>> thank you. >> thank you, mel. >> i'm dr. john will and i am a medical doctor. i'm an infectious disease specialist, not a psychiatrist, but i always thought she was bipolar, some of her behavior, her shopping behavior and so forth, but you may know this, but the reason that mcclellan -- or that a.p. hill and ellen marcie broke up is because a.p. hill had gonorrhea which he had contracted at west point during a weekend in new york with mcclellan. so mcclellan knew he had gonorrhea, and he informed the family, the marcie family of ample p. hill's condition. >> thank you for that. you see, i just don't do military history but i'm very pleased to be filled in this way. thank you so much. this gentleman and then -- >> yes. good morning.

i'm david carroll from chicago. >> hi, david. >> hi. in the last year published in the journal of the abraham lincoln association there has been great speculation on mary lincoln purchasing penny royal at dill lard's drugstore in springfield when she was pregnant with tad who was born with a cleft palate. penny royal is used to rid dogs of fleas or induce abortion. do you have insight on this recent scholarship? >> i'm sorry. i can't comment on that. my recent move and dislocation of many of my books and pieces meant that i don't have the 41 -- of oh mary lincoln but moving from ireland was difficult. i would say from my reading i have no evidence from her letters or otherwise that there

would be any way i could comment or believe she was trying to not have a fourth child. the lincolns were besoted by their children. they were very proud and devoted that when she suffered family tragedies and the death of oh little eddie she was pregnant within a month. indeed the idea of having two younger sons and robert already gone to school was something that was in the minds of the lincolns. i look forward to it. thanks. >> i wish they would leave the poor woman alone. that's all. >> oh well, well. >> congratulations. >> thank you. we'll applaud for raising these controversial questions and keeping it up. i think it's good. i did take great umbrage at the book that came out that said she definitely had syphilis.

people can speculate. >> originally from ohio. the land of the presidents. can you talk more about mary lincoln's work. she spent time in the hospitals writing letters home for the soldiers. it seems to me that all of the vicious attacks against her could have been blunted if she had allowed the reporters to write about that. why did she not want that? and was it kept kind of a secret? did people not understand she was doing this? >> i don't think she advertised on purpose. thank you for that.

she very much went into penitence when her son died. one of the things is i told you about the grand ball and her grand aspirations for dethroning harriet lane. that was the night her son's illness became evident. she and the president kept checking in the bedroom. if you go to the lincoln library, it is a moving exhibit they have of going into the room to check during the ball. here was her great social triumph. within days her beloved willie was dead. i think during that period if you contrast her next trip to new york with 64 i think you find she was trying to find her way back to being the social creature that she was. but also writing letterers and taking care of the bonds between families during the wartime

dislocations was something she very much did dedicate herself to. she took flowerses from the white house. she took fruit. she was, indeed serving the role which she thought was a political role. we nolin con did it as well. they didn't go in as a couple. they went in separately and made tear way through the wards. when people came to her to try to publicize it, when someone mentioned it, she wrote to them saying please don't. we do know she was trying to keep that side of her charity. she wanted to be an anonymous donor to the soldiers' cause during that period. that's what i think was her interest at that time. yes? >> mary beth donnelly. i appreciate the opportunity to oh ask a question. >> i'm sorry. the last question. make it a good one. >> i'll try. >> i'm sorry. >> it's broad. i'm thinking of last night's conversation about lincoln on film. what do you think about the portrayal of oh mary lincoln on

film. specifically related to spielberg or anything else. do you feel it's been fair? >> well, i do have weaknesses. i think that i have very strong feelings about ann rutledge on film which i won't share. nevertheless i think mary on film is a really interesting phenomenon. i do believe, for example you could see in the portrait with sam waterston with gore vidal and mary tyler moore trying to show a woman with clear disturbances. i thought that was powerful. but i felt that the recent portrait by sally field which i very much regret didn't earn her her third oscar, was nevertheless such an amazing inhabiting of the role. i think people can have differences of opinion about what were her problem ss.

what were her flaws. i think that portrait captured her as a flawed do you thinkynamic, intense character. she contributed to that in a way that i found amazing. i'm regretful i can't name the actress who portrayed mary todd in "lincoln the vampire slayer." you have to understand that any scholar who has written a biography of harriet tubman and mary lincoln that finds these characters taking guns to gettysburg to save the union is going to welcome this kind of pop cultural fantabulation. thank you so much. [ applause ] >> we'd like to tell you about some of our other american history tv programs.

join us every saturday at 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern for a special look at the civil war. we'll bring you to the battlefields, let you hear from scholars and reenactors and bring you the latest historical forums on the subject. that's programs on the civil war every saturday at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern here on american history tv on c-span3. >> you have been watching c-span's american history tv. we want to hear from you. follow us on twitter @cspan history. connect with us at facebook.com/cspan history where you can leave comments too. check out the website c-span.org/history. >> new year's day on the c-span networks. here are some of the featured programs. 10:00 a.m. eastern the washington ideas forum. energy conservation with david crane. business magnate t pickens

inveb tor dean cayman. the brooklyn history society holds a conversation on race. then at 8:00 p.m. eastern from the explorers club, apollo vii astronaut walt with cunningham on the first manned space flight. on c-span 2 before noon hector tobar on 33 men buried in a chilean mine. at 3:00 p.m. richard norton smith on the life of nelson rockefeller. former investigative correspondent for cbs news cheryl atkinson on her experiences reporting on the obama administration. new year's day on american history tv on c-span3 . at 10:00 a.m. eastern juanita abernathy on her experiences and the role of women in the civil rights movement. brooklyn college professor benjamin carp on the link between alcohol and politics in prerevolutionary new york city. at 8:00 p.m., cartoonist patrick

oliphant draw thes ten presidential caricatures as david mccullough discuss it is presidents and their memorable qualities. for the complete schedule go to cspan.org. with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span 2, on c-span3 we complement the coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. on weekends, c-span3 is home to american history tv with programs that tell our nation's story, including six unique series. the civil war's 150th anniversary, visiting battlefields and key events. american artifacts touring museums and historic sites to is see what is revealed about america's past. the best known history writers. the presidency looking at the policies and legacieses of the nation's commanders in chief. lectures in history with top college professors delving into

america's past and reel america featuring government and educational films from the 1930s through the '70s. c-span3, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. watch in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> historian damian shields talks about the life of patrick clebur next e and his role in the army during the battle of franklin. he later enlisted in the army where he rose to the rank of major general, proposing to emancipate slaves to enlist them. this 50-minute talk is part of a series organized by the tennessee civil war ses question centennial commission. >> i will use my big voice to get everyone rounded back up for next part of the program.

in franklin, talking about the battle of franklin, the battle of nashville and the final campaign, the last campaign has meant to tennessee, southern history and american history. so thanks for coming out. it's sort of like introducing a rock star next. you have had the well known acts and the front acts. now you get a special event. damian shields is an engaging young scholar. he's an archaeologist by trade. he's an his attorneytorian by emotion and he gets the way you have to do those things.

let's not decide objects and places don't matter only the words someone wrote on a piece of oh paper. it all matters. it's all evidence of how history unfolded and its impact on us today. all of this together means we have a unique opportunity to

have a perspective and learn from a perspective that sometimes we don't take in here in tennessee. we do have civil war historians aplenty. sometimes you can shake a tree and a bunch fall down the. we don't get that international perspective so often. i think we are all just blessed and honored to have damien among us today. so with with no further fanfare because i know who everyone came the here -- it's not me. it's damien shields. [ applause ] good morning everybody.

i can't describe what an honor it is for me to be here. i spend all of my spare time looking at the irish and american civil war. i spend most of my original career looking at the archaeology fields and how you can preserve battlefields. for years i looked at waes gone on in the city with incredible admiration. it is an international standard to reclaim a battlefield from development. i'm unaware of another example that's been successful. with somebody like patrick claiborne involved makes it more memorable for me. i have to say i have been to a number of places around the south in particular over recent months. i have never enjoyed the welcome i have had to a city over the last two days. really an incredible city and a great state that you have here.

this is the ideal preparation for when you are giving a talk. when we look at history we have a temptation to simplify it. we tried to place order oh on the past. often looking at it as defining moments. each making one and another less likely. we can look at a people's lives even our own lives in a similar way. of course history as with life is seldom as straightforward as this. the reality tends to be more opaque, more complex, more convoluted. despite that it's a fascinating exercise to consider what might have been the key moments in one person's life, particularly the

life of a historical figure. the moments which set them on their path to what seemed to be their ultimate destiny. i have spent a considerable amount of time studying irish immigrants impacted by the american civil bar. many breathed their last on american battlefields. this year, 150 years on oh, i have been fortunate to stand on oh some of the fields where many irish men fought. places like the bloody angle and the dead angle at kenasaw. each occasion i have traveled to battlegrounds i see eye thoughts turning to the irish who fought and died there. what were their personal stories? what became of their loved ones is this what were their life experiences which culminated in a premature death on the american battlefield?

