Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/557

 1864] Battle of Nashville. Tennessee freed. 525 midnight of the battle. General Hood's abnormal confidence was not shaken even by his terrible loss in the battle of Franklin. Again ordering a pursuit, he advanced on Nashville, and on December 2 formed an entrenched line of battle before that city. His later explanations indicate that he did not intend an attack, but only wished to present a bold defensive front, collect supplies, and await reinforcements, under the delusion then current among Confederate generals that Tennessee was Southern in sentiment, and that, once liberated from the yoke of the oppressor, it would eagerly rush to his support with recruits and rations. Hood had a total force of about 44,000 men, and trusted they could not be overwhelmed. On the contrary he believed that a defensive victory would give him control of the State, or even open an easy entrance into Kentucky. It was, however, with a feeling of perfect security that General Thomas allowed his antagonist to approach. He had by this time accumulated a total Federal force of about 55,000; and by good fortune the last of his expected reinforcements and nearly all retiring detach- ments had joined him at Nashville a day or two before Hood's arrival. The Administration at Washington, and General Grant near Richmond, knowing that Sherman had started on his march to the sea, were watch- ing the Tennessee campaign with intense anxiety. Grant, seeing the disadvantage in which Hood had placed himself, sent impatient orders to Thomas to attack him, and went even so far as to send Logan with contingent and discretionary orders to supersede him, if he did not act. A week passed away while Thomas was deliberately completing his preparations, and then a storm of rain and sleet, which covered the miry roads with a thin coat of ice, caused another six days' delay. On the morning of December 15, when a warm rain had melted the ice, but without waiting for the roads to dry, the Federal army advanced to the attack, its first movements being masked by a heavy fog. Though the ground was hilly and broken and the roads still heavy and difficult from the recent storm, the whole plan of battle seems to have been executed with unusual regularity and success, so that by nightfall at the close of the first day the entire Confederate line had been driven back a distance of two miles, and had lost 16 guns and 1200 prisoners. Roused to eager enthusiasm by this initial success, the Federal officers and soldiers resumed the battle on the next day, December 16, under the same well-planned orders, and with the same steady courage. Though driven back on the first day, Hood seems to have maintained hope and confidence on the second, until in the afternoon, in the language of the commander of a division on the Federal side, "the whole Confederate left was crushed in like an eggshell"; and in Hood's own words, his line " broke at all points," and he " beheld for the first and only time a Confederate army abandon the field in confusion." The full result of the two days' battle was the capture of 4500 prisoners, including CH. XVI.