For Cause and Country

A Study of the Affair at Spring Hill and the Battle of Franklin

Eric A. Jacobson, Richard A Rupp

• Publisher: Savas Publishing
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781940669090
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

"An up-to-date, accurate, comprehensive and lively treatment of . . . arguably one of the bloodiest five hours during the American Civil War." — The Civil War Gazette
The battles at Spring Hill and Franklin, Tennessee, in the late autumn of 1864 were watershed moments in the American Civil War. Thousands of hardened veterans and a number of recruits, as well as former West Point classmates, found themselves moving through Middle Tennessee in the last great campaign of a long and bitter war. Replete with bravery, dedication, bloodshed, and controversy, these battles led directly to the conclusion of action in the Western Theater. Spring Hill and Franklin, which were once long ignored and seldom understood, have slowly been regaining their place on the national stage. They remain one of the most compelling episodes of the Civil War.
Through exhaustive research and the use of sources never before published, the stories of both battles come vividly to life in For Cause & For Country. Over 100 pages of material have been added to this new edition, including new maps and photos. The genesis and early stages of the Tennessee Campaign play out in clear and readable fashion. The lost opportunity at Spring Hill is evaluated in great detail, and the truth of what happened there is finally shown based on evidence rather than conjecture. The intricate dynamics of the Confederate high command, and especially the roles of General John Bell Hood and General Frank Cheatham, are given special attention. For Cause & For Country is "a highly complex but skillfully organized, easy-to-follow campaign narrative written in stirring fashion" ( Civil War Books and Authors).

Chapter 1

The Road To Destiny

Compromise was dead. On December 20, 1860 the very idea of a United States of America began to unravel. In Charleston, South Carolina state delegates gathered and voted unanimously 169 - 0 to withdraw their state from the Union. The long and painfully debated issue of secession transformed from mere political talk and threats into reality through a simple call of votes. Like a flash of lightning the idea set forth by the Founding Fathers of a “more perfect Union” was suddenly called into question. Within six weeks an additional half dozen states from the Lower South joined South Carolina, and an independent government was created at Montgomery, Alabama. By May 1861 four more states made the choice to secede, and the final version of the Confederate States of America began its quest for independence.

When the Tennessee state legislature voted on May 7, 1861 to withdraw from the Union, final ratification of the matter was left in the hands of the state’s citizens. Although it was another month before the people of Tennessee agreed to secession by a vote of 104,913 to 47,238, movements to raise volunteers for defense of the state began almost immediately. By mid-May men and boys were flocking to recruiting stations across the Volunteer State. They came to fight against what they perceived as a threat to their homeland and way of life. It was a personal involvement, a deep rooted connection to mind and soul. At Franklin, Tennessee, in a modest red brick home on the south edge of town, Fountain Branch Carter watched as his three sons left home to join the Confederate army.¹

Three and a half years later, fate brought one of those brothers back home to take part in perhaps the most incredible infantry assault of the entire Civil War. The story of how the war in the Western Theater came to Franklin at the end of 1864, after so much fighting and so much bloodshed, is one filled with numerous twists and turns. It is best understood by starting from the beginning, when the war was young, and when both soldiers and armies had yet to make names for themselves.

Volunteer soldiers from both North and South began to gather into fighting units throughout the summer of 1861. Men loyal to the Union, from states such as Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri, quickly filled out the ranks of the first Federal units assigned to the defense of what was then known as the West. Three departments initially made up the basic military structure of the Union forces in this region. They were the Department of Kansas under Maj. Gen. David Hunter; the Department of the Cumberland commanded by Brig. Gen. Robert Anderson; and the Department of Missouri under Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck. As for the Confederate States, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston was appointed to command of Department Number 2, a large collection of both men and land that encompassed portions of Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Johnston, fifty-eight years old and a close and longtime friend of President Jefferson Davis, had been hand-picked by the South’s chief executive to lead the western Confederate forces.²

Sidney Johnston was an 1826 graduate of West Point and had dedicated his entire adult life to serving the United States. He fought against the Black Hawk Indians and also in Mexico, and then took part in the expedition against the Mormons in Utah in 1857. Although a native Kentuckian, Johnston considered Texas his home, and he went with her when that state seceded. His first task as a department head was the daunting responsibility of maintaining a long and meandering defensive line which ran from the hills of eastern Kentucky to the Mississippi River. Considering the shortage of manpower, it is a true wonder that Johnston was able to maintain the line as long as he did. But cracks developed, and fighting inevitably broke out. Troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk battled with Federal soldiers led by Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant near Belmont, Missouri in November 1861, but the first decisive fight erupted in southeastern Kentucky two months later. Holding the eastern section of Johnston’s line was altogether crucial. He was all too aware that if the far right flank caved in there would be serious problems in Tennessee, and Kentucky would surely be lost.³

