We find no mention in the records of any capture of an important dispatch from Hood to Chalmers, except that found on the person of Colonel Rucker, when he was wounded and captured at 6.30 P.M., trying to hold the pass of the Brentwood hills on the Granny White turnpike, in the darkness, two hours after the collapse of Hood's line. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 218.] This dispatch seems to have strongly resembled the language used by Wilson in his letter to Schofield in 1882. It is said to have stated that Chalmers' cavalry must take care of this flank. In sending the information to General Johnson, Wilson added, "Go for him with all possible celerity, as Hood says the safety of their army depends upon Chalmers." [Footnote: Wilson to Johnson, Id., p. 222.] As we have already noted, Rucker's brigade, just routed, was all there was of Chalmers' division on that flank except a regiment covering trains making for Franklin.
The Confederate records support this view. Chalmers' report relates the skirmishing during the morning in which Rucker was holding the Hillsborough turnpike against Wilson, and the attempt on our side to move to the Granny White turnpike, from which Hammond's detachment was driven back. He says that with one regiment and his own escort he "held the enemy in check for more than three hours." [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 765.] This agrees very well with the situation as indicated in General Schofield's dispatch of 1.30 P.M., when a serious effort was making on our side to reach that road. Chalmers reported the fact that the regiment was hotly beset, and Hood's adjutant-general, in acknowledging it at 3.15 P.M., said, "Your dispatch, saying you were fighting the enemy with one regiment on the Granny White pike, received. General Hood says you must hold that pike; put in your escort and every available man you can find." [Footnote:Id., pt. ii. p. 697.] Chalmers reports that he received this about 4.30, when the regiment had been driven back; that he then moved up Rucker's brigade, which had reached the same turnpike nearer Brentwood, and after a sharp struggle it was routed. "By this time," he adds, "it was so dark that it was impossible to re-form the men, or, indeed, to distinguish friend from foe, so closely were they mingled together." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 766.] It was in this mêlée that Rucker was wounded and captured.
In preparation for the attack in concert with A. J. Smith's command, my flank brigade (Stiles's), which had been in echelon on our right, was ordered to swing forward in touch with our cavalry advance. [Footnote: My Report, Id., p. 407.] My own main attack was to be upon the bastion which made the flank of the enemy's works before us. I ordered Doolittle's brigade to charge straight at it. Casement's brigade, on Doolittle's left, was to march by the right flank at double-quick in rear of Doolittle, so as to become a second line to him and support the advance as might be necessary. The skirmishers of Stiles's brigade had accompanied the cavalry advance since half-past one, and in the final effort his troops in line were to take part as already stated. [Footnote: See Schofield to Thomas, 1.30 P. M., Id., pt. ii. p. 215; Stiles's Report, Id., pt. i. p. 431; my own Report, Id., p. 407, and sketch map accompanying the latter, Id., p. 408; also "Franklin and Nashville," etc., pp. 119-122.] After personal conference with my brigade commanders to insure complete mutual understanding, I rode to the hill in rear of my lines where Thomas and Schofield were together, [Footnote: Marked 2 in map, p. 359.] watching for the concerted attack upon Shy's hill in the salient angle of Hood's lines.
When Smith's men were seen to reach the summit of Shy's Hill, I received the signal from Schofield, and galloped down the hill toward Doolittle; but he also had caught sight of the movement, and his brigade was already charging on the run when I reached him. The excited firing of the enemy was too high, and Doolittle's men entered the works with very little loss. The collapse was general. As soon as we were over the works, I was ordered to stand fast with my command and give General Smith's command the right of way down the Granny White turnpike. Doolittle's brigade had carried the bastion in front of our right and the curtain adjoining it, and his line halted immediately in rear of these, partly facing the turnpike. He had captured a four-gun battery of light twelves in the bastion and another of the same number in the curtain, with the artillerists and part of the supports. [Footnote: See the official reports cited above, and special reports as to the guns, Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 234, 235; also regimental reports, Twelfth Kentucky, Id., pt. i. p. 417, One Hundredth Ohio, Id., p. 420, and Eighth Tennessee, Id., p. 423.] Stiles, advancing with the cavalry, was halted a short distance in front of Doolittle, facing southward on the right of the turnpike. Casement was halted in the trenches from which Doolittle had started. [Footnote: Casement's Report, Id., pt. i. p. 425. All the reports on the National side except that of the cavalry refer to the concerted attack on Shy's hill as the signal for the general advance. The Confederate reports also speak of the carrying of that salient as the cause of the rout. In his second report, dated Feb. 1, 1865, and in his letter to General Schofield in 1882, cited above, General Wilson says that it was on his personal report of what his men were doing on the enemy's left rear that Thomas ordered the final assault.]
