THE GREAT CONSPIRACY

Its Origin and History

Part 7

BY

JOHN LOGAN




CHAPTER XXVIII.

FREEDOM AT LAST ASSURED.

As to the Military situation, a few words are, at this time, necessary:
Hood had now marched Northward, with some 50,000 men, toward Nashville,
Tenn., while Sherman, leaving Thomas and some 35,000 men behind, to
thwart him, had abandoned his base, and was marching Southward from
Atlanta, through Georgia, toward the Sea.

On the 30th of November, 1864, General Schofield, in command of the 4th
and 23rd Corps of Thomas's Army, decided to make a stand against Hood's
Army, at Franklin, in the angle of the Harpeth river, in order to give
time for the Union supply-trains to cross the river. Here, with less
than 20,000 Union troops, behind some hastily constructed works, he had
received the impetuous and overwhelming assault of the Enemy--at first
so successful as to threaten a bloody and disastrous rout to the Union