we are here today to discuss one of those men and to wonder. what were the defining moments in patrick clayburn's life. what led him from a childhood in rural county cork to the city of franklin where we are meeting here today. all of the 200,000 irish born men who fought in the american civil war being in confederate gray or union blue shared a common experience . it was a defining moment in their lives. that experience was immigration from the country of their birth. if we want to look at what led patrick to franklin, we first have to ask what led him to emigrate. the vast majority of immigrants came from poor backgrounds and were of the catholic faith.

such wasn't the case of patrick. the future major general was born on the 16th of march, 1828, a little more than 6,000 kilometers from here. in the upstairs room of this house you see on the slide. bright park cot tanl in a rural home not far to the west of cork city. his father joseph was a medical doctor from county tiperrary and his mother with was from a well to do land owning family from cove in county cork. patrick was the third of four children born to the couple. he was baptized in nearby st. mary's protestant church. the clayburns lived a comfortable life of middle class professional family. in addition to his medical program technician joseph was also the contract surgeon for a nearby british barracks.

one of the things we often forget is that patrick grew to adulthood in ireland. he spent the vast majority of his life in ireland, not america. his experiences in the country of his birth formed his character. it is impossible for us to understand his achievements in america without first understanding his disappointments in ireland. the first of what we might term defining moments in patrick's life came 18 months into it when his mother mary anne died. his father remarried quickly, wedding isabella stewart. this was the woman patrick would refer to asthma ma for the rest of his life and would follow him to america. for now that was all in the future. after joseph's remarriage things looked bright for the family. four more siblealings joined the

growing brood. dr. clay burn was an upwardly mobile man and he decided to try his hand as a land owner and a farmer. he moved his family to the nearby local manor house you can see here. one of the few buildings that's smaller now than it was then. he rented it with 206 acres. initially things went well for them. there seemed a real chance that they were set on the road to prosperity. what occurred next was one of the major factor and derped the family's emigration. on the 27th of november 1843 dr. joseph clayburn died. he was buried in st. mary's church where he still rests. he continued to combine the practice of medicine with farming and the revenue change placed them under economic strain, much like my voice. patrick's older brother returned from college to try to manage the estate.

soon 16-year-old pat reck was en route to north cork. it had been decided he was to follow in his father's foot steps and become a medical doctor. with that in mind he started as an apprentice to surgeon dr. thomas justice in a building he would have known well as a young man here. i want to turn to what is one of the most important documents when we want to look at patrick. it's these. the ledger entry records events reare lating to what with i think are the key formative experience in patrick's early life. these are from the apothecary hall in dublin. in 1845 patrick applied to the city exams he needed to begin medical studies. he was rejected but told to try again the following year. he did try. in early 1846 he sat the exam. though doubt expecting to set out on a path that would lead to security and

comfort in the years ahead. but he failed. that failure altered the course of his life. if the 17-year-old patrick clay burn had entered the apothecary's hall in 1846 it is unlikely his life would have led him to franklin and that we would be discussing him. these moments are fascinating. as it was, the young man was mortified by the failure and was unwilling to return home to cork. he was too ashamed to face his family. instead he made the decision to enlist. a decision he ultimately regretted. more than a year passed in the or pi without anybody hearing from him. he never wrote home, nothing. disappeared until a family friend and officer recognized anymore the ranks and informed his loved ones of his whereabouts. by now the year was 1847.

a great irish famine was at its height. private clayburn witnessed dreadful sights as he moved around the country helping to keep peace. during those years, hunger and poverty forced many irish families to the emigrant boat. although unaware at the time patrick would see some of them again, many wearing union and confederate uniforms on the other side of the atlantic more than a decade later. the famine killed hundreds of thousands of the poor but had a heavy impact on struggling land own owners. ever increasing rents and poor returns for produce forced patrick's pa ma to consider emigrating to america. patrick, eager to escape a life which had thus far offered only disappointment volunteered to lead the way. he succeeded in buying his discharge from the army for 20

pounds in september 1849 and then wasted little time. by november he was en route to new orleans where the 21-year-old landed along with three siblings on christmas day. 21, a grown man. it is an kpanl radiation to say america proved the land of opportunity for patrick. his education, religion and finances placed him in a better position to exploit it than many of his poorer catholic counterparts but much hard work lay ahead. what america gave him was a chance to reset his life. had he remained in ireland, his future may have forever been defined by his failed apothecary hall exam. in the united states a more flexible society offered the chance to undo past failings. this was an opportunity he took with both hands. after a a brief period in cincinnati he arrived in helena,

arkansas in 1850. over the course of the next decade he grew from a drugstore prescriptionist into a major community leader. by the end of 1851 he granuleduated into drugstore owner and began with membership of the masonic lodge in 1852. he decided to study law. by 1855 he had become heavily involved in local politics. he was particularly active in efforts to prevent the american party, an anti-immigrant party referred to as the no-nothings from gaining a foothold in helena. he became firm friends with a democratic politician, thomas c. hienman, later a confederate general. the two ran a paper together called the states right democrat. i think this illustrates how closely his views aligned with those of his friends and

neighbors in arkansas. his association nearly got him killed in may 1856 when a politically motivated shoot out aimed at hienman left one man dead -- clayburn shot him and clayburn clinging to life with a bullet in the chest. as hienman went to congress clayburn focused on the law and business ventures. in 1860 his military experience and social position saw him elected captain of the yell rifles. with arkansas's secession from the union the stage was set for the last three and a half years of patrick's life. the last three and a half years. that's what we know him for. years which would immortalize him. the irish fought for the north and south during the american civil war and did so for myriad reasons. some enlisted to preserve the

union or on the basis of states rights. many did so for economic reasons, to take advantage of consistent pay and potential bounties. it was an irish tradition to do that. others felt -- become part of american society. a large number fought for the preservation of society and that of their friends. arkansas provided cleburne with something he never had in ireland -- a community of oh which he felt a part. a place that was filled with his friends and somewhere that he could call home. when patrick cleburne went to war in 1861 he went to war for arkansas. he was more than willing to die for arkansas.

by the time patrick cleburne surveyed the scene that awaited him and his men at franklin on the 30th of november 1864 he was a major general. commanding what was perhaps the most famed division in the western theater. he'd risen from captain of the l rifles to colonel of the 15th arkansas. commanded a brigade at shiloh and led the division. famed for his reliability coolness under pressure and fighting qualities, cleburne and his men were the go-to division of the army of tennessee, as demonstrated by actions in georgia in 1863 when they saved the army following the debacle at missionary ridge. an action for which cleburne would later earn the thanks of confederate congress. by the time he came to franklin

it was a year in the past and the army lost more as a result of the campaign. that year had seen the prospects of ultimate confederate success dwindle to a flicker. franklin provideded them with their greatest challenge. when he topped winstead hill outside the town that november afternoon cleburne dismounted from his horse and resting his field glasses on a stump he surveyed the positions. he took in the impressive enemy works thrown up by the yankees. he replaced his glasses and said aloud to nobody in particular they are very formidable. the these events are linked with those that occurred after the south on a previous day.

there was a golden opportunity to trap a significant portion of general scofield's force. having left steven lee to occupy in columbia. from where they converge ed in the rear and threatened the federal line retreat to nashville. the real possibility has presented itself. all of it appeared necessary for confederate ares to cut the franklin columbia turnpike. cheatham's core of which the division played a prominent role in the fight for spring hill. in one of the most inexplicable failures of the war and we can see how close it came behind us. when the fighting petered out the vital franklin turnpike remained untaken. despite the fact that thousands

of rebels went to camp only yards from it. through the night, union troops that should have been trapped south of spring hill marched north past sleeping confederates to franklin. in later years, union soldiers would remember passing within plain view of the rebels. one recalling thousands burping brightly. we could see them moving around. nobody was more aware. in his words that was a great opportunity of striking the enemy for which we labored so long. the greatest this campaign offered and one of the greatest of the war. the confederates awoke on the 30th of november to find the enemy gone. just who was to blame for the failure is a topic that continues to generate debate.

there is little doubt as they moved toward franklin the events played on the minds of many confederate generals. in the 150 years since the battle, many speculated as to patrick cleburne's state of mind that 30th of november day. his fellow division commander general john c. brown recalled during the march that cleburne asked to see him. riding into the fields alongside to talk. describing how cleburne was angry and deeply hurt. the irish man had been told there was a failure at spring hill the previous day. he could not afford to rest under and intended to have the matter fully investigated. brown recalled asking cleburne who he felt responsible for the failure. cleburne placing ultimate culpability at the feet of his commander in chief.

