In his official report Cox states that at two o’clock the enemy came into full view and he reported that fact and the position of the two brigades in front of his breastworks to Schofield and received his orders with reference to holding the position; but he does not state what those orders were. Cox made that report and received those orders in a personal conference with Schofield when they must have fully discussed the situation, and Cox’s peculiar statement in this connection seems to carry a covert threat, as if he had said to Schofield, “If you attempt to hold me responsible for the blunder I will tell what those orders of yours were.”
In a written account furnished me by Captain Whitesides, Wagner’s assistant adjutant-general, he states that about half past two o’clock Wagner ordered him to see Colonel Lane and find out what was going on in his front. From his position on the pike at the gap in the breastworks Wagner could see for himself Stewart’s corps forming in Conrad’s front, as already described, but his view of Lane’s front was obstructed by the large number of trees and by the inequalities of the ground on the west side of the pike. Colonel Lane told Whitesides that Hood was forming his army in battle order and that without any doubt it was his intention to attack in force; that the position occupied by the two brigades was faulty, being without any support on either flank, and unless they were withdrawn they would be run over by the enemy or compelled to fall back to the breastworks under fire. On reporting Lane’s statement to Wagner, Whitesides was directed to find General Stanley, the corps commander, and tell him what Lane had said. He found Stanley with Schofield at the house of Doctor Cliffe in the central part of the town, where they could see nothing of what was going on in front, and reported to them as stated above. He then returned to Wagner who, so far as he knew, received no further orders.
The report of Cox and the statement of Whitesides indicate that both Cox and Wagner believed that Hood intended to attack but that neither of them would take the responsibility, with Schofield in easy communication, of withdrawing the two brigades without his sanction from the position to which they had been assigned by his order. They reported to him the situation and then waited, and waited in vain, for him to take action.
In a personal interview Doctor Cliffe told me that Schofield came to his house about nine o’clock for breakfast and afterwards kept his headquarters there until the battle began; that after breakfast he retired to a bedroom where he slept until noon or shortly after; that a short time before the battle began Cox was there in conference with Schofield and staff officers kept coming and going until the fighting began; that Stanley was there with Schofield and they were waiting for their dinner; that they told him there would be no battle that day because Hood would not attack breastworks but that after dinner they would ride on to Nashville together and the army would follow after dark.
Stanley and Cliffe had been schoolboys together in Wayne County, Ohio, and as Cliffe was a well known Union man, it was supposed to be unsafe for him to remain in Franklin and he was invited to accompany Schofield and Stanley on their ride to Nashville. General Schofield has claimed that he scored a great success in his campaign against Hood and that this success was largely due to his intimate knowledge of Hood’s character, gained while they were classmates at West Point, which enabled him to foresee what Hood would do and then make the proper dispositions to defeat him. At Franklin he relied so confidently on his ability to foretell what Hood’s action would be that he not only wholly neglected to give any personal attention to the preparations for assault which Hood was making in plain sight of our front but he would not give any heed to the reports brought him by those who had seen these preparations. It was his belief, based on his intimate knowledge of Hood’s character, that Hood was making an ostentatious feint to mask his real intention of executing a flank movement, for in a telegram to General Thomas, dated at three o’clock, Schofield informed Thomas that Hood was in his front with about two corps and seemed prepared to cross the river above and below.
He has tried to escape all personal responsibility for the blunder by the weak statement that he was across the river when the battle began. Even if that statement were true, and it is directly contradicted by the disinterested statement of Doctor Cliffe as well as by an abundance of other reliable evidence, both direct and circumstantial, there is no possible escape for Schofield from the inexorable logic of the situation. For two hours Hood was engaged in preparations for assault in plain sight of thousands of our soldiers. What was Schofield doing those two hours? If he saw anything of Hood’s preparations he showed incompetence by his failure to promptly withdraw the two brigades from the blundering position to which he had assigned them. If he saw nothing of Hood’s preparations, it was only because of a criminal neglect of his duty at a time when the perilous position of his army, with a greatly superior rebel army in its front and a river at its back, demanded his utmost vigilance.
