Battle of Nashville
- Date:
- December 15, 1864 - December 16, 1864
- Location:
- Nashville
- Tennessee
- United States
- Participants:
- Confederate States of America
- United States
- Context:
- American Civil War
- Battle of Atlanta
- Key People:
- John B. Hood
- George H. Thomas
Battle of Nashville, (December 15–16, 1864), American Civil War engagement in which Confederate Lieut. Gen. John B. Hood attempted to retake Nashville, Tennessee, from an occupying Federal army, despite having a significant numerical disadvantage. The decisive Union victory shattered Hood’s army and effectively ended Southern resistance in Tennessee for the remainder of the war.
Context
Hood’s disastrous loss of Atlanta in September 1864 sent him and his Army of Tennessee on the run. Atlanta was a major railroad terminal and supply depot, and losing that city to Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman jeopardized the Confederacy’s entire western campaign. Hood rendezvoused with Confederate Pres. Jefferson Davis southwest of Atlanta in Palmetto, Georgia. There Davis informed Hood that he was relieved of overall command of the Department of the West, although he was permitted to retain control of the Army of Tennessee.
Hood’s next steps were to try to weaken Sherman’s army without engaging him in the open field, as the Army of Tennessee had been too badly mauled to survive such a battle. Davis directed him to cut off Sherman’s supply lines to the north, pitching a defensive battle if Sherman followed and striking the Union general if he instead advanced south. While Hood followed these orders at the start, in October he informed the president that he aimed to cut off the supply lines between Dalton and Resaca, much farther into north Georgia than originally planned. He possibly hoped to lure Sherman as far as the Tennessee River. Hood seized Dalton on October 13 and Sherman soon followed, but, when the Confederate general wheeled south and west toward Gadsden, Alabama, Sherman did not pursue him. Hood altered his orders yet again: he would cross the Tennessee River and retake Nashville, posing a threat to Union-held Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. This way, he was certain that Sherman would engage him. In fact, Sherman had no intentions of engaging Hood. While the Confederate general meandered through Alabama before crossing the Tennessee on October 31, Sherman began his famous March to the Sea. Hood delayed for three weeks at Florence before learning of Georgia’s devastation, and thereafter he abandoned hope of drawing Sherman north.
Instead, Hood set his sights squarely on recapturing Nashville. He moved his army north and east in the direction of the Tennessee capital, but racing against him was a Union army retreating from Pulaski, Tennessee, with Maj. Gen. John Schofield at its head. Hood first engaged Schofield on November 29 at Spring Hill, Tennessee, just north of the Duck River. He intended to sever Schofield’s access to the Nashville road, but communication between Hood and his subordinates broke down and Schofield slipped past the Confederates during the night. When Hood learned of this development in the morning, he was furious. However, he would not be deterred. The Army of Tennessee pursued Schofield’s forces to Franklin, Tennessee, where they found that the Federal troops had entrenched themselves. Hood ordered a hasty frontal assault, and, although he forced Schofield’s army to retreat to Nashville, he lost 6 generals and over 6,000 soldiers in the process. Still determined to retake Nashville for the Confederacy, Hood and his 30,000 bloodied men limped their way to the southern outskirts of the city. They set up camp on December 2.
Battle
Nashville had been occupied by the Union since the early months of 1862. Like Atlanta, its commercial importance and status as a railroad hub contributed to its value for both the Union and the Confederacy. Union Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas commanded the Federal troops stationed there. He had observed Hood’s advance from afar while amassing a fighting force of his own that numbered around 55,000 troops, far more than Hood’s army.
While the Confederate general’s strategy had grown more rash and careless with each defeat, Thomas was known for his careful and deliberate planning. For two weeks the “Rock of Chickamauga” drafted and revised his strategy to confront Hood. During that time, however, his superiors grew impatient. Pres. Abraham Lincoln and General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant sent letter after letter urging Thomas to crush the Army of Tennessee with haste. When Thomas informed them that he was hampered by terrible winter weather, Grant was not convinced. On December 13 he sent another major general to assume command of Thomas’s army if he had not mounted an assault by the time he arrived in Nashville. The replacement was not needed, though: Thomas mobilized his forces on December 15.
Hood had arranged his troops into a four-mile-long line straddling four of the roads to the south of Nashville. They erected a series of earthen redoubts on their left flank to defend against an inevitable Union sally. In the meantime, much of the Confederate cavalry had been dispatched to engage Union forces at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Thomas’s plan of attack entailed pinning down Hood’s right flank while a larger force of infantry and cavalry surged over the redoubts and decimated the Confederate left. At 6:00 am Maj. Gen. James Steedman led the first phase of the assault against the Army of Tennessee. He succeeded in keeping the Confederate right flank at bay until noon, when the main Union force advanced on Hood’s redoubts to the left. Hood’s men began to break, and by nightfall his men had retreated to take up new defensive positions two miles south of their original fieldworks.
The next day Hood reformed his battered line around Shy’s Hill to the west and Overton’s Hill to the east. Union forces advanced on both hills. The first attempt to take Overton’s Hill failed, but by 4:00 pm Shy’s Hill belonged to the Union, and Confederate troops on Overton’s Hill began to waver. In due time a renewed assault on Overton’s Hill caused a complete rout of the Confederates. Hood ordered a mass retreat south to Franklin.
Casualties and aftermath
Thomas’s methodical assault on Hood’s besieging force saw the virtual destruction of the Army of Tennessee. Of the 30,000 Confederate troops engaged at Nashville, an estimated 6,000 were casualties. The 55,000 men of Thomas’s force suffered just 3,061 casualties. The Confederates ran from Union soldiers for 10 days, stopping to breathe only after crossing into Alabama and over the Tennessee River. They finally recuperated at Tupelo, Mississippi, with little more than half of the men that had fought at Nashville. Hood relinquished his command in shame.
For the Union’s part, Thomas’s victory gave Sherman freedom to devote his full attention to razing the Georgia countryside. A secure Tennessee and a shattered Confederate army meant that the Union was closer than ever to winning the war.
Myles Hudson