Carter House and the Battle of Franklin

http://www.battleoffranklintrust.org

The small town of Franklin, Tennessee had been a Federal military post since the fall of Nashville in early 1862. Late in the summer of 1864, Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaced Gen. Joseph E. Johnston with Gen. John Bell Hood.  Hood, a West Point graduate, had won acclaim for his achievements in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. He had also suffered a grievous wound to his left arm at Gettysburg and his right leg had been amputated near the hip after being shot at Chickamauga. After the fall of Atlanta in early September 1864, Hood began formulating plans for an invasion of Middle Tennessee, with the goal of recapturing Nashville and prolonging the war. Hood and his Army of Tennessee, over 30,000 strong, moved up through northwest Georgia, northern Alabama, and crossed the Tennessee River at Florence. His hardened veterans, screened by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry, pushed north toward the fertile hills and valleys of Middle Tennessee on November 21, 1864.