Civil War History - The South & Western TheatersCheck this forum for all South and Western Theater Questions. Included are the Western, Pacific, Trans-Mississippi, & Lower Seaboard and Gulf Approach Theaters.
Weather was the only thing that saved Hood and his battered army from utter destruction in the days immediately following Franklin. His decision to lay siege to Nashville was the act of an increasingly desperate man. And this comes from someone who has tried to give Hood some balanced treatment when it comes to Spring Hill and Franklin!!!!!
But, back to my original question. If Hood got across the Tennessee in the first week of November and was able to somehow (big what if) eliminate or smash the Fourth Corps he might have had a chance to grab Nashville. Think about it. Nashville was indeed well fortified and with a ring of impressive forts. But at the VERY most Thomas had only about 8,000 garrison troops at Nashville in those first days of November. He had plenty of other troops around Tennessee, but they were scattered all over creation. Schofield's Twenty-Third Corps wasn't in Nashville (before heading south to link up with the Fourth Corps) until the end of the first week of November. So in those first days of November, Hood had a slim chance for a power grab. Does anyone think that 8,000 garrison troops and some cavalry units were going to stand up to 28,000 Rebel infantry? And if Hood had gotten across the Tennessee right off he could have had Forrest move east from Johnsonville to join him.
I know this all smacks of what if, could be, maybe, possibly, etc. But Schofield, Thomas, and Grant (especially the first and last boys) were practically wetting themselves and it wasn't because they were easily spooked. The Army of Tennessee was a real threat. Imagine the utter chaos if Hood was knocking on Nashville's doorsteps by November 3 or 4 without having taken the horrific Franklin casualties.
Eric, you'd have to imagine that Fortress Rosecrans would have emptied it's 7,000 plus and the trains would have been rolling north from Chattanooga. Traveller's Rest would have been the center of a national park?
Consider this. By the time Hood got to Franklin, the garrison at Fortress Rosecrans in Murfreesboro still had not moved. Neither had the garrisons at places like Decatur. The rapid northward movement by the Army of Tennessee really caught the Federals off guard. But had Hood barrelled toward the outskirts of Nashville with full strength and with the Federals on the ropes I think we indeed might be talking about a big battlefield park.
Some really good what ifs there. Hoods troops would have suffered somewhat less from their shortages and perhaps reached Nashville near full strength. The question then becomes "how long could the Nashville garrison hold out?" What kind of troops and how many were readily available to Thomas at that point? Schofield and the garrison at Fortress Rosecrans would be behind Hood. Roads are good and RRs to Nashville are operating efficiently.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
There is no question that the delay at Florence was a very decisive factor for the success of the Tennessee Campaign.
The force under Schofield only managed to delay the advance of the AoT for three days at Columbia - had they not been there the first week of November, Hood could easily have jaunted on towards Nashville - but siezing that city might be a different story.
People always say that Hood wouldn't have even had a chance taking on Ft.Rosencranz - so if that be the case - they certainly couldn't have taken Nashville.
The fields south of the Federal lines along the inner defense ring were as wide open as the fields south of Franklin - massed artillery would have played hell in the C. S. ranks - and a relief army could have reached Nashville much sooner than what it did.
If Hood's goal was taking Murfreesboro, Rosseau and his 8000 men would not have prevented him.
An interesting point is, Thomas in his OR on Franklin and Nashville stated that "Two divisions of infantry, under Majl Gen. A.J. Smith, were reported on their way to join me, from Missouri, which, with several one-year regiments then arriving in the department, and detachments collected from points of minor importance, would swell my command, when concentrated, to an army nearly as large as that of the enemy. Had the enemy delayed his advance a week or ten days longer, I would have been ready to meet him at some point south of Duck River,........" Considering Schofields experience on the Duck River, it might have been interesting, to have found out the quality of Thomas' scratch force army against Hoods AoT of approx. equal numbers. It is possible that Hood still moved too fast rather than too late.
As you know, the mighty Duck was a player in the events of December 1864. Had the weather fallen on just a bit quicker schedule, Hood would have once again been stalled at Columbia during the retreat. Forrest had to divert part of his command from Lillards Mill west to Columbia because of high and rising waters. Good thing for the AOT as he was able to stall Hatch's cavalry long enough to get the AOT on the move south again. A quicker pursuit from Nashville would have spelled doom to the 20,000 or so Confederates fleeing in frozen conditions. As it happened, the battles of Selma and Bentonville were necessary, along with several skirmishes in South Carolina, to finish the AOT and allow the Confederates to go back to their farms.
The Confederate Army of the Tennessee suffered devastating losses at Nashville and in the retreat.
Confederates were always proud of not losing artillery cannon in battle. They lost much in this campaign.
General Thomas, in a dispatch to Admiral Lee, at the end of December, noted that at Nashville and during the Confederate retreat, the Confederates lost 68 cannon, an irreplaceable loss. In addition to the killed and wounded, thousands of prisoners were taken and the Confederates had to destroy ammunition wagons on the retreat.
Whatever troops got safely back to Alabama, the Army of the Tennessee was no longer an army, near to what it was on its entry into Tennessee.
No one seriously argues that the Tennessee Campaign was Not the denouement of southern hopes in the west (and incidentally, that of the AoT also). The question is "What was the alternative, if the south was to salvage anything in the West"?
IF Johston was trying to save as many southern lives as possible to help rehabilitate a defeated south, then events proved him right, BUT, if his plan was to help in winning the war for the south then he was (and, probably, always had been) sabotaging the southern war effort, either consciously or subconscieously..
By 1864, and after the fall of Atlanta, the war was strategically lost. The U.S. had built up its logisical base to wage war, deep in the South. The Confederacy did not have the logistical base to defend itself, effectively.
I think Hood's winter campaign in Tennessee, raises the basic question of the war itself. Over a number of years, it was not a war the Confederacy could win. The Confederate economy could not sustain a long war. A fact, the Confederate founding fathers ignored.
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