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Military Pron: The Civil War - The Nashville Campaign, Part 2 of 2

Dec 16, 2024, 1:29 AM

More Holiday Greetings from the Fordt household!

Make him stop!

“Honey, maybe the family can finish hearing about the Andersonville Death Camp next Christmas. Everyone really seems kind of tired right now.”

Fine. But in case anyone missed Part 1 of the Nashville Campaign, here’s the summary:

1. Gen. Bragg lost Chattanooga and was replaced by Gen. Johnston.

2. Gen. Johnston delayed Sherman to Atlanta, where he was replaced by General Hood.

Great! You’re caught up!

Years ago I learned that campaigns are at least as important, and maybe more important, than major battles. We focus on the battles, but they’re just the End Game of a campaign. Sort of, “You’ve made your bed, and now you must sleep in it.”

The whole idea of a campaign is to organize and align your forces so that you have the best chance to win when the big battle comes, and you might not know exactly when that is. And a well-executed campaign may never even turn into a major battle…it might just lead to an enemy wipe out. I mean, there was no toe-to-toe, straight-up Battle of Pearl Harbor, right?

As Nathan Forrest succinctly said, the idea is to “Get there the firstus with the mostus.”

By the time of the actual battle, the outcome is often a foregone conclusion. At Gettysburg, General Longstreet (from Edgefield), looked across at The Angle before Pickett’s Charge.

The Confederates were in that tree line…the Union, manning those cannons. All the Rebs had to do was cross that field.

Longstreet famously said, “It’s a mathematical equation. No 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle could have taken that position.” So he knew the probable outcome of that battle before the first shot was even fired. And he was right.

George ‘Wilson’ Pickett’s Charge

What Longstreet knew was that if I have a division of 10,000 men, and you have a division of 10,000 men, and they meet on neutral ground…they fight for 2-3 hours before they get tired, run out of ammunition, and end in a draw. A lot of men die, and nothing changes. It’s simple math. No one has an edge. So someone needs to change that math, somehow, to get an edge, and a victory.

High Tide for the Confederacy. Longstreet’s men got TO those guns at The Angle, but couldn’t get past them.

That edge can be by numbers, or terrain, or technology, or leadership. The real key, as Forrest said, is getting the edge before the fight even begins...firstus. And that plays a big role in the Nashville Campaign, which was basically a race from Atlanta to Nashville (instead of Texarkana).

Both Sherman and Hood were trying to get to Nashville the firstus, with the mostus.

The Nashville Campaign is one of the lesser-known campaigns of the Civil War. It had little chance of turning the tide of the war, and it shows the absolute desperation of the South late in the war.

It was a concession that the Army of Tennessee was so weak that it could no longer stand up to the full Union Army, toe-to-toe. Sort of like when you see a football team running trick plays. I mean, what running could take this on, head-to-head and straight up, for a whole game?

But first, let’s see how the campaign became a race. It begins in Atlanta, and anyone who has ever seen Gone with the Wind knows about the Fall of Atlanta.

And every Southerner from my neck of the woods knows about Sherman’s March – about how their great-grandparents buried the silver in the backyard and cursed the those damm Yankees for stealing all their chickens and their tobacco.

Sherman’s March through Georgia is famous enough, but a glaring question is, “Where was the Southern army that was supposed to be confronting Sherman as he marched, unopposed, from Atlanta to Savannah?” What happened? The answer is, “Oh, the army that was gonna defend Georgia was in Alabama, and Tennessee.”

I know, right? We’ll get there.

Part One ended with John Bell Hood being given command of the Army of Tennessee, parked outside of Atlanta, confronting Sherman in 1864. Davis was tired of retreating, and he wanted an attacker. Hood was his man. Here’s Hood, almost winning Gettysburg at Little Round Top, a year earlier.

Make no mistake, Hood was a youngster, but he was no coward. And aside from his life, he probably gave more, and lost more, and suffered more, than any other man in the Civil War. That included the loss of the use of his left arm, the amputation of his right leg, and an addiction to laudanum (opium) for pain from his multiple combat wounds. The guy was a fighter, plain and simple.

Hood, with a limp arm, a fake leg, crutches, and searing pain coursing through his body.

