November 26, 1864 Today’s letter has a couple of interesting bits mentioned by Abbott that are connected to the larger history of the war in general but I chose to focus on one that references a future battle. Right at the end of the letter, Abbott tells his sister that he expects his regiment to head out soon “to reinforce Gen’l. Thomas at Pulaski.” I looked up Thomas to see what he was up to at this point and I feel fairly confident that his position was a catalyst for what would be known as the Second Battle of Franklin. This battle took place on November 30, 1864, four days after this letter was written. It is therefore reasonable to surmise that this is connected to the letter and Abbott's regiment would be called on. Upon some further digging, I discovered that Thomas and 25,000 Union soldiers were besieged in Nashville. Therefore, perhaps Abbott’s regiment, and others, were needed to offer them support. This is definitely connected to the Second Battle of Franklin, as Union General John Schofield was racing to Nashville with his Army of the Ohio to help out. At the same time, Confederate General John Bell Hood was also scurrying to Nashville in an attempt to threaten the Union’s “supply base at Nashville.” The details leading up to the actual confrontation at Franklin are too numerous to include in this post, so I would encourage you to check out the link below to learn more! I’ll instead jump right to the battle itself. The battle was a full frontal assault across open ground, with the Union armies firmly “behind three lines of breastworks and abates.” The Confederate soldiers began to be torn down immediately but kept pressing onwards, with fighting eventually turning into man-to-man combat. Soldiers fought each other “with shovels, bayonets, sabers, and pistols.” Again, this is a really interesting battle that included quite a bit of different tactics occurring at once. It would be difficult to concisely summarize everything here, so check out the link! In the end, the Union emerged victorious. There were a total of roughly 8,600 casualties between the two sides, with about 6,000 coming from the Confederate side. This battle was pretty evenly matched, with each side possessing around 30,000 soldiers each. Really, the outcome could have gone either way. While the Confederate Army of the Tennessee was “decimated” at this time, it did not stop Hood from pursuing Schofield to Nashville. Indeed, we’ll meet these generals again at the Battle of Nashville, which will be discussed in the next blog post. Works Cited: The Civil War Trust: Saving America’s Civil War Battlefields. “Franklin.” http://www.civilwar.org/battlefield/franklin.html?tab=facts (accessed March 19, 2014). Photo Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Franklin_(1864)
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AuthorTessa Wakefield, student intern at the Concordia College Archives, assembled these blog entries in 2013-2014 for the Isaac Mark Abbott Civil War Letters Collection. The posts summarize the content of the letters, interpret Abbott's experiences and place them in the larger context of the Civil War. Archives
March 2014
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