Military
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Before dawn on November 30, 1864, Gen. Jacob D. Cox’s Division of the XXIII Corps led the Federal army to the outskirts of Franklin. While army commander Gen. John M. Schofield inspected the bridges on the Harpeth River and found the river impassable, Cox established his headquarters at the Carter House, and engineers began repairing the bridges. Schofield ordered Cox to form a defensive line on the southern edge of town to gain time for the engineers. Capt. Levi Schofield laid out the line, and Cox deployed his division from Columbia Pike east to Lewisburg Pike and then across that road to the river. About 5,000 men dug a two-foot-deep trench, piled the dirt in front, and strengthened the works with other materials, including wooden siding torn from the cotton gin. The main line of defense between Columbia Pike and the Carter cotton gin, held by the 100th and 104th Ohio Infantry regiments and four pieces of artillery, became a focal point of the battle. The line curved around the gin to form a salient, and some of the battle’s most brutal fighting took place there.
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Franklin, Tennessee · United States
