with their backs against the works and held their muskets over their heads to fire them into the opposing ranks.
After five hours of bloodletting, the small arms fire died away. Schofield wasted no time pulling his men out of their positions and marching them toward Nashville. That night, as the temperature dropped, the wounded Union and Confederate soldiers left on the field suffered terribly. The dead and dying lay in heaps sometimes five or six deep in the outer ditch. Field hospitals in the Carter and Lotz houses and the Carnton Mansion, treated the seemingly endless stream of wounded.
The battle exacted a disastrous toll on the Confederate forces. Hood sent approximately 23,000 soldiers against a fortified line protected by 15,000 Union soldiers and incurred 7,000 casualties, while the Federals lost approximately 2,500. Of the one hundred Confederate regimental commanders, sixty-three were killed or wounded. The casualty toll among Confederate generals was also high–six killed, five wounded, and one captured. As the Army of Tennessee moved north toward Nashville, a colonel commanded General John C. Brown’s division, and a captain led General Hiram Granbury’s brigade. At the battle of Nashville, two weeks later, the Army of Tennessee was not effective, having left a sizable number of hardened veterans and officers on the field of Franklin.
Source citation: The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture (online)
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