Brig. Gen. George Henry Thomas, a Virginian who remained loyal to the Union, would play a large part in some of the worst days of the Western Confederacy. His first success was manufactured on January 19, 1862 near Mill Springs, Kentucky, just outside of Somerset. Thomas’ victory ruptured the enemy’s defensive structure and caused Sidney Johnston’s Kentucky-Tennessee line to be hastily abandoned. The Southern commander’s worst fears quickly began to materialize. Less than a month later, he courted and met disaster at Forts Henry and Donelson in northern Tennessee when both posts fell to U. S. Grant within days of one another. Grant’s forces not only gained control of the upper Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, they also captured nearly 15,000 Confederate soldiers. While Johnston was certainly burdened with several thoroughly incompetent generals, particularly Brig. Gens. John B. Floyd and Gideon J. Pillow at Fort Donelson, the ultimate responsibility for the loss of the twin forts rested squarely upon his shoulders. Having already ceded Kentucky to Federal control, the failures at Henry and Donelson were serious setbacks that forced Johnston to withdraw deeper into Tennessee. That movement resulted in the forfeiture of invaluable territory and led to the hasty evacuation of Nashville without even so much as a fight. Abandoning Nashville, her factories and stores, and the city’s 17,000 citizens was an industrial and psychological loss from which the South never fully recovered. Nashville forever remained the lost jewel of the Confederacy, and the dream of regaining the city would die hard.⁴

In March 1862 the three Federal departments which had largely made up the Western Theater were consolidated into one command -the Union Department of the Mississippi. Command of this new department, created by order of President Abraham Lincoln, was given to Henry Halleck, whose headquarters were based in St. Louis, Missouri. With the simple stroke of a pen, Halleck found himself commanding over 125,000 soldiers spread out over four states.⁵

Even before Halleck took command of this new department, he was picking a fight with U. S. Grant. He treated Grant with contempt and ordered him to remain at Fort Henry while Maj. Gen. Charles F. Smith led an expedition south in the direction of Paris, Tennessee and Eastport, Mississippi to feel out the enemy. The shoddy treatment was more than Grant could handle, and he asked to be relieved from duty. When he did not receive a response the request was resubmitted. But Halleck suddenly reversed course, and on March 13 he sent Grant a telegram with orders to assume “immediate command” of the army and “lead it on to new victories.” Halleck’s duplicity was shocking. In his memoirs, Grant detailed exactly how Halleck tried to discredit him in an effort to have Smith gain permanent command.⁶

By March 17 Grant was back with his army, which by that time was stationed near Savannah, Tennessee. Meanwhile, while the Halleck-Grant drama played out, Johnston had been reorganizing his forces at Corinth in northern Mississippi and planning a masterstroke to recoup his dramatic setbacks. Johnston had been attacked relentlessly in the press and by members of the Confederate Congress, and knew he had to act quickly before the Union forces did. Along with Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, the hero of Fort Sumter and First Manassas, who had recently transferred from the East, a plan was developed to strike Grant and his men in camp along the Tennessee River at Pittsburg Landing. The Confederate forces also had for the first time an official moniker. Beauregard chose to label the troops the Army of Mississippi and in a March 5 proclamation called upon them to resist the “subjugation” and “dishonor” of the Southern people. It was a ploy repeated throughout the course of the war to rally the rank and file.⁷

Whether he acted on his own initiative, or was emboldened by Beauregard, Sidney Johnston moved aggressively to offset his recent defeats. He decided to hit Grant before Federal reinforcements could arrive. His comment to a staff officer that he would “fight them if they were a million” said a great deal about Johnston’s state of mind in the early spring of 1862.⁸

On April 6 and 7 the two armies embraced in a savage struggle that raged through the thick woods and across cleared areas of farmland along the Tennessee River. A tiny log structure, the Shiloh Methodist Church, was at the epicenter of some of the worst fighting. On the first horrific day, which saw some 15,000 blue and gray fall dead and wounded, the Rebels nearly pushed Grant and his shattered Army of the Tennessee into the river. An incredibly tenacious Yankee defense held out just long enough for the Southern assault to sputter out as the sun mercifully went down. That night reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio arrived and their appearance, combined with the ravaged and scattered condition of the Confederate troops, forced a dramatic turn of events. Johnston was already dead, killed by a stray bullet during the mid-afternoon hours of April 6, and Beauregard took command. Many have long believed and speculated that Johnston’s death alone caused the entire Rebel offensive to falter as dusk approached, but there were many other factors, chief among them being the Federal defensive stand. In fact, with the Confederate effort slowly unraveling during the day, it is quite unlikely that Johnston would have been able, had he lived, to affect the outcome much more than Beauregard ultimately did.⁹

