Forrest was trying to delay their advance toward Franklin, and sometimes succeeded in getting possession of pike for a short time, capturing teamsters shooting down teams in their harness and setting fire to their wagons.
But their rear passed Spring Hill before daylight the next morning, with Hood's infantry pursuing their rearguard closely into Franklin, where a strong line of entrenchments had been prepared around the edge of the city from Harpeth river above the same below town, and a strong line of rifle pits out in front of the regular trenches.
On the afternoon of Nov. 30, 1864, Hood attacked these entrenchments about 4:00 p.m. Reynolds' brigade was on the right of the pike, somewhat to the right of the historic genhouse. As this brigade started in the charge on the first line of rifle pits, Lumsden's command was close behind with no weapons but their bare hands. Gen. Reynolds noticed it and riding up called out to Capt. Lumsden: "Captain, take your men back behind the hill to our rear." And so it was done; though as soon as our infantry reached the valley and the bullets ceased to fly so thickly about the top of the hill, the whole company was soon at the top of the ridge, watching the terrible struggle in our front over the Federal entrenchments on the outskirts of Franklin.
Away in the night, the flashing rifles revealed the firing of two armies with a bank of six feet of earth between them, until finally it gradually ceased. Before daylight we got certain intelligence that the enemy was gone through Corporal Tom Owen, gunner to 2nd piece, who with another prospecting companion or two had been into the town and returned with a bucket of molasses and some other eatables.
Here we were left by Gen. Reynolds' brigade, and where our horses, guns and caissons came up, Lumsden's battery was again in its usual fighting trim, and moved on to Nashville where it was on Dec. 4th, in the front trenches on the left of the Grannary White Pike, in the yard of a fine brick house, which the enemy had destroyed just outside of their fortifications, known as the "Gales house". Our lines were so close to those of the enemy across a narrow valley of cleared fields, that no one could expose any portion of his body on either work, without drawing the fire of his enemy opposite. Some of the boys found good quarters inside of the old furnace, within a few steps of our guns, those of us in the outside wishing there were a few more furnaces. Talk about not dodging! Whenever one of us had to move about, he had to dodge from one cover to another. But there was one comfort, our infantry kept our enemies dodging also. About Dec. 10th, we were relieved from this position by another battery, and ordered to the extreme left of the army and put in position on a small hill, about 700 yards west of the Hillsboro pike, opposite the house of Robert Castleman, who lived on the east side of said pike some three and a half miles south of Nashville, and three quarters of a mile, southwest from the extreme western end of Hood's line, on the Hillsboro pike. Here, we were ordered to entrench.
[The description of the duty to which Lumsden's Battery was assigned in the battle of Nashville on December 15th, 1864 was lost in some way and not printed in Lumsden's Battery History where it belongs near the top of Page 56 just after the sentence "Here we were ordered to entrench".
The omission was not noticed until after the volumes had all been printed.
These special pages must therefore be put in an insert and read in their proper place, after which again the history takes up the further retreat of the remnant out of Tennessee.]
Major John Foster of the Engineers, with a detail of 100 men had already started on the work. Hood's orders were that it should be a regular fort enclosing the top of hill. As yet, it was simply a redoubt, facing a ridge some 800 yards away that ran nearly perpendicularly to the general direction of the army's line of battle at the extreme left end of the army. Between the ridge and the location of redoubt were cultivated fields, and had been some woods, through which Richland Creek meandered towards the north west. The woods our engineers had cut down, so as to give an uninterrupted view of the lands in our front, and gave a cover for skirmishers who might be driven back towards redoubt and also gave cover for an enemy line of skirmishers to approach to within 100 yards of redoubt under cover, when they had driven back the defending skirmishers.
Major Foster's force had started the redoubt shortly after the remnant of Hood's Army (after Franklin) had aligned itself before Nashville and entrenched somewhere about December 1st to 3rd, it being perhaps a mile or more from extreme left of Hood's Army to the Cumberland River. Gen. Chalmers with Cavalry, and the remnant of Ector's Brigade of infantry as a support, guarding the gaps between left of Hood's entrenchments at Hillsboro pike, to Cumberland River. From the date of our arrival at fort location we had rain snow, and sleet, and the ground frozen hard, so that it was impossible to make any rapid progress on the redoubt laid off for 4 embrasures for our 4 Napoleon guns. Stretched blankets and the tarpaulins from for our guns and ammunition were the only cover for officers or men. I well remember that, the day before the battle of the 15th, my servant Jim Bobbett brought me a change of clean under clothing, for which I had to scrape off the snow on a log at Richland Creek, strip and bathe in its icy waters to make a change.