Battle of Franklin

Battle of Franklin
Part of the American Civil War
Battle of Franklin, by Kurz and Allison (1891)
Date November 30, 1864 (1864-11-30) Location Franklin, Tennessee 35°55′03″N 86°52′24″W / 35.9174°N 86.8733°W / 35.9174; -86.8733 Result Union victory[1]
Belligerents
United States (Union)	Confederate States
Commanders and leaders
John Schofield David S. Stanley	John Bell Hood
Units involved
Army of the Ohio	Army of Tennessee
Strength
27,000[2]	27,000-31,000[2]
Casualties and losses
2,326 (total: 189 killed, 1,033 wounded, 1,104 missing/captured)[2]	Schofield's estimate: 6,252 (1,750 killed, 3,800 wounded, 702 missing/captured)[2][3] Hood's report: 4,500[4][5]

The Battle of Franklin was fought on November 30, 1864, in Franklin, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin–Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. Confederate Lieutenant General John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee conducted numerous frontal assaults against fortified positions occupied by the Union forces under Major General John Schofield and was unable to prevent Schofield from executing a planned, orderly withdrawal to Nashville.

The Confederate assault of six infantry divisions containing eighteen brigades with 100 regiments numbering almost 20,000 men, sometimes called the "Pickett's Charge of the West", resulted in devastating losses to the men and the leadership of the Army of Tennessee—fourteen Confederate generals (six killed, seven wounded, and one captured) and 55 regimental commanders were casualties. After its defeat against George H. Thomas in the subsequent Battle of Nashville, the Army of Tennessee retreated with barely half the men with which it had begun the short offensive, and was effectively destroyed as a fighting force for the remainder of the war.

The 1864 Battle of Franklin was the second military action in the vicinity; a battle fought there on April 10, 1863, was a minor action associated with a reconnaissance in force by Confederate cavalry under Major General Earl Van Dorn.