Military Order
OF THE
Loyal Legion of the United States

COMMANDERY OF THE
STATE OF MISSOURI

The Battle of Spring Hill, Tennessee.

PREPARED BY
Companion Captain John K. Shellenberger

READ AFTER THE
STATED MEETING
HELD FEBRUARY
2d, 1907

PREFACE.

MORE than twenty-five years have passed since I began to collect the materials from which this pamphlet has been evolved. As a substantial basis, to begin with, I was an eye-witness of all the fighting in the vicinity of Spring Hill, that amounted to anything, from the time Forrest attacked the 64th Ohio on the skirmish line until Cleburne's Division recoiled from the fire of the battery posted at the village.

Since I began collecting I have neglected no opportunity to increase my stock of information by conversation, reading or correspondence. I have twice revisited the battlefield. I have the Government volume containing the official reports, all of which I have carefully studied. Among my correspondents, on the Union side, have been Generals Stanley, Wilson, Opdycke, Lane and Bradley, besides many others of lesser rank. I am as confident, from their letters, that my paper would have the approval of those named, who are now dead, as I am sure it has the approval of General Wilson, to whom a manuscript copy was submitted for criticism.

Among other Confederates, I wrote to General S.D. Lee, who referred me to Judge J.P. Young, of Memphis Tennessee, with the statement that he had exhausted the subject on the Confederate side. He was present at Spring Hill as a boy soldier in Forrest's cavalry, and for years has been engaged in writing a history of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, to which he has given an enormous amount of careful research. To him I am indebted for much of the most valuable part of my information concerning the Confederate troops. From the materials thus gathered I have tried to give, within the compass of a Loyal Legion paper, a clear and truthful account of the affair just as it happened. That opinions will differ, is shown by the fact that Judge Young holds General Brown responsible for the Confederate failure, while I believe that Cheatham, Stewart and Bate were all greater sinners than Brown. He was acting under the eye of Cheatham, who could easily have forced an attack by Brown's Division if he had been equal to the occasion.

By a curious coincidence General Lee was present as the guest of the Missouri Commandery at the meeting when the paper was read, and, in commenting on it, General Lee stated that I had told the truth about as it had occurred. The deductions made from the facts stated are my own.

THE BATTLE OF SPRING HILL.

IT may be fairly claimed that the success of General Sherman's famous March to the Sea hung on the issue of a minor battle fought at Spring Hill, in Middle Tennessee, the evening of November 29th, 1864, when Sherman and his army were hundreds of miles away in the heart of Georgia. It will be remembered that when Sherman started from Atlanta for Savannah his old antagonist, General Hood, was at Florence, Alabama, refitting his army to the limit of the waning resources of the Confederacy, for an aggressive campaign into Tennessee. If Hood's campaign had proved successful Sherman's unopposed march through Georgia would have been derided as a crazy freak, and, no doubt, the old charge of insanity would have been revived against him. By how narrow a margin Hood missed a brilliant success, a truthful account of the Spring Hill affair will disclose. Much has been written by interested generals of both sides, and by their partisan friends, to mislead as to the real situation. With no personal friendships or enmities to subserve, it is the intention of this paper to tell the truth without any regard to its effect on the reputation of any general, Federal or Confederate.

The Administration gave a reluctant consent to Sherman's plan on the condition that he would leave with General Thomas, commanding in Tennessee, a force strong enough to defeat Hood. On paper Thomas had plenty of men, but Sherman had taken his pick of infantry, cavalry, artillery and transportation, leaving the odds and ends with Thomas, consisting largely of post troops garrisoning towns; bridge guards in block-houses along the railroads; new regiments recruited by the payment of the big bounties that produced the infamous tribe of bounty jumpers; negro regiments never yet tested in battle; green drafted men assigned to some of the old, depleted regiments in such large numbers as to change their veteran character; dismounted cavalrymen sent back to get horses, and convalescents and furloughed men belonging to the army with Sherman who had come up too late to join their commands, organized into temporary companies and regiments.

Moreover, Thomas' forces were scattered from East Tennessee to Central Missouri, where General A.J. Smith, with two divisions of the Sixteenth corps, was marching for St. Louis to take steamboats to join Thomas at Nashville. The only force available for immediate field service consisted of the Fourth and the Twenty-third corps, the two weakest corps of Sherman's army, which he had sent back to Thomas. These two corps, temporarily commanded by General Schofield, were thrown well forward towards Florence to delay Hood long enough for Thomas to concentrate and organize from his widely scattered resources a force strong enough to give battle to Hood.

Passing over all prior operations we will take up the situation as it was the morning of November 29th. General Schofield had then well in hand on the north bank of Duck River, opposite Columbia, Tennessee, the divisions of Kimball, Wagner and Wood, composing the Fourth corps, and of Cox and Ruger, of the Twenty-third corps, Ruger's lacking one brigade on detached service. Across the river were two divisions of General S. D. Lee's corps of Hood's Army. The preceding evening Hood, himself, with the corps of Cheatham and Stewart, and Johnson's division of Lee's corps, had moved up the river five and one-half miles to Davis' ford, where he was laying his pontoons preparatory to crossing. His plan was to detain Schofield at the river by feinting with two divisions while he would lead seven divisions past the left flank and plant them across Schofield's line of retreat at Spring Hill, twelve miles north of Duck River. As Hood greatly outnumbered Schofield, his plan contemplated the destruction of Schofield's army.

During the evening of the 28th General Wilson, commanding our cavalry, had learned enough of Hood's movement to divine its purpose. In view of its vital importance, to insure a delivery, he sent a message in triplicate, each courier riding by a separate road, informing Schofield of what Hood was doing, and advising and urging him to get back to Spring Hill with all his army by 10 o'clock, the 29th. General Wilson has stated that his couriers all got through, the one riding by the shortest road reaching Schofield's headquarters at 3 a.m. of the 29th.

From the reports sent him by Wilson, General Thomas at Nashville had also correctly divined Hood's intention, and in a dispatch dated at 3:30 a.m., of the 29th—but by the neglect of the night operator not transmitted until 6 o'clock, when the day operator came on duty—he ordered Schofield to fall back to Franklin, leaving a sufficient force at Spring Hill to delay Hood until he was securely posted at Franklin.