John A. Schofield

“ There is a bit of Stanley's report that gives a clear glimpse of the situation as Schofield and Stanley believed it to be after they had met that night: "General Schofield arrived from Columbia at 7 o'clock in the evening with Ruger's division. He found the enemy on the pike and had quite a skirmish in driving them off. My pickets had reported seeing rebel columns passing, east of our position, as if to get possession of the hills at Thompson's Station, and the anxious question arose whether we could force our way through to Franklin. ”

“ The article above referred to asserted that "General Thomas knew three days before the battle of Nashville that Schofield was playing the part of Judas by telegraphing to General Grant, at Washington, disparaging suggestions about the action of Thomas," and pretended to quote the language of one of those despatches, as follows: "It is the opinion of all our officers with whom I have conversed that General Thomas is too tardy in moving against the enemy . . . " ”

“ These reduce my active force to a comparatively small army. We cannot remain now on the defensive. With 25,000 men, and the bold cavalry he has, he can constantly break my road. I would infinitely prefer to make a wreck of the road and of the country from Chattanooga to Atlanta, including the latter city, send back all my wounded and worthless, and, with my effective army, move through Georgia, smashing things to the sea. Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but I believe he will be forced to follow me. Instead of being on the defensive, I would be on the offensive ”

“ When Hack had told what he wanted, Schofield sharply replied that the enemy had possession of the road north of Spring Hill, and the trains could not move. The report of Stanley and the statement of Hack concur in showing that it was then Schofield's belief that Hood had possession of the Franklin pike; that the army was caught in a trap; that the only way out was the desperate expedient of forcing a passage by a night attack, and, failing in that, he must fight a battle next day under so many disadvantages that ruinous defeat, with the probable loss of the army, was staring him in the face. ”

“ Elias Bartlett of the 36th Illinois, was on picket on the pike at the bridge across the creek a half mile south of Spring Hill, and he informed me that when Schofield came to his post he began eagerly to inquire what had happened, saying that he had feared everything at Spring Hill had been captured; that while they were talking, a Confederate picket, near enough to hear the sound of their voices, fired on them, and Schofield then rode on. ”

“ Even so able a man as General J. E. Johnston characterizes it as a "useless butchery." These criticisms are founded upon a misapprehension of the facts, and are essentially erroneous. Hood must have been fully aware of our relative weakness in numbers at Franklin, and of the probable, if not certain, concentration of large reinforcements at Nashville. He could not hope to have at any future time anything like so great an advantage in that respect. The army at Franklin and the troops at Nashville were within one night's march of each other ”

“ In connection with the action of General Thomas previous to the battle of Franklin, the following instructions from General Sherman on October 31 are important: "You must unite all your men into one army, and abandon all minor points, if you expect to defeat Hood. General Schofield is marching to-day from here. ”

“ I tell you only what our people almost to a man feel. The excitement over the success of Quantrill is intense--intense all over the State--and I do not see how I can hesitate to demand, or how you can refuse to grant, a court of inquiry by which the cause of that fatal success may be fully investigated, and all the facts laid before the public. I go even further. I demand that this court of inquiry shall have power to investigate all matter touching military wrong-doings in Kansas, and I do this most earnestly, to guarantee alike our present and future safety. ”

“ I like the way the old man chaws his tobacco." From that day forward I felt that the Twenty-third Corps confided in me as I did in them. I never had any doubt they would do just what I expected them to do, and would take it for granted that it was "all right."
It is with greatest pleasure that I record here the just tribute paid to that splendid body of men by General Sherman about the close of the Atlanta campaign: "The Twenty-third Corps never failed to do all that was expected of it." ”

“ After several days' occupation, as at the points attacked by Thomas and McPherson, the lines became impregnable. Frequent efforts were made, and by none more earnestly than by General Sherman, to press the troops to a vigorous assault of the enemy's position under the favorable circumstances above referred to. But the general feeling of the army, including not only privates, but officers of nearly all grades, was undoubtedly opposed to such attacks. The notion was very prevalent that there was no necessity of fighting the enemy on unequal terms. ”

“ In the meantime Hascall's line had been formed in prolongation of Hooker's and covered with the usual hastily constructed parapets, and three brigades of Cox's division had been ordered forward to protect Hascall's right. The attack was repulsed with ease, and there was no ground for apprehension about the safety of my immediate flank, much less of Hooker's, after the arrival of Cox's division, which occurred before the hour of Hooker's signal- despatch to Sherman expressing anxiety about our extreme right. ”

“ See Thomas to Sherman, November 12, 1864, 8:30 A. M.: "Your despatch of 12 last night received. I have no fear that Beauregard can do us any harm now; and if he attempts to follow you, I will follow him as far as possible. If he does not follow you, I will then thoroughly organize my troops, and I believe I shall have men enough to ruin him unless he gets out of the way very rapidly. The country through middle Alabama, I learn, is teeming with supplies this year, which will be greatly to our advantage. ”

“ Your presence alone will give confidence. Granger should continue all the time to threaten the rear, and as soon as possible some demonstration should be made from the direction of Vicksburg against the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Also I want you to assume the offensive as quick as possible, as I have reason to believe all of Beauregard's army is not there, but that he has also divided his forces.
"W. T. Sherman, Major-General." (10)
On the same day Thomas telegraphed to Sherman in reply to the above:
"It is, and always has been, my intention to command the troops with me in person. ”

