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PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 5:30 pm 
We havent had a new one of these for a while -

Which battle would you consider the "ugliest" battle of the war in terms of violence, killed/wounded, futility, or however else you wish to define it?

Battles like Cold Harbor, Spotsylvania, and Saylor's Creek pop into my mind. Even Brice's Cross Roads deserves honorable mention.

But my final answer will be the Battle of Franklin. A depleted Confederate Army forming ranks for a futile frontal attack against entrenched Yankees led to one of the saddest episodes of the War. The Army of Tennessee was never the same after this. The core of the Army was wasted in a useless attack by a commander determined to teach his generals, and soldiers, how to fight, and die, bravely. Historian Wiley Sword wrote, "Hood’s decision to use Cheatham’s Corps for the assaulting column rather than Stewart’s, which was in advance, was a significant tip-off of his thinking that day. … Hood was still seething about the failure of Cheatham’s men at Spring Hill, and by specific design the were going to be his shock troops this day. Cheatham, Brown, and Cleburne would be thrust in the very storm center of any fighting; Hood would purge their ranks of their apparent reluctance to fight except when behind breastworks." I remember one Union artillerymen who manned a cannon firing directly into a Confederate mass huddled in front of the Union trenches with double canister. He remarked that with each discharge the sound of shattering bones filled the air like panes of broken glass. The result of Hood's attack is well known. Hood wasted some of the finest generals and men in his Army for no other reason than to teach them to die like men.

To me this is the ugliest and saddest episode of the war.


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PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:57 pm 
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Well one night Ned Simms and I were out a little late at one of my favorite establishments in Washington D.C. and we when walked, a little erratically I must admit, back to Ned's tent and found Mrs. Simms. Ned unfortunately had the smell of whiskey and some French perfume on him. That was one ugly battle, about as one sided as Fredricksburg!

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 10:00 pm 
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Mark, I remember it well. I still walk a bit bow legged and with a limp plus my hearing hasn't been that good since then due to the busted eardrum and cauliflower ear. However, the good President is trying to get a conversation going about a battle, not a war. I do believe that I know the difference since 'battle' starts with a 'b' like in 'bottle' and war starts with a 'm' like in 'Martha'.

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 12:10 pm 
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To me, ugliest was massacre at Ft. Pillow

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_fort_pillow_1864.html
BG Elkin-commander
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 10:55 pm 
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Gentlemen <salute>

Gen. John Schofield wrote in his memoir, "Hood's assault at Franklin has been severely criticized. Even so able a general as J.E. Johnston has characterized it as ‘useless butchery'. These criticisms are based on a misapprehension of the facts, and are essentially erroneous. Hood must have been aware of our relative weakness of numbers at Franklin, and of the probable, if not certain, concentration of large reinforcements at Nashville. He could not hope to have at any future time anything like so great an advantage in that respect. The army at Franklin and the troops at Nashville were within one night's march of each other; Hood must therefore attack on November 30 or lose the advantage of greatly superior numbers. It was impossible, after the pursuit from Spring Hill, in a short day to turn our position or make any other attack but a direct one in front. Besides our position with the river on our rear, gave him the chance of vastly greater results, if his assault were successful, than could be hoped for by any attack he could make after we had crossed the Harpeth. Still more, there was no unusual obstacle to a successful assault at Franklin. The defenses were of the slightest character, and it was not possible to make them formidable during the short time our troops were in position, after the previous exhausting operations of both day and night, which had rendered some rest on the 30th absolutely necessary. The Confederate cause had reached a condition closely verging on desperation, and Hood's commander-in-chief had called upon him to undertake operations which he thought appropriate to such an emergency. Franklin was the last opportunity he could expect to have to reap the results hoped for in his aggressive movement. He must strike there, as best he could, or give up his cause as lost."

Ugly battle? Yes. Designed to teach his men a lesson? Not convinced.

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 3:50 am 
Hood did gain a victory at Franklin, technically, but at too great a cost. Forrest had found an alternate way to bypass the Union position and pleaded with Hood to allow him to use it. Hood refused and chose to attack against the Union lines directly. Few involved had any real expectation to survive such an attack and it may account for the six Confederate generals killed, seven wounded, and one captured during the attack. They knew they had been ordered to their death and they acted without regard for their own fate during the attack.

After the battle a Confederate officer wrote, "We Were led out in a slaughter pen to be shot down like animals. It was an attempt to make good by reckless daring the blunder which incapacity had occasioned the preceding day." Another Reb wrote, "To attack intrenched troops, superior in numbers, advancing over an open plain without cover, was a disregard of the rules of war, a waste of precious lives, and a wrecking of an army." One of Cleburne's men wrote after the battle, "Hood has betrayed us. This was not a fight with equal numbers and choice of the ground. The wails and cries of widows and orphans made at Franklin, Tennessee, will heat up the fires of the bottomless pit to burn the soul of General J.B. Hood for murdering their husbands and fathers."

To me the Battle of Franklin was always the result of Hood's increasingly erratic and disturbing behavior after his wounding at Gettysburg and Chickamauga. In his own memoir Hood admits that the idea of teaching his men a lesson was not out of the question. "The discovery that the army was, still, seemingly unwilling to accept battle unless under the protection of breastworks, caused me to experience grave concern. In my inmost heart I questioned whether or not I would ever succeed in eradicating this evil. It seemed to me I had exhausted every means in the power of one man to remove this stumbling block to the Army of Tennessee." The tonic, in Hood's mind, was a full frontal attack. This would give the Army strength and teach them to fight like men. After nearly four years of war was Hood really suggesting that the veterans of Shiloh, Mufreesboro, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Atlanta were not reliable soldiers? The only way to prove it, in Hood's mind, was to attack and succeed. Or not to come back at all. The pleading of Forrest, Cheatham and Cleburne could do little to sway the orders on November 30. Hood was ready to dish out a lesson. James McPherson wrote, "Having proved even to Hood's satisfaction that they could assault breastworks, the Army of Tennessee had shattered itself beyond the possibility of ever doing so again."

Hood's message to Richmond was one of victory after the battle. Although he bragged of capturing a 1,000 men and a few stands of colors he failed to mention the 7,000 men lost and 14 generals who had been casualties.


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 12:08 am 
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Hoods erratic behavior might have been due to his addiction to a powerful opiate called Laudanum(a liquid morphine)John Bell Hood should have been hung by neck in a public square for war crimes long before his death by yellow fever.

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 11:31 pm 
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How about Burnside at Fredericksburg?

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 4:30 pm 
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The assault on Kennesaw Mountain also comes to mind. At the end of the day, Sherman just flanked again and cause Johnston to abandon his positions. The advance on the fortifications was pretty much useless yet he ordered Thomas to continue with the assaults. Of course this was somewhat offset by Hoods attack.

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