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.”