a counter point to the mind set has been put forward. primarily based on recently discovered personal papers written by former army steven d. lee. it recounts a conversation with general a.p. stewart. stewart heard on the 30th of oh november. he felt remorse for failure at spring hill. due to the decision not to launch an attack there on the 29th. stewart believed and i quote immediately afterwards and said no such wait should be on his mind. in that feeling lost soon afterwards. brown's and lee's accounts have

to be treated with a degree of caution. both were written after the war in the context of an acrimony use dispute as to who was to blame for the events at spring mill. suffice it to say whatever cleburne felt he must undoubtedly have been disappointed and angry at the chance missed. as he surveyed the fortified union positions from winstead hill that disappointment must have been magnified. as cleburne waited for the troops to arrive that day, he whiled away the time with a game of checkers with a member of his staff. the last down time of his life. the general gathered different colored leaves to use for gaming pieces. it wasn't long before he was ordered to the headquarters at the harrison house. along with a number of others he expressed reservations about the proposed attack at franklin. telling hood it would be a terrible and useless waste of

life. however, hood determined the assault should go ahead. the commander instructed cleburne to form his division to the right of the columbia turnpike and to charge the works. the irish man replied, general i will take the works or fall in the effort before riding off toward his men. the position assigned to cleburne's division on the right or east side of the columbia turnpike saw them aimed at a portion of the federal works dominated by a cotton gin owned by the carter family. cleburne requested his decision be allowed to advance to reduce exposure across the open ground before deploying into line of battle for the final assault. cleburne held a final meeting with his commanders atop breezy hill to outline what was expected of them. one of them daniel c. goven reel called this meeting years later.

i quote. general cleburne seemed to be more despondent than i ever saw him. i was the last one to receive instructions from him. as i saluteded and bade him good-bye i remarked, well, general, not many of us will get back to arkansas. he replied. well, if we are to die, let us die like men. cleburne left the meeting and rode forward to some of his advanced sharp shooters on a rise called the private knob. taking one of the scopes he surveyed the union works. he took a long look across the field before remarking they have three lines of works. his eyes swept back across the federal position before he added, they are all completed. he was soon thundering back down the pike to his forming division. around 4:00 p.m. on the 30th of

november with bands playing and flags fluttering, almost 20,000 men of the confederate army of tennessee swung forward into the attack at franklin. they made for an awesome site. among them was the figure of patrick cleburne wearing a new uniform jacket white linen shirt. he was mounted on the borrowed horse as his regular animal red pepper was wounded the previous day at spring hill. riding forward into action it seemed that, as promised, he was determined to lead by example and take his men over to federal works. although the prospects of success for the advancing rebels should have been sliced, a grievous error committed by general george wagner handed him an opportunity. wagner left two of his brigades exposed half a mile beyond the main federal line. they were too small a force to

stem the confederate assault. with the army of tennessee hit them the position crumbled. as wagner's men turned and ran for franklin cleburne's soldiers sought to chase after and followed them into the main line of works. captain sam foster of cleburne's division described how the union men would and i quote fire a few shots and break to a run. as soon as they break to run, our men break after them. they have nearly half a mile to get back to the next line. here we go right after them. yelling like fury and shooting at them at the same time. kill some of them before they reached their works. those in the second line of works aren't able to shoot us. because of the men in front of us, between us and them. although cleburne and the men were shielded by fleeing troops. eventually the federal and main line had to open fire. for those caught in it be it

union or confederate, the result was the same. by this time cleburne crossed wagner's advanced position and was headed p for the main line when he was catapulted from the horse. with the fire intensifying one of the kour ohhiers left his mount and offered it to the general. as cleburne put his foot in the stirrup, a cannon ball plowed into the animal. the courier went down, his side shattered by a bullet. cleburne pressed on. general goven caught site of him plunging forward on foot waving his cap in encouragement before he disappeared into the smoke of battle. it was the last time he ever saw him. many of oh cleburne's men did reach the main line. he was intermingled with those from other units as a deadly struggle reached the crescendo. patrick cleburne was though longer with them.

when the fighting ceased in the darkness rumors began to circulate in the army of tennessee that cleburne had not survived. the federal withdrawal during the night left the battlefield in confederate hands and the next morning the full scale of the previous days horrors was revealed. john mcquaid was out oh early, looking for the general. here he describes what he found not too far from the cotton gin. he was about 40 or 50 yards from the works. he lay flat on his back as if asleep. his military cap over his eyes. he had a new uniform. it was unbuttoned and open. the lower part of the vest was unbuttoned and open. he wore a white linen shirt stained with blood on the front part of the left side or just left of the abdomen. this was the only sign of a wound i i saw on him.

i believe it is the only one he received. i have always been inclined to think feeling the end was near he laid himself down to die. or his body was carried there during the night. he was in his sock feet. his boots having been stolen. his watch, belt and other valuables gone. his body having been robbed during the night. cleburne's body was placed in an ambulance alongside that of general john adams who had also fallen. the two were taken to the house where they were placed on the back porch. they were joined there by the bodieses of four officers including two more generals. the battle of franklin was over. it was an engagement that destroyed the army of tennessee. after just 36 years it ended patrick cleburne's life.

since the battle of franklin people speculated as to reasons behind cleburne's actions that day. why did he choose to place himself so far forward when he could have chosen to direct operations further back. was it anger toward conduct at spring hill and the determination to show john bell hood is worth or an effort to redeem himself due to remorse from personal failings the day before. it's probable we'll never know the answer to that. then again, perhaps such speck elations are of secondary importance. it's worth considering that patrick cleburne placed himself in dangerous conditions on the battle field . his devotion to the cause was absolute. it was a cause he accepted had been at serious risk since the winter of 1863. in october of oh 1864 cleburne remarked and i quote if this

cause that is so dear to my heart is doom to fail i pray heaven may let me fall with it while my face is toward the en my and my arm battling for that which i know to be right. as irving buck later stated by november of 1864 anyone above the degree of idiocy must have known the chances were desperate. patrick cleburne was no idiot. at spring hill he witnessed the army of tennessee's last best p hope evaporate. once the orders were given to attack at franklin, he decided to roll the dice one more time. perhaps hoping the courage and devotion might win the day. given these circumstances and cleburne's character perhaps what would have been truly remarkable is that cleburne survived at franklin.

patrick cleburne was far from the only man with links to ireland on the field at franklin that day though. one of the men who lay beside him on the back porch brigadier general john adams with whom he shared the ambulance was the son of an immigrant. irish and irish-americans were to be found spread throughout both or a mys. like cleburne for many the 30th of november 1864 would be their last day. but before it had begun some oy rich men found time for humor, a particularly irish trait in these situations, i think. the breathtaking sight of the confederate forces that afternoon led a rebel to recall nelson's words before trafalgar. england expects every man to do his duty. sergeantle callahan of the first missouri quippeded back over

this irish crowd. deny and his comrades are part of the missouri brigade frenchs division which initially advanced to the right of cleburne. by day's end they would have the dubious honor of having sustained the highest casualties of any brigade in the army. one was deny callahan cut down in the act of planting the regimen tall colors and taken prisoner. another was patrick kniff leading into the male strom on horse back. he took a bullet to the right shoulder, knocking him from his mount. before he could get up a second projectile ripped through the top of his head exploding out through his chin. his body was found the next horning lying near his horse. today, patrick kniff is one of those in the mcgavin cemetery. he shares that with a number of other irish and irish americans.

men like thomas lindsay mo rel of the 6 tennessee who would attack the union works on the other side of the columbia turn bike. part of the browns division. thomas was the tennessee born son of irish immigrant james mo rel of countiderry. in some respects, men like patrick and thomas mo rel were the lucky ones. for many fallen confederate irish men like martin fleming from nashville who advanced on the confederate left there will be no known grave. one of the regiments that charged in that day had an affinity to the general. as many of the number shared the country of birth. the fifth confederate infantry consisted largely of memphis irish men having been formed by the 21st tennessee infantry.