It was said that General Stanley was sick but he spent the day with Schofield and he also, having had West Point experience of Hood’s character, concurred fully in Schofield’s belief that Hood would not assault. So great was their delusion in this respect that it could not be shaken by the reports made by their subordinates, and nothing short of the loud roar of the opening battle was able to arouse them into giving any personal attention to the situation. Then at last, when it was too late to do anything to remedy a blunder which already had gone so far that it must go on to its full culmination, Schofield and Stanley left the house of Doctor Cliffe. Stanley hurried to the front which he reached just as Opdycke’s brigade was starting forward. Spurring his horse to the front of this brigade, he personally led it in its famous charge. A little later his horse was shot under him and he got a bullet through the back of his neck as he was rising to his feet. It was a flesh wound that bled freely, but Stanley declined to leave the front until after the fighting was all over. He then went to the rear to have his wound dressed and after his departure Cox was the senior general on the battle-field.
When Stanley started for the front Schofield started for the rear, and the most charitable construction that can be placed upon his action is that he interpreted the sound of the firing to mean that the expected flank movement had begun and that his duty called him across the river to provide against that flank movement. His disturbed mental condition at that time is disclosed by the fact that he abandoned in the room of Cliffe’s house, where he had slept, his overcoat, gloves, and a package containing the official dispatches he had received from General Thomas. These articles were not reclaimed until our army returned to Franklin after the victory at Nashville and in the meantime Mrs. Cliffe saved the coat from being taken by some needy rebel by wearing it herself and she also safely kept the gloves and dispatches.
After crossing the river Schofield rode to the fort that had been built the year before on the high bluff which formed the north bank. From this elevated position he had a good view of a large part of the battle-field and the heavy guns in the fort were engaged in firing on the nearest flank of the enemy; but he was not only well beyond the range of every rebel bullet that was fired, but he was also so far away by the road which a staff officer must take to communicate with the firing line, that he was wholly out of touch with the troops that were fighting the battle. His presence in the fort had no more to do with the repulse of Hood’s assault than if he had been the man-in-the-moon looking down upon the battle-field. The only order that he sent from the fort was the order to retreat after the army had won a great victory. When this order reached Cox he made a manly protest against it. He explained the wrecked condition of the rebel army to the staff officer, who brought the order, and giving his opinion that retreat was wholly unnecessary, he urged the officer to return to Schofield and persuade him to countermand the order. He also sent his brother, Captain Cox, of his own staff, to remonstrate with Schofield, and to say that General Cox would be responsible with his head for holding the position. When Captain Cox reached the fort he found that Schofield already had started for Nashville. The Captain hurried in pursuit and, overtaking Schofield on the pike and delivering his message, was told that the order to retreat would not be recalled and must be executed. In Wagner’s division we had been marching, or fortifying, or fighting for more than forty hours continuously, and believed that we had reached the limit of human endurance, but we still had to plod the eighteen weary miles to Nashville before getting any rest.
In January, 1865, Schofield, with the corps that he was then commanding, was transferred from Tennessee to North Carolina. When he passed through Washington en route he had the opportunity of giving to President Lincoln a personal account of his campaign in Tennessee. The president must have known in a general way, that at Franklin the rebel army had made a very desperate assault which had been most disastrously repulsed, but he certainly was ignorant of the details of the battle, and in the absence of any information to the contrary, his natural inference would be that Schofield, as our commanding general, was entitled to great credit for that repulse. At that time the truth concerning Schofield’s connection with the battle was known to a few men only and those who would have exposed his pretensions, if they had had any knowledge of what he was claiming, were all far away in Tennessee. The claim for distinguished services which Schofield succeeded in impressing upon “Honest Old Abe” may be fairly inferred from the very extraordinary promotion given him over the heads of many able and deserving officers—namely, from captain to brigadier-general in the regular army, to date November 30, 1864, with a brevet as major-general “for gallant and meritorious services in the battle of Franklin, Tennessee.”