Hood was an excellent division and corps commander. He just wasn’t an army commander, yet. But who is at 33? Not everyone is a Caesar, Alexander the Great, or Danny Ford. And even those guys had outstanding veteran subordinates behind the scenes. Looking at you Brother Bill.

Earlier in the war, when Lee needed a key position taken or held, his go-to-guy was Hood. “Send in my Texans” was Lee’s order for any ‘must-be-done’ task. Hood was born in Kentucky, but served under Lee in Texas before the war, and adopted Texas as his home state.

Hood with his Lone Star boys, and flag

Outside Atlanta in 1864, Hood set out to do exactly what he had been appointed by Davis to do…attack, attack, attack, and then attack again.

Sherman’s plan to capture Atlanta was to surround it and cut all the rail links to starve the city out. Hood launched no less than 6 separate counterattacks in July and August of 1864, in every direction, to try and break the stranglehold as the Union Army slowly surrounded the city. Sort of like a wildcat trying to fight its way out of an ever-tightening sack.

But Hood never found the edge he needed. He attacked with poor odds, and in poor terrain, every time, and lost every counterattack. Sort of like running up the middle against the Power Rangers, over and over and over. It was a mathematical equation.

James Longstreet, Lee’s right-hand man from Upstate SC: “See, I told you so.”

Hood lost more than 30,000 irreplaceable men in his attacks, and Sherman lost slightly less. But Sherman’s army numbered almost 120,000 men, and Hood’s only 60,000. So Hood lost half his army at Atlanta. It was all for virtually no military gain, but it gave Davis what he wanted.

Counterattacks in every direction. (Jonesboro, in the South, is not on this map.)

On September 2nd Hood abandoned the city and Sherman entered it, and waited.

At this point, Hood had a choice to make. One option was to conduct a Fabian Defense, as Johnston had done, and delay Sherman all the way to Savannah. With the 1864 Election coming up there was a slim chance that a peace movement might push Lincoln out of office. The war had dragged on for three long years, and finishing it might be deemed too long and too costly for Union voters.

Instead, having already lost half his army, Hood decided to attack, again.

Hood thus condemned middle Georgia to its fate, and left the path to Savannah wide open with no organized defense to speak of. But instead of attacking Sherman’s Army in Atlanta, he decided to march west into Alabama, then turn north into Tennessee, and attack Sherman’s supply line – the railroad.

It was actually not a God-awful-terrible plan, though it was a decidedly desperate one. It was an indirect way to slow Sherman’s march to Savannah, conserving troops by avoiding battle, while achieving the same Fabian end, hopefully. Instead of blocking Shermans path, Hood sought to put Sherman on a short supply chain.

The only problem was, Sherman just had too many men.

So, Sherman simply detached a third of his army to follow Hood into Alabama, and sent the other 2/3 of his army to ravage Georgia and capture Savannah. The Nashville Campaign was on.

The Nashville Campaign:
Sherman in Blue, Hood in Red. In the last major Civil War campaign in the deep South, the Armies race away from each other. How weird is that?

Hood stripped his army to the bone in order to move fast and get the jump on Sherman in Tennessee. He planned to resupply himself on the way, once he got into Alabama.

It worked, and Hood had good success early. He made it all the way to the Alabama-Tennessee border unmolested, and crossed the Tennessee River above Muscle Shoals, away from the Union Navy. Smart.

Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers, and the Union Navy cannot get through…

In the chess game of war, now it was Sherman’s turn to take a gamble. Tennessee was not undefended by the Union. Nathan Forrest made sure of that. He never saw a rail line he didn’t want to cut.

The Union posted a significant number of men all over Tennessee to cover the rail lines from what Sherman called “The Devil himself.” But Sherman’s problem was that his garrisons were small, scattered, detachments just waiting to be pounced on by Forrest’s cavalry command from hell.

Now I ask you, does this man look like the Devil himself?

Rather than follow Hood through Alabama, Sherman sent the smaller 1/3 of his army, under General George Thomas, directly back to Nashville from Atlanta. And Sherman relied on those scattered garrison troops already in Tennessee to slow Hood’s advance up from Alabama.

So Thomas took the hypotenuse to Nashville, while Hood took the two legs. Again, a mathematical equation.

