Who was most culpable for the Confederate failure at Spring Hill on November 29, 1864?

Who was most culpable for the Confederate failure at Spring Hill on November 29, 1864?

  • J. R. Remington

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • W. H. Jackson

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • N. B. Forrest

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • W. B. Bate

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Pat Cleburne

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ed Johnson

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • J. B. Hood

    Votes: 12 60.0%
  • O. Strahl

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • A. P. Stewart

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • S. D. Lee

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • J. C. Brown

    Votes: 1 5.0%
  • B. F. Cheatham

    Votes: 7 35.0%
  • I. G. Harris

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    20
  • Poll closed .
That's just it. The sources you are using are from books written 40 or more years ago. No one gave the events at Spring Hill the time of day back then other than suggesting people were drunk or on laudanum. Revisiting this battle in detail explains why things happened the way they did the next day at Franklin. One author actually suggests that you have to look at Spring Hill and Franklin as two entirely different entities. I strongly disagree and point out that no one can ever understand why Hood did what he did at Franklin, until they understand the complexities of what transpired at Spring Hill. It is cause and effect, or causation. The cause of Franklin was Spring Hill and the effect of Spring Hill was Franklin. No getting around it.

Well said.
 
That's just it. The sources you are using are from books written 40 or more years ago. No one gave the events at Spring Hill the time of day back then other than suggesting people were drunk or on laudanum. Revisiting this battle in detail explains why things happened the way they did the next day at Franklin. One author actually suggests that you have to look at Spring Hill and Franklin as two entirely different entities. I strongly disagree and point out that no one can ever understand why Hood did what he did at Franklin, until they understand the complexities of what transpired at Spring Hill. It is cause and effect, or causation. The cause of Franklin was Spring Hill and the effect of Spring Hill was Franklin. No getting around it.
I believe the events at both Spring Hill and Franklin were SO disastrous and embarrassing that even the veterans of Hood's army simply wanted to forget them and downplayed them to such an extent that it has only been very recently beginning around the 1970's that fresh looks have been made as to exactly what did happen.
 
Your certainties about Schofield's thinking & options are interesting. Where in Schofield's reports did you get that from? I would like to have it in my files. View attachment 337030
As the map indicates, had Hood stood astride the Lewisburg Pike at Spring Hill, Schofield had three alternatives. The roadbed of the Alabama Rail Road & Carter's Creek Pike would have both been open. The excellent Army of the Cumberland map of the area showed Scofield a route that skirted Franklin & connected with the old Nashville Pike near Hillsboro. The A.o.C. Map rates the Davis' Fork Road in particular to be adaquate for wagons. The road to Murfreesboro intersects the Columbia & Lewisburg Pikes south of Spring Hill. There was nothing that forced Schofield to pass through Spring Hill.

View attachment 337039
Plate XXX Official Military Atla of the Civil War The map was prepared for General Rosecrans.

Of course, Schofield had no reason to divert to any of these other routes. Whatever the reasons or no reasons for Schofield's escape, the next day Hood ordered his army into a funnel between the banks of the Harpeth. From three miles, it squeezed down to about a half a mile. Perhaps General Hood should have consulted a mao before issuing his attack order?

In my files I have Stanley Horn's excellent 'The Spring Hill Legend-A Reappraisal.' Civil War Times, April 1969, pages 20-32. I bought that issue second hand because Connelly footnoted it. Horn, in his usual excellent manner, analyses the Spring Hill action based on a timeline. A lot of the mystery goes away when it is viewed from that perspective
The Official Records
Thanks for that heads up. My copy is an early 20th Century pressing. I am looking up at it now,,,, gosh, how long is that thing. I got measure it some day. Schofield edited the O.R. So, help me out here before I have to get out my little stool, which volume & in what entry does Schofield say that he did not consider using any of the other routes open to him? It would be very helpful, the pinched nerve in my neck hates it when I haul one of those tomes down from up there.
 
