" Grant did not immediately fall in
with Sherman's suggestion; and Sherman prudently waited until the
Confederate plan of invading Tennessee became further developed. It
turned out as he hoped and expected. Having gradually ceased his raids
upon the railroad, Hood, by the end of October, moved westward to
Tuscumbia on the Tennessee River, where he gathered an army of about
thirty-five thousand, to which a cavalry force under Forrest of ten
thousand more was soon added.
Under Beauregard's orders to assume the offensive, he began a rapid
march northward, and for a time with a promise of cutting off some
advanced Union detachments. We need not follow the fortunes of this
campaign further than to state that the Confederate invasion of
Tennessee ended in disastrous failure. It was severely checked at the
battle of Franklin on November 30; and when, in spite of this reverse,
Hood pushed forward and set his army down before Nashville as if for
attack or siege, the Union army, concentrated and reinforced to about
fifty-five thousand, was ready. A severe storm of rain and sleet held
the confronting armies in forced immobility for a week; but on the
morning of December 15, 1864, General Thomas moved forward to an attack
in which on that and the following day he inflicted so terrible a defeat
upon his adversary, that the Confederate army not only retreated in rout
and panic, but soon literally went to pieces in disorganization, and
disappeared as a military entity from the western conflict.
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