their particular claim to fame was it was corporal coleman of the regiment credited with shooting general skbrams mcpherson outside atlanta on the 22nd of july 1864ment the same day their color at a tennessee state museum was captured. one of oh their number recalled how the men of the regiment hero worshipped cleburne. a devotion described as amounting almost to eyeleidolotry. they were able to record that at franklin cleburne sought out the regiment, charged if with it and died with it. another of those who died was dick cattle. his body was found in the morning of the first of december, ten feet inside the union works near the cotton gin, punctured by four bayonet wounds. just as it was franklin

impacted many who fought for the union. the records that survived for those allow us to paint a picture of the impact of battle on those left behind. take, for example, some of the men of the 72nd illinois. part of strickland's brigade who faced james mo rel and other confederates of brown's division to the west of the columbia turnpike. the 72nd initially manned the main line of works near the house before being forced back to the retrench line. one of their number was john flannery of company c. like so many others he was never heard from again after franklin. his mess mate william dehaven would later recall how he had seen his friend in the works before they with drew in the face of confederate attack. it was the last time he would ever see him. flannery was never reported as a prisoner. dehaven said he had no doubt that he was, quote , killed or

disposed of in some way by the enemy. john flannery's supposed death at franklin must have been hard to bear for his mother ellen in beardstown illinois. her loss is brought spo sharp focus when we consider ellen's husband died before the war. she was re leinart on john and the brother michael to support the children. hikele was the member of the 28th illinois and he was killed in jackson mississippi. now franklin robbed her of not only the second son but also her economic security. some other 72nd illinois soldiers who endured the fighting at franklin had almost certainly born witness to another great trauma in their lives. that of famine. many of the irish men who fought in the american civil war

emigrated during the years of the great famine between 1845 and 1852. we know michael nugent witnessed it as he was in dublin in 1848 the year he married this the inner city. this is the marriage certificate. he emigrateded to chicago. presumably in the hope of a better life. little then could he have imagined that life would end near the carter house in november of oh 1864. john curry served in company k of the 72nd illinois. unlike many other irish emigrants in the 1840s he landed in north america via canada. it was in canada in 1848 he married ellen disriscoll and their first child was born. they moved to illinois before john enlisted in the 72nd and was killed in action at franklin. by 1864, ellen now widowed had

five minor children to support. unsurprisingly it wasn't long before she sought the financial security of another marriage. we often forget they were responsible for men's deaths long after guns stopped firing. many unfortunates lingered for weeks, months and years with wounds they sustained. for others it was the captured who signed their death warrant. one was michael oh bryant. an irish man who enlisted from lebanon, ohio. franklin was his first fight. michael was a member of company g who were in front of the main work. taking prisoner with six others he would later contract diarrhea. eventually dying during the night under the blanket beside a friend in tupelo mississippi in january of 1865. he left a widow and four children.

there were many american born sons fighting for the union at franklin. perhaps one of the most notable is this man. lieutenant james coughlin of the 24th kentucky and a favored aid to general jay cob cox. he was not far from the cotton gin. james's irish born parents back in paris kentucky must have been devastateded by the news of the 21-year-old's death. his father john was disabled for years and unable to work. he and his wife relied on james for everything. james's sister remembered he always made sure his parents had tea, coffee sugar, flour, meat, clothing, fuel and the other necessaries of life. now they had both his

companionship and support. how the families of the men killed at franklin reacted to news of their loved ones' death is often lost to history and to us. one are reaction that's recorded is that of susan tarlton of mobile, alabama, patrick cleburne's fiancee. she was walking in her garden when she overheard a thuspaper boy cry out news of the battle and report cleburne's death. over come with grief she would wear mourning clothes for a year. cleburne's body was initially briefly interned in rose hill cemetery columbia on the second of december before being moved to ashwood cemetery. a burial ground cleburne passed a few days earlier remarking then that it was almost worth dying for to be buried in such a beautiful spot. the irish general was hoved for the last time in 1870 when his

body was brought back to helena where it rests in maple hill cemetery cemetery, no doubt as he would want it. jefferson davis called patrick cleburne the stonewall of of the west. robert e. lee said he was a meteor shining from a clouded sky. as with many historical figures his premature death fighting for a cause he believed in helped cement his image in popular hajj nation. some who knew him like charles nash and irving buck wrote books about him. veterans of the division in texas would name a town in his honor where now almost 30,000 people lived. a county in alabama was named for him as was with one in arkansas in ?

his level of popularity weananed in the middle of the 20th century. in 1973 howard and elizabeth perdue published the first major published study of him in almost 70 years. today, patrick cleburne is just as famous for a proposal he made on the second of january 1864 as he is for his fighting prowess. a situation that's perhaps reflective of changing attitudes to the conflict. this proposal was made at all is only known because of a chance 1880s discovery of the only surviving copy as during the war it was ordered suppressed. in it, cleburne suggested arming slaves to fight for the confederacy in return for their freedom. he posited that between the loss of independence and the loss of

slavery we assumed every patriot would give up the negro slaves rather than be a slai himself. given the outraged reaction to the proposal by some generals like william b. bass, william h.t. walker and patton anderson this was clearly not the case. cleburne made his proposal based purely on the practicalities of the north's numerical advantages, rather tan a deep seated desire to seek emancipation. perhaps more than anything else, what the proposal tells us is it is a reminder that cleburne spent the first 21 years of his life in ireland. by 1864 he still had a ways to go before he understood the south. it's been debated whether or not the proposal prevented him from achieving higher command in the army of tennessee. if it did have a negative impact during his own lifetime, that's

not the case in ours. last february saw the museum of the confederacyies person of the year symposium which was decided by audience vote following talks on each of the nominated figures by noted scholars. unsurprisingly given the year sherman came out on top he was followed by cleburne who garnered more votes than lincoln oh, lee or grantment it's inconceivable that the irish man would have finished in this decision were it not for his proposal to armed slaves. there is no denying that cleburne often found himself center stage. he's been the subject of a number of recent biographies, had a statue erecteded in his honor and of course was recognized in the continuing efforts to reclaim the franklin battlefield. what of patrick cleburne's memory in ireland. shortly after the general's death, while he lay in a coffin

awaiting interment a woman named naomi hayes read a play on his casket describing hower rand's land sends forth a whale on erring news of the corkman's death. unfortunately, the reality is far from sending forth a wale patrick cleburne is relatively unknown in ireland. a plaque was placed on the house of his birth by visiting americans. although in more recent years a housing development has been named cleburne muse and some artifacts related to the general which were lent from the u.s. also featured in a major national museum of ireland military exhibition. beyond this, cleburne along with the other 200,000 irish born menlbt and indeed countless thousands of irish americans on top of

that who fought in the civil war remained largely forgotten in ireland despite the fact that along with world war #i the american civil war represents ireland's largest conflict in history when it comes to the numbers of men who served. that's important from an international dimension. if you take the republic of ireland it is the largest ward we have ever fought in. the american civil war. it gives you a flavor of the international context. in ireland there's been no major expiration of the role of irish people in the conflict. we have no national memorial to those emigrants who suffered as a result of the american civil war. during the course of the entire ses question centennial events we had not a single conference to discuss irish involvement in the conflict. my country's failure to remember the immigrants is something that's hopefully set to change.

during an address in new orleans last week the irish minister, the equivalent of a secretary of state for our heritage specifically referenced the experiences of the irish irish and american civil war. and in so doing, for the first time officially highlighted those people that i have come to refer to as the forgotten irish. thankfully, though they are most certainly not forgotten americans. they continue to be appropriately remembered by those in this nation, in the nation that they have come to be a part of all those years ago. as an irish person, i would like to extend my gratitude to you all for that. and for the privilege of speaking to you about one of their number here today. thank you very much. [ applause ]

and we'd like to tell you about some of other american history tv programs. join us every saturday at 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern, for a special look at the civil war. we'll bring you to the battlefields. we'll let you hear from scholars and re-enactors and bring you the latest historical forms on the subject. again, that's programs on the civil war every saturday from 6:00 and 10 p.m. on c-span3. new year's day on the c-span networks, here are some of our featured programs. 10:00 a.m. eastern the washington ideas forum. energy conseverrvation david cray. and dean kamen. at 4:003m eastern the brooklyn historical society holds a conversation on race. then at 8:00 p.m. eastern from the explorers club, apollo 7

astronaut walt cunningham on the first manned spaceflight. new year's day just before noon eastern, actor hector it otobar on the 33 men buried in chilean mind. and richard norton smith. and sharyl attkisson, on her experiences reporting on the obama administration. new year's day on american history tv at c-span3. at 10:00 a.m. eastern juanita abernathy on her experience with the role of women. and benjamin clark in the link between alcohol and politician and prerevolutionary new york city. and then at 8:00 p.m., presidential cartoons with david mccullough discusses the presidents and some of their most memorial qualities. new year's day on the c span

networks. for the complete coverage go to c span.org. >> here on c-span3 with complement that coverage by showing you the most relevant hearings and public affairs events. and then c-span is home of american history tv. >> the civil war's 150th anniversary. visiting battlefields kind events. american artifacts. touring museums and historic sites to discover what artifacts reveal. history book shelves. the best money history writers. the president looking at policies and legacies of commanders in chief. and digging into the past. and new series, reel america featuring archival films from the 1970s. c span tv funded by your local cable provider.