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That's just it. The sources you are using are from books written 40 or more years ago. No one gave the events at Spring Hill the time of day back then other than suggesting people were drunk or on laudanum. Revisiting this battle in detail explains why things happened the way they did the next day at Franklin. One author actually suggests that you have to look at Spring Hill and Franklin as two entirely different entities. I strongly disagree and point out that no one can ever understand why Hood did what he did at Franklin, until they understand the complexities of what transpired at Spring Hill. It is cause and effect, or causation. The cause of Franklin was Spring Hill and the effect of Spring Hill was Franklin. No getting around it.

Even though I'm fairly new to the Nashville Campaign, I completely agree with you about the relationship between the events at Spring Hill and Franklin.

Ryan
 
All I can do is recommend is a study of the maps in The Official Atlas of the Civil War. The status of alternative routes has been a standard part of U.S. Army staff rides of the Franklin Campaigh for decades. I happen to be revisiting Connelly's Army of the Heartland & Autum of Glory in prep for a Stones River Program. Connelly's narrative, based as it is on what the Confederated knew & when did they know it leaves no doubt that Scofield had several options. I just glanced over Connelly's account. The alternative routes are exhaustively documented. All I can say is that I am with the Army War College & Connelly.
I had to pull out his book and look back over it. Connelly clearly had no military training. He states in his narrative that Hood didn't know what he was doing. That's absurd. He actually states on page 501 that regarding Spring Hill, "its military importance has been greatly overrated." He also suggests that Hood didn't have a plan. He states that Hood just wanted to beat Schofield to Nashville. That is all HIS speculation. He wrote well, but wasn't schooled in military tactics or strategy. He simply couldn't understand Spring Hill either. He used J. P. Young's essay from Confederate Veteran as his primary source, which is understandable, because Young was the only one that was willing to spend years trying to figure out the ins and outs of Spring Hill. The routes that he referred to are ridiculous. The railroad bed wouldn't allow for the wagons and made for very slow infantry movement. The Carters Creek Pike, as stated before, took the army way out of the way and added no less than six miles to the movement. The last route he suggests would have been on awful roads through very rugged terrain and added probably more than a dozen miles and wouldn't have taken him to Franklin as ordered. And oddly, after he states these two last routes he says that the caliber of the last two routes would be as good as the Davis Ford Road. Earlier in his text he had talked about how awful the Davis Ford Road was and how it helped to delay Hood's movement to Spring Hill. It will always be a book worth reading, but a lot of his conclusions are baseless now. He muddies the waters with too much speculation and not enough fact. And by the way, he didn't document or cite any of his speculation based on the three other options Schofield supposedly had.
 
I had to pull out his book and look back over it. Connelly clearly had no military training. He states in his narrative that Hood didn't know what he was doing. That's absurd. He actually states on page 501 that regarding Spring Hill, "its military importance has been greatly overrated." He also suggests that Hood didn't have a plan. He states that Hood just wanted to beat Schofield to Nashville. That is all HIS speculation. He wrote well, but wasn't schooled in military tactics or strategy. He simply couldn't understand Spring Hill either. He used J. P. Young's essay from Confederate Veteran as his primary source, which is understandable, because Young was the only one that was willing to spend years trying to figure out the ins and outs of Spring Hill. The routes that he referred to are ridiculous. The railroad bed wouldn't allow for the wagons and made for very slow infantry movement. The Carters Creek Pike, as stated before, took the army way out of the way and added no less than six miles to the movement. The last route he suggests would have been on awful roads through very rugged terrain and added probably more than a dozen miles and wouldn't have taken him to Franklin as ordered. And oddly, after he states these two last routes he says that the caliber of the last two routes would be as good as the Davis Ford Road. Earlier in his text he had talked about how awful the Davis Ford Road was and how it helped to delay Hood's movement to Spring Hill. It will always be a book worth reading, but a lot of his conclusions are baseless now. He muddies the waters with too much speculation and not enough fact. And by the way, he didn't document or cite any of his speculation based on the three other options Schofield supposedly had.
As far as that goes, if Hood got there on the terrible road, so could anybody else. Anyways, Scofield made the right choice & made, as you point out, speculation moot.
 
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