Battle of Franklin

Battle of Franklin
Part of the American Civil War
Battle of Franklin, by Kurz and Allison (1891).
Date November 30, 1864 (1864-11-30) Location Franklin, Williamson County, Tennessee 35°55′03″N 86°52′24″W / 35.9174°N 86.8733°W / 35.9174; -86.8733Coordinates: 35°55′03″N 86°52′24″W / 35.9174°N 86.8733°W / 35.9174; -86.8733 Result Union victory
Belligerents
United States	Confederate States
Commanders and leaders
John M. Schofield	John Bell Hood
Units involved
Army of the Ohio	Army of Tennessee
Strength
27,000	27,000
Casualties and losses
2,326 total (189 killed, 1,033 wounded, 1,104 missing/captured)	6,252 total (1,750 killed, 3,800 wounded, 702 missing/captured)

The Battle of Franklin was fought on November 30, 1864, in Franklin, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin–Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee conducted numerous frontal assaults against fortified positions occupied by the Union forces under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield and was unable to break through or to prevent Schofield from a planned, orderly withdrawal to Nashville.

The Confederate assault of six infantry divisions containing eighteen brigades with 100 regiments numbering almost 20,000 men, sometimes called the "Pickett's Charge of the West", resulted in devastating losses to the men and the leadership of the Army of Tennessee—fourteen Confederate generals (six killed, seven wounded, and one captured) and 55 regimental commanders were casualties. After its defeat against Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas in the subsequent Battle of Nashville, the Army of Tennessee retreated with barely half the men with which it had begun the short offensive, and was effectively destroyed as a fighting force for the remainder of the war.

The 1864 Battle of Franklin was the second military action in the vicinity; a battle in 1863 was a minor action associated with a reconnaissance in force by Confederate cavalry leader Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn on April 10.

Following his defeat in the Atlanta Campaign, Hood had hoped to lure Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman into battle by disrupting his railroad supply line from Chattanooga to Atlanta. After a brief period in which he pursued Hood, Sherman decided instead to cut his main army off from these lines and "live off the land" in his famed March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah. By doing so, he would avoid having to defend hundreds of miles of supply lines against constant raids, through which he predicted he would lose "a thousand men monthly and gain no result" against Hood's army.