The second day at Shiloh resulted in a crushing Southern loss. Exhausted and terribly disorganized by their near victory, the Rebels were able to hold off repeated assaults by the revitalized Union troops for several hours. However, momentum swung to the North and by about 3 p.m. the Confederates were in retreat toward Corinth, fifteen miles to the south. On the blood-soaked fields around Shiloh Church, where over 23,000 American soldiers became casualties, all the horrors of war were readily evident. It was destruction on a scale that shocked even the strong hearted.¹⁰

For U. S. Grant the victory at Shiloh was a combination of both luck and dogged determination. For the Union the battle had wide-ranging ramifications. Had Grant been defeated at Shiloh it is unlikely he would have ever commanded another army. The career of William Tecumseh Sherman, a division commander at Shiloh, might also have been impacted. Without the leadership of these two men it is highly questionable whether the North could have achieved four of its greatest victories - Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and the defeat of Robert E. Lee. Shiloh was also grim and undeniable evidence that the war was not going to be easy or short. In fact, Grant said that after Shiloh he “gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest.”¹¹

Following Shiloh the Confederates again took up ground in and around Corinth and began to dig in. Camp life for the thousands of men was largely miserable. Conditions were poor due to a shortage of food and widespread disease, the latter which was exacerbated by the grueling Mississippi climate. Especially troublesome for Beauregard’s army was a lack of good water that only worsened as the weather heated up. Meanwhile, Grant had a troubling situation of his own. His army may have been in better shape, but his personal situation was a different story and Henry Halleck was again the issue. Only days after Shiloh, Halleck had arrived and taken field command. Grant wrote plaintively that he was “little more than an observer” when the army moved upon Corinth at the end of April. Also, rumors about Grant’s drinking were making the rounds.¹²

With Halleck at the helm, the Federal troops methodically pushed south toward Corinth. It took nearly a month for the Yankees to get there, and when they finally arrived, Halleck opted to lay siege to the town. Beauregard knew full well that his men could not withstand a siege, and so on May 29, under cover of night, the Rebel army pulled out of Corinth and marched south to Tupelo. There a new base was established and Halleck, content with his bloodless victory, pursued no further. Beauregard, who was suffering from the effects of a throat condition, took a leave of absence in June without approval from the War Department and he quickly found himself without a job. The relationship between President Davis and Beauregard was anything but friendly, and Davis may have privately relished the chance to rid himself of the Creole general. Yet in Beauregard’s place Davis appointed a man who became the focal point of vigorous debate and dissension.¹³

As for the Union forces, Halleck was called back to desk duty in early July, and Grant found himself returned to command of the Army of the Tennessee. Buell and his Army of the Ohio were shipped east to Chattanooga and Grant was left to protect western Tennessee and northern Mississippi and prepare for the summer campaign. The next phase of the war was set to begin.¹⁴

Braxton Bragg was not the kind of man people warmed to easily. Cold and impersonal to all but a few close associates, he suffered almost constantly from one physical malady or another, conditions that did little to enhance an already sour disposition. Like Johnston and Beauregard, Bragg had attended West Point. A North Carolinian by birth, he graduated fifth in the academy’s class of 1837 and served in the Mexican War. Although gifted with a sound military mind, and able to formulate complex strategies, Bragg had serious limitations, ones that prevented him from achieving success on the battlefield. His command would be marred with errors, particularly on a tactical level. From the time he took command until the day he stepped down, one opportunity after another was allowed to slip away.¹⁵

Beginning late in the summer of 1862, the first campaign with Bragg at the helm got underway. It was act...

Table of contents

• Coverpage
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Photographs
• Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1. The Road To Destiny
• 2. The March To The Ohio
• 3. The Roads To Spring Hill
• 4. Passing Right Through Hood’s Army
• 5. The Legend & Legacy Of Spring Hill
• 6. The Gathering Storm
• 7. We Will Make The Fight
• 8. The Devil Had Full Possession Of The Earth
• 9. I Thought I Knew What Fighting Was
• 10. Defeat In A Blaze Of Glory
• 11. The Whole Thing Is Inexplicable
• 12. Now There Can Be Peace
• Confederate Army Organization
• Federal Army Organization
• Bibliography
• Index