watch us on hd. like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. a panel of authors and historians talk about the significance of late 1864 battles of franklin spring hill and nashville. collectively the last part of the war. they exam how john bell hood whose army has been effectively destroyed has been remembered by history. they also discuss the role of the u.s. color troops during the fighting and how the campaign compared to sherman's march to the sea through georgia which took place. in the same period. this 90-minute event is organized by the suss quatennial commission. >> welcome, thank you for attending this afternoon at the fact featuring tennessee. my name is vann west, i'm a

tennessee state historian and a professional at middleton state university. so for me, it was an easy drive over to join this event today. but for our expert historians, they've all come quite a way to joinnd abe part of this event today. and i'm very appreciative of that. the way i would like to do this so we've got plenty of time for questions, and, you know, comments, i'm going to introduce all three speakers now. in alphabetical order. and that means michael zorley will come last but he's from michigan that's okay. chris lawson holds a phd from the university of mississippi. i've known chris for 30 something years. it all goes back to his excellent work on frank

cheetham's and his confederate division on the book entitled "tennessee's forgotten weariers." it came out in 1989. he's also did his dissertation at ole miss on jacob donald cox, played a role in franklin. he's been involved with us and has always been very generous with us for his time with civil war and symposiums that we have worked with in the community for over a decade. so, chris, welcome back. our second speaker will be james lee mcdonough. i guess it's a sign of the times that we have all been working with each other for many years. jim say professor emeritus of history from auburn university. but he's a native of nashville. and he's taught at david lispcum

university. and those of us at tennessee know he's worked in tennessee from the study of shiloh to james river to chattanooga to franklin that he co-authored with james conley. the parallel campaign. and recently in the last decade, his study of nashville and that major battle. our third speaker is wylie sword. he's an award winning author and pulitzer prize nominee. his book, the confederacy last hoo-rah was all about the campaign. and won the fletcher award in 1992 for the year's best book on the civil war. he's also understood and researched the western theater

extensively. and his book on shiloh bloody april, i'd highly recommend as well. so we've got three experts who are also intimately knowledgeable about franklin and its impact as well as the battle of nashville and its importance. and that's one of the things we want to make sure that we bring out this afternoon is that these last two battling did constitute the last campaign in tennessee and it's really important for us to go explore that and understand what that meant for the civil war, not only in the south, but for the entire civil war and its outcome. so, with that, it's just a brief introductions of very distinguished historians, i'm going to turn the mike over to chris lawson. [ applause ] >> thank you, van.

i know i speak for all the panelists when i speak that it's a great honor to be here. i know today represents the work of literally dozens of organizations and individuals and for that we're profoundly grateful. i live in st. louis and kansas city. the ten-hour drive, frankly was definitely worth it. according to your program, what we're supposed to do today is first offer some insights, speak briefly on a portion of the campaign they believed to be particularly illuminating. some i'm going to do two things real quickly if i can, and the first one deals with spring hill. most of you know the campaign to know that spring hill was the day before the battle of franklin and what it represented was a lost opportunity to attack some union troops either at spring hill itself or some at columbia would come up to franklin pike that night. essentially what happened is a profound mystery in many ways. hood planned a flanking movement which was extremely successful. in fact there were federal troops still at columbia who were going to come up the pike that night.

and then them failed to do east two things that they could have done. they could have launched an attack on the yankees who were in spring hill. supported by are aretillery. they didn't do that. there was a fight but it was not the larger fight that i think the generals had contemplated. the other thing they could have done potentially was to cut off the pipe so that as troops came up from columbia they would be met by confederate resistance. the thing that always sort of astonished me about this is that it's always deemed as a confederate failure, which it was, but there's tremendous assumptions made about what the federals would have done which is essentially they would have inevitably been snared and destroyed. damian shiels our irish guy today said that at spring hill, they had an opportunity of destroying or mangling a large part of the union army. that's possibly true. but what i think they've lost in spring hill in some ways it never gets the attention it is due, is that the yankees in this case appear as simply unwitting

accomplices of confederates who were bent on destroying them. these were veteran federal soldiers though. these were not rile levies who had never seen a battle before. these were battle-hardened veterans of the atlanta campaign and elsewhere. the idea that they would simply encounter confederate troops and meekly hand over their weapons is to me simply preposterous. there could have been a battle. it could have been at spring hill. it could have been somewhere between columbia and spring hill. but i think the idea that the federals would have been dispatched with ease is simply nonsense. but you can do what i did when i was a kid with my toy soldiers. you can basically do whatever you want with your imagination. if you're a confederate partisan, you can wipe out john schofield's army to a plan. if you are a union, you can have your union accessory fight his way through, then go on to franklin, then nashville. both sides would have suffered casualties. a night attack if that had taken place was fraught with danger.

there could have been a battle november 29th. there could have been a battle fought somewhere else in franklin on november 30th. but the claim this could have altered things is simply false. the second thing i briefly want to talk about, frankly, there's an elephant in the room here. his name is john bell hood. i went to visit hood's boyhood home. everyone properly associates him with texas but he was actually fwhorn owensville, kentucky, in bath county. i went over to see his boyhood home. looking for inspiration. there was none. the house has been sided. there is a nice car port and

really he left when he was so young i could not have imagine little toddler john bell hood with his beard. you know. in the driveway. so, alas. some of you know there's been a new book published by a fellow named stephen m. hood. it's called "the rise, fall and resurrection of a confederate general." it is a major reappraisal. essentially he believes historians formed an inaccurate portrayal of hood, that they have ignored positive views of him both during the war and post-war period. he believes that historians have accentuated the negative and written things that are basically false. he believes that historians have copied anecdotes and statements from other historians without going critically to the original source. they take citations out of context that defame hood and ignore larger context which would make him look better. frankly, there is a long line of historians he assails, including me. mr. hood conveniently tells me that in prewar -- in 1950s that in prewar -- in 1850s america, $2,500 would have been

the equivalent of $68,000 today. he's right. if i use the anecdote, i should have cupped it in terms of something to the effect like, "he was viewed as aggressive," and this anecdote, even though it is preposterous, illustrates it. but there are other people that he takes on more. there's the tennessee connection. starts with thomas r. hay who comes off relatively better than stanley horn, thomas connelly. and at least james lee mcdonough. then wiley sword is his particular target. i really do have the impression that sam hood would like to get all of us historians in a big room and just beat the hell out of all of us. i will tell you that sam hood has lots of supporters. i went on amazon right before i came. there were 60-some odd comments and 44 gave him either a five-star or four-star rating.

people who have felt that john hood has been maligned unfairly, that he deserves better and that if it was a failed campaign -- which sam hood acknowledges that maybe john bell hood has been wronged by historians. all i'll say is that what we historians do though. we take historic events and figures, we interpret the past and there is conflicting interpretations and if it were not so, to be honest with you, history would not be much fun. so i'm glad to have you here and hope you enjoy the festivities for the rest of the day. thank you. it is a pleasure to be here as we commemorate the sesquicentennial of the civil war and particularly the middle tennessee campaign of 1864. it is good, it is an honor to be on the program with these distinguished gentlemen who have been studying the civil war for many years.

and, certainly as chris said we all are appreciative of your presence here today. thank you very much. the events leading to the confederate march into central tennessee began with the conclusion of the atlanta campaign. in september 1864, united states military forces led by william sherman triumphantly entered atlanta which had become a major southern city, railroad center, and symbol of confederate resistance. the victory climaxed a four-month long 100,000-man strategic offensive. the confederate army pulled out of the city just before being trapped by the federals. the atlanta news electrified the nation. dramatically and undeniably demonstrating that the united states war effort was at last succeeding.

the grand achievement also contributed significantly, possibly decisively, to president lincoln's campaign for re-election. the success of which virtually assured the ultimate doom of the confederacy. desperate to somehow minimize the united states victory, john bell hood led the southern army northward in late september, disrupting the western and atlantic railroad between chattanooga and atlanta. which served as sherman's supply route. although sherman initially pursued hood with a portion of his forces, the union commander had no intention of relinquishing the military initiative to the enemy who soon moved into north alabama.

sherm an altogether another campaign in mind. with 60,000 veteran troops he determined to march across georgia from atlanta to charleston or savannah living off the land, breaking up roads destroying all manner of war resources, leaving a trail he remarked that will be recognizable 50 years hence. the impact on southern resources and morale, he believed, would be more devastating than the capture of atlanta. if hood continued to move west and north into middle tennessee rather than following sherman, then george h. thomas in nashville who was amassing widely separated troops, and also reinforced by thousands of sherman's veterans from the atlanta campaign, would defend against the rebel offensive.

