John Bell Hood and the Mysteries of Spring Hill - Eric Jacobson

Confederate general John Bell Hood’s Tennessee campaign of 1864 is one of the most controversial of the Civil War. In particular, Hood’s frontal assault on an entrenched army led by John Schofield at Franklin, about twenty miles south of Nashville, on 30 November 1864, was an attack larger, bloodier, and more futile than Pickett’s charge, resulting in nearly 2000 Confederate dead. Private Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee called it "the blackest page in the history of the war." Yet the day before Hood had let Schofield’s army slip through his fingers at the Battle of Spring Hill. What bought about this extraordinary reversal of military fortunes?

On 29 November 1864, Hood’s infantry crossed the Duck River, where Schofield’s men had held them for five day, and converged on Spring Hill which would have placed them astride the Union supply line back to Nashville. Schofield began to withdraw, dividing his…