Franklin - Fort Granger

Fort Granger was built by the Union to control the town of Franklin, and primarily the bridge over the river. It is on a high hill north of the town.


This marker shows a war-time image and helps you figure out where things are today. Its a bit hard because there are a lot more trees today than when the image was created, plus there are modern buildings that obscure the view, but overall there is a good view from here.

On the far right of the picture is Winstead Hill, subject of a post last week. Here is a detail of the war-time image.

And a similar view today (the angle doesn't appear to be 100% the same but its close). You can definitely see the Columbia Pike in the gap between the two hills. The light green area on Winstead Hill would be roughly where the parking lot is to see the markers and monuments on Winstead Hill, most of them are just inside the tree line.

And now a few pictures inside of Fort Granger. Many earthen forts of the time look like this now. You can make out some gun placements but by and large there is not a tremendous amount of information to be gleaned here. The high ground and the walls would have made this a tough fort to take but if an army had really been interested in capturing this fort it would have fallen. Its not strong enough that it would have been impossible to capture.

Franklin - Carnton

The Carnton plantation was used as a field hospital for the Confederates during the battle. It has been preserved and is well worth visiting. Blood stains can be seen on the floors, I can only imagine how much cleaning was tried before the effort was given up. But this is not just a field hospital, on the day after the battle the bodies of four of the Confederate generals killed during the fighting were laid on Carnton's back porch. The generals were Patrick R. Cleburne, Hiram B. Granbury, John Adams, and Otho F. Strahl.



The back porch.

The front entrance.

Another view of the front, I find the building interesting as architecture alone.

The white building is the summer kitchen.

There are a few other out buildings preserved.

Carnton's garden which is interesting to go through also.

One very big tree, I believe the sign said it was an Osage orange.

Franklin - Collins' Farm

The far Union left was protected by a natural Osage Orange abatis. Confederate troops belonging to the brigades of Thomas Scott, John Adams and Winfield Featherston attacked here. These brigades belonged to William Loring's division. After being repulsed they fell back to the Collins' Farm where a ravine offered some protection. Again, not much is preserved at Franklin but there is a nice double sided marker here and this small open field gives some sense of what the land here might have looked like as there is a small ravine here. I have no idea if this is the ravine referred to on the marker, it would make sense but I would not be surprised if this was not the ravine either. At least there is not a movie theater on the ground.

Franklin - Cotton Gin

Some of the heaviest fighting at Franklin occurred where the Columbia Pike intersected the Union entrenchments. The landmark to the west of the road was the Carter House and to the east it was the Cotton Gin. Cleburne's Division mostly made its attacks against the Cotton Gin position. Of course the cotton gin doesn't exist anymore, the battle practically destroyed it and even if it had survived intact it would have likely been town down anyway once its usefulness was over. But the ground has been built on since, because hardly anything on the battlefield resembles 1863. The house in the picture below is roughly where the cotton gin was.

Cleburne's division lost heavily in men and officers. Cleburne and Granbury, a brigade commander, were killed. In all 14 regimental and brigade commanders were casualties. The cream of the Confederate army had been destroyed.

Franklin - Carter House

Looking south along the Columbia Pike. You can see a post for General Adams. There are posts like these for all of the Confederate generals who were killed at Franklin. They are not in the spots were the men died, although in some cases they are probably pretty close. But Adams' brigade was farther east so he did not die here. On each post is a box that holds info sheets for the general killed. I don't think I've ever seen them all full but I'm sure the inventory constantly varies.

The front of the Carter House. It faced the Columbia Pike, in fact my ankles are probably within inches of the pike when I took this picture.

The back porch and the Columbia Pike can be clearly seen.

This area saw heavy combat in part because there was a gap in the Union entrenchments where the Columbia Pike was. Back from the main line they made a retrenched line to counteract the gap but this was still a weak point in the line. When Wagner's two brigades were routed from their forward line they rushed thru here. The men in the entrenchments had to hold their fire until their comrades cleared away. This also led to the breaking of the line at this point.

As the next several pictures will show the battle raged among the Carter house and its out buildings. Bullet damage was never repaired so it is very easy to see today. You may need to click on the pictures to see the full extent of the damage.