in mid-november, sherman began the march for which he will ever be remembered, while hood and the army of tennessee, instead of pursuing sherman, prepared to cross the tennessee river and drive northward toward nashville. the resulting campaign in central tennessee highlighted by events at spring hill, franklin, and nashville, and characterized by mystery and misery, anger and turmoil, suffering, slaughter and tragedy, soon became, and ever after it has remained, a subject of endless controversy. the spring hill affair was an intriguing, enigmatic episode, and has been the focus of much attention. the bloody, tragic clash at franklin has attracted even more attention.

but the two-day battle of nashville has a highly significant feature which neither spring hill nor franklin can claim. i refer to the participation of african-americans. several thousand strong, in a combat row for the union army, the black regiments had come to be officially known as united states colored troops. usct. they fought both days of the engagement, and this is a major reason why the battle of nashville deserves to be commemorated. certainly not the only one, but a major one. the experience of serving as a member of the united states colored troops, a black soldier in a blue uniform, was not easy, as you well might expect. when the civil war began,

president lincoln rejected any idea of abolishing slavery or seeking black military assistance for the war effort. he feared that such action would alienate the border slave states which had remained loyal to the union, arouse the racial prejudice of northern whites, and further harden confederate resistance. by the late summer of 1862, however -- the president had come to believe that undermining slavery would significantly weaken the confederacy and should become a major priority overriding any negative factors. thus, after the emancipation prom clam proclamation was

issued, january 1, the union army with lincoln's full support launched a drive to recruit african-american soldiers. by the war's end, nearly 180,000 blacks would serve in the usct. more than 80% of them coming from the confederate states, and most of those former slaves. the great majority of officers for those black troops were white men. this was in order to provide the inexperienced african-american soldiers with leadership by combat veterans. it also certainly reflected, in part, considerable part, a bow to racial prejudice because it was believed that few white union soldiers would take orders from a black officer. the black soldiers had to deal with discrimination in several ways. their pay was $10 per month, while a white private received

$13 per month. many union generals thought the usct should be used only as laborers or garrison troops having no faith in their fighting potential. when black troops did get into combat, they sometimes carried inferior weapons, and if they got sick, they well might receive inferior medical care. if they were captured, they often were mistreated or even murdered. at the battle of nashville, general george h. thomas, like many of his peers, harbored doubts about the combat prowess of african-americans. but with black troops available, thomas decided to use them. on both days of the battle, the united states colored troops

made a diversionary attack against the confederate right flank. the african-american infantry were serving in a division commanded by james b. steedman. it was composed of two black regiments and one white regiment, and numbered approximately 7,500 men. through no fault of the blacks, as the fortunes of war dealt with them harshly, the diversionary attack on december 15 resulted in heavy casualties. the situation was even worse on december 16 when corps commander thomas j. wood decided, instead of a demonstration, to launch an assault in hope of carrying the

formidable rebel right flank. it was a blunder, a hastily conceived affair that cost the union troops dearly, both white and black. in fact, the attack exacted approximately one-third of the total union casualties for the two days fighting at nashville. and suffering the greatest loss of any regiment was the 13th usct, a regiment raised in nashville, which lost approximately 40% of its men. once more, as so often in the civil war, glory-hungry commanders in frontal assaults against strong defensive positions proved a lethal combination. there were numerous accolades for the fighting prowess of the black troops, and some of them from southerners.

james t. holtzclaw commanding the brigade whose firing devastate the 13th usct was deeply impressed by their furious and desperate assault. he reported how the blacks gallantly -- that was his term -- "gallantly" assaulted. again and again they charged, he said, right into the abbotty. but, "they came only to die." holtzclaw continued, ask the i have seen most of the battlefields of the west, but never saw dead men thicker than in front of my two right regiments." the magnificent effort of the black troops seemed to deserve a better fate, but the battle of

nashville did prove that african-americans would fight, would fight offensively and aggressively, even when assaulting a heavily defended and naturally strong enemy position. >> thank you, jim and chris. i guess i am the counterpoint to stephen sam hood's book on the resurrection of john bell hood. and i will say in preface here that my aim certainly is not to get john bell hood, but in a tragedy such as the battle of franklin represents, responsibility should not be overlooked even in a modern sense in terms of our generation.

just please bear with me. in examining the many specific points of controversy about the events at spring hill and franklin, as ordered by general john bell hood on november 29th and 30th, 1864, perhaps the most critical are the reasons for the key decisions that he made. in an attempt to explain some of hood's actions that affected major aspects of the crucial events, often we have heard of his alleged use of an opium derivative taken for pain, but which during the civil war era was regarded more of an aspirin-like medicine than a mind-altering drug. theoretically, from a modern

perspective, if hood was on an opium substance, he would not be reasoning with a normal lucidness. thus, his decisions would not necessarily be wise or proper. yet that drug, in my opinion, really should be a non-issue with john bell hood and the spring hill and franklin series of events. why? because there are much better explanations for the key events at spring hill and franklin as orchestrated by general john bell hood. first, at spring hill, the confederate army had the majority of the opposing union army trapped in the vicinity of columbia, tennessee, during the late afternoon of november 29th,

but let them march past the deployed grey ranks that evening and night without a major fight. this has been debated and analyzed extensively with various explanations and blame apportioned to certain confederate commanders. the truly critical aspect which had generally been overlooked by some modern generation historians was that john bell hood abdicated his command responsibility by turning over control of active operations on the afternoon of november 29th, 1864, to major general frank cheatham.

the rationale and reason for this is not often explained. hood went to oak lawn, the thompson house, which he established as his headquarters, about 4:00 p.m. the thompson house was more than a mile distant from the front line operations at spring hill. thus, hood was absent from the critical area of observation and decision making by his own doing. why he, in essence, gave up command at the very critical moment in the spring hill series of events likely relates to his physical fatigue at that point. hood had been in the saddle since 3:00 a.m. that morning, and with a missing leg and a formerly severely injured arm, he would logically have experienced fatigue and weariness. as general steven d. lee later

wrote, john bell hood was so physically incapacitated while acting in the role of an in-field commander that he never should have been selected as the army's commander. hood's lack of endurance and vulnerability to fatigue makes far more sense in explaining why he wasn't on the front lines at spring hill to make critical decisions when needed. a succession of generals and curriers had to make their way back and forth from the hood headquarters at the thompson house to convey data and get instructions. this was the real boondoggle for the confederates at spring hill. and while hood could give authority to frank cheatham for

these operations, he could not delegate the responsibility. hood was thus directly to blame for what happened despite the confusion, mistakes, and omissions of others, particularly frank cheatham who was very much a culprit. a dire result of schofield's army escaping hood's trap by marching past the confederates at spring hill that night resulted in the obvious cause for the second major decision controversy. why hood determined to make a masked assault on the entrenched union army at franklin on november 30th. it seems that the real reason was hood's anger and distress with the events of the previous evening. schofield's troops having

escaped from the spring hill trap without difficulty. this matter is crucial to the entire story. hood was described by an observer as "as angry as a rattlesnake," striking out at anyone and anything on the morning of november 30th when he found out the extent of the union army's escape from under the very muzzles of the confederates' guns. his reported ire and discussions with other generals that morning only confirmed that hood was bitter and very highly upset. then while on the road to franklin, he saw the debris and even the stragglers from schofield's army strewn all over the landscape in obvious disarray.

logically, he would have concluded that the enemy was distressed and perhaps demoralized in their retreat. then, from winstead hill overlooking the vast two-mile pan panoply over franklin john hood saw the flimsy fortifications and supposed that the enemy was attempting to further escape. intelligence from forest cavalrymen and other sources added to this conviction. thus, his spur of the moment decision to make a grand attack at franklin was rooted in what he believed was strong evidence that the yankees could not resist an overwhelming spirited masked assault.

it was not laudanum that described this rationale. it was likely his smoldering anger over spring hill and the circumstances involved that this command decision was to be one of the very of the war. it was evident before the attack began. being without nearly all of his artillery, there were only two batteries present with hood's army then since the rest had been left behind at columbia with general steven d. lee. and hood had, thus, very little cannon fire covering his attack. further, nearly one-third of his army was missing with lee, they being en route from columbia to spring hill, and were then marching toward franklin at a very leisurely pace. steven d. lee, on reaching

spring hill that morning, had been told by hood not to hurry his troops forward because the enemy had already seemingly escaped. of course, this is further prime evidence of hood's impromptu spur of the moment decision to attack at franklin. amazingly, he ignored the vast open terrain at franklin about two miles of which across his columns must cross to reach the union fortified lines of headlong entrenchments, some were fashioned with tangled briers of osage orange. as such, it was a further indictment of his hasty decision making. essentially, it is a commander's

responsibility to use his men wisely and not compel deaths and wounds without a fair prospect of success. and throughout his career, john bell hood never seemed to learn the evolving lessons of the battlefield. even in a farewell message to his army, in 1865, he said he hoped the men might be supplied with more bayonets because "it was the bayonet which gave the soldier confidence in himself and enabled him to strike terror into the enemy." in unmortared in tactical concepts, and unwilling to admit his mistakes hood was duly recognized for his failures by a

grieving confederate officer when he wrote that after bucherring 10,000 men around atlanta, and as many in tennessee, hood had betrayed the whole army. "he might command a brigade, and even a division, but to command the army, he is not the man," said the officer. to call him a general is a disgrace to those generals who are worthy to be so called. even the veteran enemy soldiers who knew the wisdom of the battlefield were amazed at the lack of common sense which the confederates now used in making so many head-long frontal assaults against prepared defensive positions. "we kill a great many reds in the fights now, wrote a union corporal following the battle of atlanta. "more so than ever because they come out from their works and charge our men which is useless for them.