PURSUIT OF HOOD--END OF THE CAMPAIGN
Night after the battle--Unusual exposure--Hardships of company officers--Bad roads--Halt at Franklin--Visiting the battlefield--Continued pursuit--Decatur reoccupied--Hood at Tupelo, Miss.--Summary of captures--Thomas suggests winter-quarters--Grant orders continued activity--Schofield's proposal to move the corps to the East--Grant's correspondence with Sherman--Schofield's suggestion adopted--Illness--I ask for "sick-leave"--Do not use it--Promotion--Reinforcements--March from Columbia to Clifton--Columns on different roads--Western part of the barrens--Fording Buffalo River--An illumined camp--Dismay of the farmer--Clifton on the Tennessee--Admiral Lee--Methods of transport--Weary waiting--Private grumbling--Ordered East--Revulsion of spirits--On the transport fleet--Thomas's frame of mind at close of the campaign.
The night after the battle of Nashville was one we were not likely to forget. Twilight was falling when we halted, after the crushing of the Confederate lines, and as we were likely to join in the pursuit before morning, I had announced that I would be found with Doolittle's brigade. Owing to the darkness and a gathering storm, the troops having the advance did not get far, but the risks of missing dispatches that might be sent in haste made me adhere to my rule of staying where I had said I might be found. This kept the staff and headquarters in the space a little in rear of the captured line of works, a spot unclean and malodorous. We built a camp-fire, and tried to clean off spots on which we could sit on the ground; but a heavy rain soon came on, and as we were in the woods, the light soil soon made a mire, and we were forced to stand upright and take the weather as it came. The extreme weariness of standing about, with nothing to vary the monotony, physically tired and sleepy, in the reaction from the excitement of the afternoon, was something which cannot be understood unless one has had a similar experience. We had hoped our servants might find us during the evening and bring us something to eat; but the advance over hills and intrenchments had made it hard to follow our course even in daylight; but in the darkness and storm they entirely failed to find us. We felt a good deal like "belly-pinched wolves," but we had no den in which we could "keep the fur dry." Indeed, the suffering of a dog that was with us was a thing we often referred to as illustrating our utter discomfort. A fine pointer, astray in northern Georgia, had attached himself to me in October, and had been constantly with us, leaping and barking with joy whenever I mounted my horse. He was with us now, and when the rain came on he stood in the mud like the rest of us, finding no spot to lie down in. He grew tired and sleepy, and looked wistfully about for a place he could consent to lie in, but gave it up, and spreading all four legs well apart he tried to stand it out. Occasionally his eyes would close and his head droop, his body would slowly sway back and forth till he made a greater nod, his nose would go into the mud, and gathering himself up he would lift his head with a most piteous whine, protesting against such headquarters.
The longest night must have an end, and early in the morning one of our black boys found us, bringing with him on horseback a haversack full of hard-tack, and in his hand a kettle of coffee which we soon made piping hot at the camp-fire, and found the world looking much more cheerful. The storm continued, however, and made the pursuit slower and more difficult than it would have been in better weather. The cavalry had the advance, supported by A. J. Smith's troops on the Granny White turnpike, and by Wood's Fourth Corps on the Franklin turnpike. We were ordered to follow Smith. Our camp on the evening of the 17th was not far from Brentwood between the two roads which come together a little further on after crossing the Little Harpeth, some seven miles from Franklin and the larger stream of the same name.