This picture is just so you can see the layout of the buildings that were part of the estate.

Our tour guide said that this tree dated to the battle. I think this tree will not last too much longer, in fact it may have fallen since I was last there.

A modern reproduction of the earthworks, just to show how it was not just a ditch but was braced with wood sides.

And a view towards the museum, and also showing the remains of the original entrenchments.

There are a ton of plaques on the Carter House grounds as there are few other areas on the battlefield that groups could place plaques. For many years this (and Carnton) was the only preserved ground. Since then the country club next to Carnton has been bought and a few other small parcels.

One of the sad stories of the battle is that young Tod Carter was mortally wounded during the attack near his house. His family found him and brought him back into his home where he died a few days later.

This is the room he died in.

As was talked about in the post on the forward line, Emerson Opdycke refused to leave his brigade at the forward position. He could see it was a horrible position but also his brigade had been the rear guard for most of the past day. His men were tired and hungry. They needed a quick meal and as much rest as possible. So he kept marching, finally resting his men just north of the Carter House. When all hell broke loose his men quickly formed up and charged into the mess at the Carter House. I had a relative in the 24th Wisconsin, of Opdycke's Brigade, and while he was dead before this battle I am quite proud that his old regiment helped check the Confederate tide here.

Comments

I regret I've had to step up the level of comment moderation again. I have started receiving gibberish Chinese comments again (or maybe they really are saying how they love the Civil War, but I bet not). So all comments now need to be reviewed before they are posted, previously if you commented the day the post appeared it was not moderated. Oh well. So if you don't see your comment appear right away that is why. I wish it would let me make a list of safe commentators so that frequent users of the blog would have all their comments appear right away but that is not yet an option (or at least I don't know how to set that as a feature). Thanks for understanding.

Franklin - Union Forward Line

The most well known Franklin fighting occurs at the Carter House and Cotton Gin, but there are other areas that saw action. Most of these are lost to development. One such area is the Union's forward line.

As the Union army retreated into the defenses around Franklin Wagner's Division formed a defensive line in front of the main entrenchments. Emerson Opdycke thought the order was ridiculous and kept his brigade marching into town, eventually stopping just north of the Carter House. Wagner's two remaining brigades were quickly overwhelmed once the Confederate attack began and were routed. Opdycke's men would pitch into the fight around the Carter House and help turn the tide (which we'll get to in another post). A few days later Wagner would request to be relieved of command.

Basically nothing remains of this forward line. There is a nice marker next to a car wash but that's about it.

Franklin - Winstead Hill

Winstead Hill is a small park south of Franklin. Hood kept his headquarters here during the battle as it offered a nice view of the valley. It still offers a nice view although there are a ton of buildings in the way now. But you can still see where many of the important parts of the battlefield are from here.

When I first went to Winstead Hill all that was near the parking lot to indicate this was a Civil War park was the cannon and the state historical marker. Since then a monument to Freeman's Battery of Forrest's Cavalry (for an April 10, 1863 engagement) has been placed here.

There is also a marker in the parking lot to explain the history of this piece of ground.

Up the hill is a nice metal relief map that shows important places and gives some background of the battle.

And here is the view from the map. The Columbia Pike can be seen running across the center of the picture towards the left, disappearing at the top of a ridge (which is right where the Cotton Gin and the Carter House are).

A view from the bottom of the hill so you can see that the Columbia Pike is right next to the hill.

And some closeups of the Freeman's Battery monument. Monuments of this design are up at various other parks. I've seen them at Brice's Crossroads and Parker's Crossroads. There might be others I'm forgetting about but those two instantly pop into mind.

Near the relief map are a bunch of other monuments for the generals killed at Franklin, there were six in all.

John Adams

John C. Carter

Otho F. Strahl

States Rights Gist

Hiram Granbury

and Patrick Cleburne

There is also a monument to Cockrell's Missouri Brigade.

This is a very nice park. Its nice that it has a good number of markers and monuments that help explain the battle. Its also nice because it offers good views of the battlefield. One can only imagine how good these views might have been if the battlefield had been preserved in the 1890s but that is long since past. I imagine the visitor's center would have been at Winstead Hill.