where they do not do any good, only get their men slaughtered." in all the decision to attack at franklin was a disaster in the making of one man, and this despite the arguments of other commanders who pointed out the danger, loss of life and likely failure involved, but to no avail. we will make the attack, fumed hood, and so it was. as he confided in his memoir, "advance and retreat," this decision was made, so he wrote, on the following -- "the discovery that the army, after a forward march of 180 miles, was still seemingly unwilling to accept battle unless under the

protection of breastworks caused me to experience grave concern. in my innermost heart, i question whether or not i would ever succeed in eradicating this evil. it seemed that i had exhausted every means and the power of one man to remove this stumbling block to the army of tennessee." amazingly, this indictment came from the intensely aggressive commander who at atlanta had orchestrated major head-long frontal attacks from peachtree creek to the battle of atlanta and beyond to ezra church. yet in his memoirs, hood had the temerity to suggest that the valiant army of tennessee wouldn't fight unless behind breastworks.

this apparently was a veiled reference to the lack of a major confederate attack at spring hill by cheatham's corps the previous day, which again, reflects upon hood's state of reasoning. some have attempted over the years to soften the consequences of hood's attack orders over the years. but really, there is no valid exculpating evidence. and the wasteful sacrifice of about 7,000 men of his army was the consequence. further, as evidence of hood's recklessness as a combat army commander, we have his directive to attack, en masse again, on the morning of december 1st, which was prior to his learning of the union army's withdrawal from franklin on the night of the 30th.

schofield's troops remained. the extent of disaster would certainly have been compounded on december 1st furthering hood's legacy of too much lion and not enough fox. now despite these enormous controversies at spring hill and franklin, the story is one of the most dramatic and poignant of the civil war. thus, my biggest concern is that the controversies engendered by a few will perhaps tend to take away from the essential facts and story itself. the real unimpeachable focus of these battles should be that the

valor and grit of both the union and confederate soldiers who fought at franklin and nashville. indeed, their valor and character will stand forever as a fine representation of the inherent spirit and commitment of the american people and its soldiers. thank you very much. >> okay. now, folks, we want to open up for questions. i know we have mikes out in the passageway. this is being taped so that's why we want you to use the mikes. if you could sort of line up behind those and start that process, i'll do the moderator's sort of privilege of asking the

first question as everyone gets set. and this one, gentlemen, i would just like to throw out for your consideration and i would like to hear your assessment of another figure that's not really been talked about much today. we've talked about the confederate command. we've talked about john schofield. but let's talk some about george thomas and your assessment of his strategy for and his effectiveness at the battle of nashville. >> well i'll start out because i've done quite a bit of research on george thomas in terms of his military career, his character and so forth. and many of you probably know

the circumstances involving thomas at nashville, which was that thomas was very, very close to being removed from command by general ulysses grant in the east because, in grant's estimation, he wasn't moving fast enough, he wasn't doing the right things in terms of preventing the confederate army from perhaps advancing across the river into ohio and into northern territory. but -- and this is i think a key to thomas' character, as i see it -- that he was -- he was certainly going to do everything he could not to delay, but he was not going to make a move and risk his soldiers' lives without a very, very fair prospect of winning the battle that he knew he should. so thomas, in my estimation, is

deserved an enormous amount of credit for resisting. and orders were perhaps being prepared even as he began to fight the battle of nashville for his own removal -- thomas' removal. yet, he would not be pushed, he would not be shoved into doing something that he knew was wrong that could be corrected and rectified by his actions in terms of fighting the battle when it was proper to do so. >> i might add that i think that is a point that certainly deserved emphasis as wylie has given it and it made me think as he was talking about general winfield scott who was in

command of the union armies at the beginning of the war. after the union disaster at bull run, scott said -- not sure i can quote it exactly but certainly to the effect that, "i ought to be removed from command because i knew that army was not ready and i did not stand up and oppose the advance and what resulted in the battle of bull run. and certainly thomas at nashville was under tremendous pressure to move out to attack and yet, he waited until everything was set. and i guess if that meant that he would be removed from command, so be it. and i might also add in regard to grant, he didn't really understand the situation at nashville. and from hundreds of miles away to be trying to direct things as

he did was not quite pretty. >> one thing i'd like to add is, there is a lot of controversy on the confederate side which has been plumed by a lot of people for a lot of people for a long time. but there's controversy on union side with the spring hill-franklin campaign as well. john schofield particularly felt his band had been dispatched into central tennessee to hold john bell hood at bay as long as he could. and then after the near miss at spring hill i think he realized how perilously close that his men had in fact come to being entrapped. so there was a whole post-war schofield-thomas controversy. a letter appeared in "the new york herald" i believe it was, it was written by one of schofield's staff officers. with his help, and it was an anonymous letter basically saying that george thomas had sort of botched the campaign in some ways and really came close to losing a good part of his army. george thomas was preparing to

answer that article when he had a stroke and fell dead. so i think there is a lesson there about not answering your critics. but at nashville, i really think that jim is right. i really do think that washington authorities were panicked. they knew there was still a major confederate army outside nashville. i don't think they realized how badly damaged had it been at franklin. all they knew was there was still an army out there in middle tennessee and they were really very worried about it, including lincoln. but i think thomas was prudent in not attacking. i think he waited. if you read the accounts, the weather was terrible. if they had gone and attacked a couple of days earlier, it would have been through snow and sleet and civil war generals, especially those educated at west point, always had this notion. they'd studied napoleon's campaigns and they always had this goal that they could annihilate an emmy army as napoleon had done. i think they tried on several

occasions. robert lee tried to do it at peninsula and was upset because they could not have done it. albert sidney johnson would have liked to done it at shiloh. but the only person who really came close to it was george thomas at nashville who over those two days just pummeled the confederate army of tennessee. had not steven d. lee's corps not been there, who had not been bloodied at franklin, i don't know that he would not have in fact essentially taken care of most of ap stewart and frank cheetham's corps. so he deserves a lot of credit in some ways. several biographies of thomas have been written that sort of restore him to a more stellar place in the pantheon of union generals. he did extraordinarily well at the battle of nashville. >> thank you very much. we'll open it now to the very patient gentleman who's been waiting to ask a question. >> hello, guys. thank you so much for your scholarship and your willing to accept questions.

my question also refers to general thomas. it seems to me that another major missed opportunity was at the atlanta campaign. i believe thomas really wanted to push on at jonesboro. he had hardy's men trapped, could have destroyed them. as i recall, sherman said no. seems like they could have prohibited a lot of the whole tennessee campaign from even happening at that point, but it already seemed also sherman never liked the army of the cumberland. he was more the army of the tennessee guy -- man. so i'm just interested on your thoughts at what happened at jonesboro with general thomas and how that impacted the tennessee campaign. thank you. >> i'll be honest with you. jonesboro is a battle that i don't really know a lot about, partly because frank cheatham was absent. but it was hardy's corps. that belonged to him who went down there. it was a battle where the confederates were badly

outnumbered and the goal really for the federals was to sever the last rail line into atlanta which by winning at jonesboro they did. you know, i really didn't know that thomas had wanted to continue on and really follow up the victory more than he did. ewing my guess is that sherman felt that he had gotten his objective which was the railroad and so atlanta could not be resupplied. and for him that was good enough. just a difference in philosophy, i would say, probably. >> i might add that i think by that stage of the war, very much through the entire atlanta campaign, sherman increasingly saw the benefits of maneuver. and he was sick of all of the killing that was taking place. and i think he believed, as chris was saying that he had what he wanted, and he was not

inclined then to initiate still more bloodshed. i think also that sherman -- this has been a controversial issue, but i'm not sure sherman held thomas in particularly high regard. but he and grant were somewhat kin in that respect. any other comments? >> yes. i would just add, i agree. i think sometimes in analyzing the relationship between some generals, a senior and a subordinate, that it's often easy to overlook the personalities of the generals involved. now thomas was more of a phlegmatic type personality.

