Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne
| Going Home - McGavock Confederate Cemetery+(Franklin) |
Lately I have been going through my library and checking out books I
have not read in 15-20 years and reading some of them to see if I might
find more insights in some of them now than I did then.
One I recently did this with was Lee’s Last Campaign by Clifford Dowdey in which Mr. Dowdey dealt at great length with General Lee’s campaign in the Wilderness and surrounding areas in 1864. I am glad I went through it. This time it gave me a much better understanding of what Lee had to put up with and how well he really did in that campaign–much better than the “historians” give him credit for.
Another one I have just reread is Stonewall of the West–Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War by Craig L. Symonds. Pat Cleburne was an interesting personality, and I mean that in a positive sense. He was killed in the Battle of Franklin in Tennessee in November, 1864 because John Bell Hood was so anxious to attack the Yankees in Franklin that he couldn’t resist a frontal assault across open ground which, basically, destroyed his army. I’ve been to Franklin to see the site of the battle.
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Full frontal assault across open ground was something that even the greatest were guilty of; Lee at Gettysburg; Burnside at Fredericksburg; Grant at Cold Harbor; Sherman at Kennesaw Mountain. Hood, as you mention, did it at Franklin and destroyed the Army of Tennessee. I think it came from impatience on the part of the generals involved, along with a certain amount of hubris.
ReplyDeleteYes and although Lee may have had a mild heart attack at Gettysburg, I'll guess that he was thinking coherently, but with the drugs Hood was taking, I'm not sure at all.
DeleteMissed opportunities at Spring Hill played a significant role in the Battle of Franklin.
On November 29, John Schofield was trapped. At Columbia, Tennessee, he had prevented Hood from crossing the Duck River for five days. When Confederates began to assemble for battle on the southern bank of the Duck on the 29th, Schofield felt it was time to withdraw. He sent half of his army twelve miles north to Spring Hill while the other half remained to cover the river crossing. But Schofield had been fooled—the grey mass opposite Columbia was a diversion. While their comrades occupied Schofield’s attention, two Confederate divisions crossed at a ford further east and swung around the city to land astride the north-south road connecting Columbia to Spring Hill. The Union force was divided and in grave danger. To Hood’s fury, however, Schofield still managed to escape. Command confusion disrupted several Confederate attacks in what became known as the Battle of Spring Hill, preventing a decisive interdiction of the Federal escape route. That night, soldiers and wagons evacuating Columbia passed within earshot of the Confederates encamped along the road, but the attack that might have changed the course of the campaign never came. The next day, Hood, “wrathy as a rattlesnake,” accused the Army of Tennessee of cowardice and ordered a pursuit to Franklin. The failure of the day before had prevented a battle to the Southerners’ advantage and sealed the violent fate of thousands.
http://namsouth.com/viewtopic.php?t=5201
Beautiful video and music. Thankyou. You can surely hear the the Celtic influence in that music.
ReplyDeleteGood point.
DeleteI forgot and don't know if you saw the other 3 videos at the link: Going Home - McGavock Confederate Cemetery+(Franklin)
DeleteYes, they were wonderful. I love to visit old cemeteries. I could come back east and visit nothing but cemeteries and battlefields and be happy. Perhaps some day I will get to see this one.
ReplyDeletevisit nothing but cemeteries and battlefields and be happy.
DeleteMe too and just checked the map and Franklin isn't far from Memphis and could camp there for a night after Beauvoir and Graceland. :)