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Title: The Great Conspiracy, Part 7

Author: John Alexander Logan

Release Date: June 13, 2004 [EBook #7139]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT CONSPIRACY, PART 7 ***

Produced by David Widger

THE GREAT CONSPIRACY

Its Origin and History

Part 7

BY

JOHN LOGAN

CHAPTER XXVIII.

FREEDOM AT LAST ASSURED.

As to the Military situation, a few words are, at this time, necessary:
Hood had now marched Northward, with some 50,000 men, toward Nashville,
Tenn., while Sherman, leaving Thomas and some 35,000 men behind, to
thwart him, had abandoned his base, and was marching Southward from
Atlanta, through Georgia, toward the Sea.

On the 30th of November, 1864, General Schofield, in command of the 4th
and 23rd Corps of Thomas's Army, decided to make a stand against Hood's
Army, at Franklin, in the angle of the Harpeth river, in order to give
time for the Union supply-trains to cross the river. Here, with less
than 20,000 Union troops, behind some hastily constructed works, he had
received the impetuous and overwhelming assault of the Enemy--at first
so successful as to threaten a bloody and disastrous rout to the Union
troops--and, by a brilliant counter-charge, and subsequent obstinate
defensive-fighting, had repulsed the Rebel forces, with nearly three
times the Union losses, and withdrew the next day in safety to the
defenses of Nashville.

A few days later, Hood, with his diminished Rebel Army, sat down before
the lines of Thomas's somewhat augmented Army, which stretched from bank
to bank of the bight of the Cumberland river upon which Nashville is
situated.

And now a season of intense cold set in, lasting a week or ten days.
During this period of apparent inaction on both sides--which aroused
public apprehension in the North, and greatly disturbed General Grant--I
was ordered to City Point, b