Franklin-Nashville Campaign, US Civil War

The Franklin–Nashville campaign, also known as Hood's Tennessee campaign, was a series of battles in the Western Theater, conducted from September 18 to December 27, 1864, in Alabama, Tennessee, and northwestern Georgia during the American Civil War.

The Confederate Army of Tennessee under Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood drove north from Atlanta, threatening Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's lines of communications and central Tennessee. After a brief attempt to pursue Hood, Sherman returned to Atlanta and began his March to the Sea, leaving Union forces under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas to deal with Hood's threat.

Hood hoped to defeat the Union force under Maj. Gen. John Schofield before it could converge with Thomas's army and attempted to do so at the Battle of Spring Hill on November 29, but poorly coordinated Confederate attacks allowed Schofield to escape. The following day, Hood launched a series of futile frontal assaults against Schofield's field fortifications in the Battle of Franklin, suffering heavy casualties; Schofield withdrew his force and successfully linked up with Thomas in Nashville, Tennessee. On December 15–16, Thomas's combined army attacked Hood's depleted army and routed it in the Battle of Nashville, sending it in retreat to Tupelo, Mississippi. Hood resigned his commission shortly thereafter and the Army of Tennessee ceased to exist as an effective fighting force.

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