In the meantime Hood's desperate sortie had struck north as far
as Franklin, Tennessee. Here, on the last of November, General
John Schofield, commanding the advanced part of Thomas's army,
gallantly withstood a furious attack. On this the closing day of
a lingering Indian summer the massed Confederates charged with
the piercing rebel yell, and charged again; re-formed under cover
of the dense pall of stationary smoke; and returned to the charge
again and again. Many a leader met his death right against the
very breastworks. Another would instantly spring forward, only to
fall in his turn. Thirteen times the gaunt gray lines rushed
madly through the battle smoke and lost their front ranks against
the withering fire before the autumn night closed in. Schofield
then fell back on Brentwood, halfway on the twenty miles to
Nashville. He had lost over two thousand men. But Hood had lost
three times as many; and Hood's were irreplaceable except by a
very few local recruits.

Hood now concentrated every available man for his final attack on
Thomas, who had odds of twenty thousand in his favor. Hood
marched his thirty-five thousand up to Nashville, where he
actually invested the fifty-five thousand Federals. By this time
even Grant was so annoyed at what seemed to him unreasoning delay
that he sent Logan to take command at once and "fight." But on
the fifteenth of December Thomas came out of his works and fought
Hood with determined skill all day. Having gained a decisive
advantage already he pressed it home to the very utmost on the
morrow, breaking through Hood's shaken lines, enveloping whole
units with converging fire, and taking prisoners in mass. After a