“ I do not think much importance is generally to be attached to what any man may or may not recall to memory after the lapse of many years, although the recollection of a recent event, repeated in the memory, for good and sufficient reasons, very frequently during a long time, may continue to be very accurate. However this may be, perfect candor compels me to say here that I have never been able to recall any conversation with General Thomas at any time in respect to his plans or wishes in the event of Hood's advance from the Tennessee before Thomas was ready to assume the offensive. ”

“ The night was as dark, the men were as tired, the distance was as great, and the way was as difficult for Johnson as for Stewart. In view of these plain facts it is a fair inference that Stewart made a very lukewarm effort to accomplish Hood's orders; that it was possible for him, by a display of no more energy than Johnson displayed, to have extended his right across the Franklin pike as early as 8 o'clock, and then when Schofield started north with Ruger's division about 9 o'clock, he would have found the way effectually barred. ”

“ General Schofield had then well in hand on the north bank of Duck River, opposite Columbia, Tennessee, the divisions of Kimball, Wagner and Wood, composing the Fourth corps, and of Cox and Ruger, of the Twenty-third corps, Ruger's lacking one brigade on detached service. Across the river were two divisions of General S. D. Lee's corps of Hood's Army. The preceding evening Hood, himself, with the corps of Cheatham and Stewart, and Johnson's division of Lee's corps, had moved up the river five and one-half miles to Davis' ford, where he was laying his pontoons preparatory to crossing. ”

“ A wide diversity of opinion has always existed among military men in respect to the battle of Nashville, ranging all the way from the view taken in historical accounts heretofore published to the opinion expressed by General Sherman, in language intended of course to be hyperbolical, namely that "the battle of Nashville was fought at Franklin." ”

“ In the popular judgment formed immediately after important events, success or failure is the only criterion of wisdom; but the historian must go deeper, and consider the merits of a general plan in view of the greater or less probability of failure of any one of its parts. What would have been the just judgment of mankind upon Sherman's march to the sea if Thomas had failed, as Sherman with a much larger force had done, to destroy or seriously cripple Hood's army? ”

“ He could at the same time, if he thought it necessary or desirable, inflict upon Georgia the destruction which the Confederate commander wanted to prevent, but had in fact invited by abandoning that State, and that without materially impairing the strength of his (Sherman's) main army operating against the main force of the enemy. As suggested by Grant, a cavalry raid through Georgia would have accomplished that destruction as well as a march of 60,000 men. ”

“ If the North can march an army right through the South, it is proof positive that the North can prevail in this contest, leaving only open the question of its willingness to use that power."
It was, perhaps, not war, but rather statesmanship upon which Sherman was about to enter—not to defeat and destroy or capture the Confederate armies, but to demonstrate in the most positive manner that the "North can prevail in this contest," provided only it is willing to use its power. ”

“ With the exception of those 7000 men belonging to Sherman's column, Thomas had for necessary garrisons and railroad guards essentially the same number of men as had been employed in that service all the preceding summer,—no more and no less,—and the necessity for that service had not been very much diminished, except at and about Decatur, Stevenson, and Tullahoma, which Hood's advance from Florence had rendered of no further consequence at that time. ”

“ AVAILABLE TROOPS NOT SENT TO THE FRONT Notwithstanding this earnest desire, General Thomas does not appear to have realized the existence of a force available for the purpose he had in view. The railroad guards from Atlanta to Chattanooga or Dalton, withdrawn after Sherman started on his march, and convalescents, men returning from furlough and others going to the front, but failing to reach Sherman's army in time, all assembled at Chattanooga, made a surplus force at that point of about 7000 men. ”

“ Nothing could have been clearer to any military mind in the fall of 1864, than that if either Lee's or Hood's army could be captured or destroyed, the surrender of the other must necessarily follow very quickly, and the rebellion be ended. No man could have been more earnest than Sherman in his laudable desire to make the capture of his own adversary the beginning of the end. ”

“ I cannot better show my own exact impression at the time respecting the operations of Sherman and Hood in 1864, than by an illustration that will be at once appreciated on every farm in America. When two fighting-cocks meet for the first time, battle is joined without delay, and is prosecuted with all possible vigor and skill. If the result is decisive the victor's triumph is loudly proclaimed, while the defeated combatant, with lowered crest, seeks safety in flight. ”

“ Then, if the result of the operations of a larger force in Tennessee had been as decisive as they actually were with the smaller one Thomas had, Sherman could have recalled to Atlanta all of the troops he had sent to Tennessee, and thus marched toward Virginia with eighty-five or ninety or even one hundred thousand men, instead of sixty thousand. All this could have surely been accomplished by the middle of January, or before the time when Sherman actually began his march from Savannah. ”

“ I do not believe any man worthy of the title of statesman will admit for a moment that the United States cannot govern, and govern well, any national outposts or other possessions which the interests of the country may require it to hold. ”

“ And what possible difference could it make in which part of the revolted States the theater of war might be, so long as the Confederate army, to destroy which was the only important object of a campaign, was there? To avoid a transfer of the battlefield from Georgia to Alabama or Mississippi, was it wise to run the risk of transferring it to Kentucky or Ohio? Perhaps no movement which could have been contemplated by the Confederate authorities would have been more greatly to Sherman's advantage over Hood than the one they adopted. ”

“ Next to General Scott and Colonel Lee, with whom I had the honor of some acquaintance, I was quite sure there stood before me the finest-looking and most accomplished soldier in the United States Army. What a hard time young officers of the army would sometimes have but for the old sergeants! I have pitied from the bottom of my heart volunteer officers whom I have seen starting out, even in the midst of war, with perfectly raw regiments, and not even one old sergeant to teach them anything. No country ought to be so cruel to its soldiers as that. ”