he certainly wasn't overt in terms of his maneuvering like sherman was and whatnot. and so sometimes i think a relationship between individuals -- and we've all seen it in civilian life -- it's influenced somewhat by the personalities of the generals and the people in this particular case that were involved. so without getting into specifics of jonesboro, which again, like chris, a technical aspect, i would say it may have had something to do very much with the personalities of the two. >> thank you, gentlemen, for coming. i would like to reflect a little bit on what you said and aim it toward the battle of nashville.

cheatham, of course, didn't do very well at spring hill. we're aware of that. hood had endorsed him for promotion. and then on december the 6th, he sent a telegram to beauregard indicating that he was summarily withdrawing that recommendation for promotion. that's the prelude to my question. on the first day of the battle of nashville, focused on the refused left flank along hillsborough road, cheatham appears to have been quite slow in responding to the order to send troops from his positions over to the refused left flank.y the question i'm asking is, do you suppose that beauregard -- excuse me -- that hood divulged his withdrawal of that promotion to cheatham?

and if he did tell cheatham, would that, in your opinion, account for what appears to be a rather slow response of cheatham to send troops when ordered by hood to the refused left flank early to mid afternoon along hillsborough road. >> well, you're right in saying that hood originally recommended him for lieutenant general, and then he withdrew that recommendation, and then later on said, well, let's just forget about it. and because he's learned his lesson. i don't know that carried over to nashville. i really think that the acrimony between john bell hood and frank cheatham was more of a post-war development than a war time development. i think they really worked well together given their limitations. with regard to the battle of nashville, i think the reason he was slow in sending troops over, as james lee talked about, there

was a large demonstration headed largely by those u.s. colors trooped and it did essentially what it was designed to do, to keep his men occupied. they were successful in doing that and he felt like he could not strip men away from his section of the battlefield without endangering that part of the battlefields. you're right, he doesn't send them for a while but i think he feels he literally cannot spare them and needs to have them. so when he feels that the threat has been eliminated to some degree, he does it later. but i don't really think it is because he has a bone to pick that day with john bell hood. no, i don't. >> any other comments? >> in considering general george thomas at nashville, i think it might be useful to consider why he was here. he was here because general sherman ordered him here. and to me, that suggests an extreme amount of confidence on the part of general sherman as to general thomas' abilities.

because had thomas failed at nashville, sherman would have shared a great deal of the blame for that for having separated his two armies. so it seems to me that in looking at why thomas is here one should consider that maybe sherman showed the ultimate confidence in him when he sent him here. >> i'll start out with just a comment in general in terms of thomas. as we mentioned, thomas was not going to move until he was convinced that everything was in reasonable place and one of those aspects, and it's a very important aspect especially in my opinion because i studied for many years i was a very active collector in military weapons.

well as some of the civil war soldiers pointed out there's a tremendous difference between a spencer rifle and a muzzle-loading springfield .58 weapon, single shot. one of the reasons that thomas delayed at nashville was to make sure his horsemen, which they played a major role in attacking some of the outlying fortifications and forts, and redoubts of the confederate army, were armed with spencers, and a spencer rifle seven-shot repeating-type rifle. was one heck of a weapon, as they proved in not only previous engagements, but at nashville, where the confederates were, indeed, driven out of very strong redoubts by spencer-armed troops.

cavalry. >> i think that sherman, whether right or wrong, saw thomas as a very solid, stable, dependable commander. but i don't think that he had the confidence in him to lead the maneuvering aspects, the flanking force that he did in james macpherson. also my reading of it is i think he may have had more confidence also in schofield, even, than thomas. but, so far as putting thomas in charge of defending nashville, and the defenses there, and to stop hood, he felt he had a very solid general there.

who could do the job. and as you pointed out, if thomas had failed, then sherman's decision to take 6,000 men and march to the sea wouldn't look nearly as good as it did later. >> okay, sir? >> yes, i have a question about jefferson davis, and hood's campaign. in his post-civil war writings, davis implies that he did not approve of hood's move-in to tennessee. and i've done some other reading which says that he did. and i was wondering what your opinion was. did davis approve it, or didn't he? thank you. >> well, i'll start with my

answer in terms of you're asking, in essence, about the jefferson davis/hood relationship. one of the things we didn't get into, when i was talking about john bell hood, was his surreptitious correspondence with the davis administration, particularly hood ingratiated himself very much with the davis administration, and particularly jefferson davis during his convalescence period. prior to being assigned as a core commander in the west. and if you go to the western reserve historical society, the braxton-bragg papers, and bragg at the time was, of course, jefferson davis's special military advisor, giving davis all the advice about the commanders who he knew in the west and you find that john bell

hood was keeping a secretive correspondence with the administration through bragg and a lot of others that was, in effect, spying on joe johnson in terms of his conduct of the army of tennessee during the initial atlanta campaign. so you find, i think, that there was a certain measure of trust between jefferson davis and john bell hood, because really hood was jefferson davis' man, so to speak, in the west. he was the president's watch dog, as i termed in one of my chapters on -- in "embrace an angry wind." but not that he couldn't give hood advice, because he did give hood advice during the atlanta

campaign that he was losing perhaps too many men and he'd better be circumspect in terms of the casualty figures that he was enacting, because of his offensive concepts, so i think, in my estimation, there was always a favoritism on the part of jefferson davis to the command situation of general hood in the west. >> jefferson davis made a couple of trips over from richmond to the western theater, one was after the bat of chickamauga when his generals were battling among each other and he felt he needed to intervene. the other one was after the fall of atlanta. by that time, the confederate army had moved out of palmetto. and looped around to northern georgia. and i think he comes basically to see for himself what's going on. he says to the confederate troops there that essentially they're going to go into tennessee and they will make atlanta a perfect moscow. a reference to napoleon's failed campaign in russia. and northern newspapers got wind

of it. and so, to say that jefferson davis did not approve hood's tennessee campaign is incredibly duplicitous, if that's the case, because he certainly did so, and he told the troops that. and they simply did what he, beauregard and hood sort of thrashed out, an invasion of tennessee. >> just following up a bit on hood's relationship with richmond, one of the things that has disturbed me for a good many years, more disturbing things about hood jacksons was that he was, i believe this was in a letter to bragg, i'm not certain, i would have to check that. but he is talking about how johnston would not attack and how he had urged again and again that the confederates should attack during the atlanta campaign, almost to the point, he says, that he had become -- i don't think obnoxious was the

word he used, but anyway, sort of a sore thumb to a lot of the confederate officers, because he continuing to urge attack. well, that simply wasn't true. he, hood, advised retreat at adairsville. he advised johnston to retreat from the edewaw river. he advised him to retreat from kennesaw mountain. he advised him to retreat from the chattahoochee. >> just a general comment, perhaps, some of the discomfort from washington on hood might have been because he was a virginian. >> i didn't understand that. >> didn't understand.

>> did you want reaction? >> i'm just making a comment. >> he made a general comment. >> we didn't understand. >> could you repeat your question? they didn't catch it. i'm sorry. >> he's saying that general thomas was a virginian and you wonder if some of the washington distrust of him was based upon his nativity. >> that is true. >> okay. >> i don't know about that. john pemberton was a pennsylvanian. of course he didn't fare too well, either. you know, thomas' family disowned him. i don't think that they ever communicated with him again. and i don't know that the washington authorities used that against him. i think what they thought was that he was slow and too methodical and waited too long. without really knowing the situation, particularly in nashville.

you know, i think there were people in the north maybe who were somewhat suspicious of him. but after chickamauga, how anyone could doubt george thomas' devotion to the union is just beyond me. and i don't think washington -- i don't think that was a factor, to be honest with you. >> any jobs, i think, in the mind of the administration in washington was early, very early dissipated by the victories of thomas early in the war and his excellent combat record. indeed, he may have been criticized as being slow and methodical, but they knew he was a fighter and not only a good fighter but he was certainly committed to the fighting on the union soldiers' part, winning battles. >> i might add, another factor in the nashville situation, it seems to me, with grant and washington worrying that thomas is not attacking, they couldn't conceive -- i don't believe they

could conceive of how inadequate hood's logistics situation was, worrying about him going into kentucky and on up the ohio river, he couldn't have begun to do that. he just didn't have the logistics situation to do it. and i think grant probably found it difficult to believe that he would have come all this way into central tennessee with such poor logistics. >> we all know that general forrest had a lot of problems with his commanding officers. what i would like to ask is, what was his relationship with general hood? how did he get along with him? and also in regards do we have any comments or thoughts from him regarding springhill, regarding franklin, regarding the battle of nashville?