A Thousand Words a Battle: Franklin
Battle of Franklin
November 30, 1864
On the late afternoon of November 30, 1864, the Confederate Army of Tennessee under the command of General John Bell Hood launched a massive frontal assault against United States forces of General John Schofield’s command at Franklin, Tennessee. The battle resulted in some of the worst hand-to-hand fighting of the entire war. That brutality came to the very doorsteps of some families, like the one of Fountain Branch Carter, whose farm became the epicenter of some of the worst fighting near the center of the Union line. At one point, nearly six thousand Confederates broke through the defenses, tearing open a two-hundred-yard gap in the defenses.
The Union’s second line of defense, largely held by green troops of the 44th Missouri, 175th Ohio, and 183rd Ohio were able to hold them at bay while the army’s one brigade of reserves, Col. Emerson Opdycke’s brigade of veterans, rushed forward and helped drive back the Confederates, sealing the breach in the line. One of the men with Opdycke, Corporal James Merrifield of the 88th Illinois Infantry later recalled the graphic violence he witnessed in the attack that carried him and others through and past the Carter home:
The first sight that caught my eye was a Confederate with the butt of his gun striking a 16th Kentucky soldier and knocking him down. Another of the 16th Kentucky then clubbed the Confederate with his musket and knocked him down. By this time the 16th Kentucky soldier, who was knocked down, was up and put a bayonet on his musket, turned it upside down, and plunged the bayonet in the Confederate, who was on the ground. Then we had troubles of our own to look after, and I saw them no more.
We charged up to the works, and there one of the severest straggles that falls to the lot of any men but once in a lifetime took place. We used bayonets, butts of guns, axes, picks, shovels, and even Gen. Opdyke picked up a gun and clubbed with it. We had a Capt. Barnard, of Company K, in the 88th Illinois, who used a little old four-barrel pistol and even a hatchet that he always carried with him to assist in putting up his tent. He is now a lawyer in Chicago.
At last the Confederates who were inside the works surrendered. We huddled them behind the cotton gin for safety. We formed at the works, and were no sooner formed than another line charged. They came to the works and settled down in front of it. They disappeared just like melting away; but in this charge the color bearer of Gen. Featherstone, of the Mississippi Brigade, came to the top of the works with his flag. As he was shot, he pitched forward. I grabbed the flag, took it off the staff, and put it in my pocket.
Then another line charged. This was Gen. Cockrell’s Missouri Brigade. They got no nearer than one hundred feet. As they were coming up, I noticed a flag and a large, fine-looking man, an officer, by its side. They melted away as the other line did. I jumped over the works and ran about one hundred feet ahead and got the flag, and this fine-looking officer was wounded, and lay there with the dead and wounded in heaps upon him. He asked me to pull a dead man off his leg, as he was shot in the knee. I did so. He then asked me for a drink of water. I leaned over, so he could drink out of my canteen without my taking it off my neck. He then asked me to unbuckle his sword belt. I did so, and at that time firing commenced. I looked up, and there was another line of battle about as far from me as our works were. I made a run for the works, still holding on to the sword and belt. How I managed to get to the works alive is a mystery to me, with both lines firing.[1]
Merrifield was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions that day.
Federals would hold out until well after dark and then slip away from the battlefield toward safety at Nashville. Confederates could claim victory because they held the field, but at a stunning cost of nearly nineteen percent of their forces, including fourteen general officers and fifty-five regimental commanders.
— William Lee White
[1] James K. Merrifield, “Opdycke’s Brigade at Franklin,” Confederate Veteran, Vol. XIII, 563.
