Battle Of Nashville

On the afternoon of December 16, 1864, Union troops led by General George H. Thomas devastated Confederate forces at Nashville, Tennessee.

The battle had begun the day before when Thomas initiated an attack after waiting some two weeks for troop reinforcements and favorable weather.

In November, in an effort to cut off General William T. Sherman's supply line, Confederate General John B. Hood, led the Army of Tennessee out of Alabama and toward Nashville. One of Hood's men remembered the grueling march from Atlanta to Nashville. "After the fall of Atlanta," Confederate veteran Milton Cox told his son John. "we marched northward into Tennessee over frozen ground and how cold it was! Our shoes were worn out and our feet were torn and bleeding…the snow was on the ground and there was no food. Our rations were a few grains of parched corn. When we reached the vicinity of Nashville we were very hungry and we began to search for food. Over in a valley stood a tree which seemed to be loaded with fruit. It was a frost bitten persimmon tree, but as I look back over my whole life, never have I tasted any food which would compare with these persimmons. "

Union General George H. Thomas reached the outskirts of Nashville mere days before Hood and began building fortifications, amassing troops, and planning Hood's demise. For almost two weeks both sides maintained their positions as they prepared for battle. Ice from freezing rain delayed the inevitable clash for several days.

After the weather had cleared, fighting began before daybreak on December 15. Within less than forty-eight hours, Hood's troops were in retreat. Union forces tailed Hood for almost ten days. By the time that they recrossed the Tennessee River, the Army of Tennessee had disintegrated and the threat of a Confederate invasion of the North was practically nonexistent. A few weeks later, Hood resigned his command.

The Battle of Nashville was a two-day battle in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign that represented the end of large-scale fighting in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. It was fought at Nashville, Tennessee, on December 15–16, 1864, and was one of the largest victories achieved by the Union Army in the war. The Army of Tennessee, the second largest Confederate force, was essentially destroyed and would never fight again.