But, Hood had about a one leg lead. So the Nashville Campaign was coming down to this…Could Hood get to Nashville and cut Sherman’s supply line, before the scattered Union forces in Tennessee retreat and converge to defend Nashville? And would Thomas get to Nashville in time to help? Who gets to Nashville the firstus with the mostus?

It’ll come all down to four towns: Columbia, Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville itself.

It’s a hell of a race, and the dramatic conclusion is coming up next time, in Part 3 of 2.

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Alright, buckle up, you history buffs with a taste for the crass, because I'm about to give you the Nashville Campaign of the Civil War, but with a twist of raunch and a sprinkle of humor.

So, picture this: we've got General John Bell Hood, who, after losing Atlanta like he lost his virginity - quickly and embarrassingly - decides he's gonna make a grand comeback. His plan? March his Confederate assets into Tennessee to capture Nashville, because what better way to get over a breakup with Atlanta than by trying to score with Nashville, right?

Now, Hood, bless his heart, was like that guy at the party who's had too much to drink and thinks he can still pull off some moves. He's all, "I'll fuckup Sherman's supply lines like they're my ex's new boyfriend!" But instead of luring Sherman into a fight, Sherman goes, "Nah, bro, I'm gonna burn my way to Savannah because I've got better things to do."

Enter Union General George H. Thomas, or as we'll call him, "The Rock of Chickamauga" - not just for his steadfastness but because his balls were made of stone by this point. Thomas was given the thankless job of dealing with Hood's drunk parade.

The campaign kicks off with Hood trying to outsmart Union General John Schofield at Spring Hill, but it's like trying to find the clit - he missed it entirely. Hood's forces end up looking like they've just walked into an #### they weren't invited to, leaving Schofield to slip away like a one-night stand before morning.

Next up, the Battle of Franklin, where Hood decides a frontal assault is a good idea - akin to charging into battle with your pants around your ankles. It's a massacre, with Hood losing so many men, you'd think he was trying to repopulate the South single-handedly. The Confederates get their ##### handed to them, and Hood, now limping along, decides to set up shop outside Nashville, hoping for a miracle.

On December 15-16, 1864, Thomas, with his massive Union army, decides it's time tofuck Hood's world up. He launches an attack that sends Hood's troops running like they've just seen their stepmom in a compromising position. The Confederates are routed, and Nashville becomes less of a battle and more of a Confederate ######## gone wrong.

Hood's army scatters like roaches when the lights come on, and by the time they regroup in Tupelo, Mississippi, they're so demoralized, you'd think they'd been forced to watch a season of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta." Hood resigns, his career in tatters, and the Confederate Army of Tennessee is about as threatening as a flaccid d1ck at an ####.

So there you have it, the Nashville Campaign - where Hood tried to stick it to the Union but ended up getting it stuck where the sun don't shine.

Military Pron: The Civil War - The Nashville Campaign, Part 2 of 2

When Sherman got to Columbia....

Incredible!

Re: When Sherman got to Columbia....

More on Catherine.

Re: More on Catherine.

Great read ! Always enjoy your cut-to-the-chase

What a weird phrase. Every knows what it means, but where did it come from?

Re: What a weird phrase. Every knows what it means, but where did it come from?

Re: Military Pron: The Civil War - The Nashville Campaign, Part 2 of 2

Nicely done, here's my recap

Re: Nicely done, here's my recap

TigerBoard POTD

Milit­ary Pron: The Civil War - The Nashville Campaign, Part 2 of 2

When Sherman got to Columbia....

Incredible!

Re: When Sherman got to Columbia....

More on Catherine.

Re: More on Catherine.

Great read ! Always enjoy your cut-to-the-chase

What a weird phrase. Every knows what it means, but where did it come from?

Re: What a weird phrase. Every knows what it means, but where did it come from?

Re: Milit­ary Pron: The Civil War - The Nashville Campaign, Part 2 of 2

Nicely done, here's my recap

Re: Nicely done, here's my recap

TigerBoard POTD

Military Pron: The Civil War - The Nashville Campaign, Part 2 of 2

Re: Military Pron: The Civil War - The Nashville Campaign, Part 2 of 2