Union Headquarters

In September 1864, after Union Gen. William T. Sherman defeated Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood at Atlanta, Hood led the Army of Tennessee northwest against Sherman's supply lines and then moved north into Tennessee rather than contest Sherman's March to the Sea. Gen. John M. Schofield, detached from Sherman's army, delayed Hood at Columbia and Spring Hill before falling back to Franklin, where the fighting on November 30 crippled the Confederates, though they followed Schofield to the outskirts of Nashville and Union Gen. George H. Thomas's strong defenses before Thomas crushed Hood's army on December 15-16. In Franklin, this small building, constructed in 1817 by Dr. Daniel McPhail, served as the medical office of Dr. Daniel Cliffe, a former Confederate surgeon who had switched his allegiance to the Union early in the war. After dawn on November 30, 1864, Schofield arrived in Franklin and established his headquarters in Cliffe's house and office. Through the early and midmorning hours, courier and telegraphic activity was brisk there as Schofield directed construction of defensive positions on the south side of town and planned to withdraw the army to Nashville at 6 P.M. By 2 P.M., he had transferred his headquarters to the Alpheus Truett home, just north of the Harpeth River about a mile away. Schofield did not intend to fight at Franklin, but to delay the Confederates until the bridge over the Harpeth River was repaired, then cross after dark and march north. At 4 P.M., however, Hood launched his attack. Schofield and Gen. David S. Stanley were then riding from the Truett House toward downtown Franklin when a courier informed them that the Southern army was beginning a frontal assault. Stanley rode toward the front, and Schofield went to Fort Granger, from where he watched Hood's army strike the Federal works south of town.

Franklin, Tennessee · United States