Battle of Franklin, 30 November 1864 (4pm-9pm)
Confederate Casualties - 7,000 men
More than 1,750 men were killed outright or died of mortal wounds, 3,800 seriously wounded and 702 captured (not including cavalry casualties). 15 out of 28 Confederate Generals were casualties. 65 field grade officers were lost. Some infantry regiments lost 64 % of their strength at Franklin. There were more men killed in the Confederate Army of Tennessee in the 5- hour battle than in the 2-day Battle of Shiloh, the 3-day Battle of Stones River, and the 7-day Campaign in Virginia for the Federal Army.
as far as one could see
a grey wave left and right
where individual will
had no power
we were marching forward
twenty thousand strong
and not a damn one of us
could do a damn thing about it
and I am not ashamed to say
as I watched those men on horseback
Adams, Cleburne and all the rest
and men they were
I am not ashamed to say
I followed
where without
I might have not
and I knew they would die
such targets
of grey and gold
of hat and saber
of a generation
too damn good to lose
but we did
and dead is dead
and the next day
we marched on without them
as if we marched
without our souls
++++++
around 4:30pm
shots fired
I mean fired
as in fire
walls of flame
curtains of smoke
nostrils burning
yelling, shrieking
men possessed
faces contorted
eyes bulging
knuckles white
amidst torn cloth
and ripped flesh
and tongues dry
of water
and faces full
of death
and above it all
those souls trapped
wailing
buried in flesh
as more
into the breech fall
fodder, fodder
our young boys
the sky turning crimson
this indian summer day
this soil nourished
these fields of red
of blood
our blood
once seen
never
again
20 comments:
Top picture is Brig. Gen. John Adam. Bottom is Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne. Both men died, upon the breastworks, leading their men. Adams on his horse. Cleburne on foot after his horse had been shot from under him.
They were not the only Confederate generals killed in action that day, nor the only ones to lead by example.
The poem is mine, which is to say, fiction. The stats above it, are not.
It's intriguing to me - the spark and bond over THIS topic. I jumped at only one thread in the rich tapestries you weave . . .
One of my most venerable possessions is the Ken Burns documentary, "The Civil War" on DVD. I can recite broad stretches of it from memory. I can recite the numbers of casualties in a given battle, what the weather was like, whether the men had enough to eat at the time. I would listen to Shelby Foote read from the Yellow Pages, happily. I play the soundtrack in my car, weeping silently as I drive the modern-day streets. It has affected me profoundly.
I wonder who of my ancestors, those of The Great Expulsion, in fact the genocide of the Acadian people by the British, from 1755 - 1763, and who survived by escaping to Lousiana (Acadian: Cajun), were soldiers in the Battle of Franklin.
Reading you both, I hold a silent vigil for those whose very breath informs our own, night and day, sleeping or awake.
My dear Lacey, 18 soldiers from Louisiana, maybe more, but 18 from my great home state are buried, were buried, by Carrie McGavock, actually reinterred into her private property some two years hence and upon, or I should say under, that hallowed ground, lie their bones to this day and I suppose this cool September night too. How many fought, I don't know.
Limes, I need to watch that whole series again. You up for another viewing?
Only about every 90 days. I'd provide beverages and snacks, too. Be warned: I'll have a hankie in hand. I'm a weeper.
and I'm a spoon to catch what falls . . .
Well! Let's do that, then.
Funny, today at work (I work in a giftshop in BFE Northern Ontario) I was moving displays and picked up a pile of blue and grey Civil war replica hats. This is what I thought. I thought, how odd that anyone would want to hold one of these, to remember this time. A hat. I mean, it is not just the historical significance of the time that someone would hold but a hat is so personal, it would be a man's story to hold one of these. And who are any of us to think we might hold a man's story encased in a hat (and at that, only a cheap knock-off!) And too, the shape of the hat, how that might have impressed upon men a different attitude. How the head is pressed forward, as though they had no choice whatsoever in where they were headed.
And then I piled the hats carefully on the floor, moved the wind chime rack, and left them there, forgetting of them until now.
I wouldn't have thought a Canadian gift shop would carry American Civil War stuff. I wonder who made that decision and why.
Love your attention to detail. :-)
I'm with you, Tree, re: the unusual location to carry those hats.
I wanted to tell you I e-mailed the mother and aunts to ask about the details of George Washington Snyder's service. They're neither e-mail addicted nor quick to act, but I hope to get all of that and share it with you eventually.
Bitter-sweet October, month of romance, of aching beauty and sadness, of loss. Well, if I'm going to be in that mood ...
I go to our video store.
"Hi! Do you have The Civil War?"
"A what..civil war? ... No, I don't think we have anything like that - but let me check." Mindy, who graduated from McDonalds to Hollywood Video, shuffles to the computer, taps, and brightens,"We have Civil Servants on Vacation! would that do it?"
Trée, thank you for the 18 Louisianna soldiers.
So LA is your home state!
I once had a friend from a town that sounds like a horse ... Opaloosa...
The college library will probably have The C.W.doc. There is an institute of higher learning, all things being relative of course.
A friend writes - "'The Long Grey Line: The Spirit of West Point' is a documentary (2003) by Rob Lihani and Arthur Drooker that talks about all the Generals and Officers of the Civil War being trained at West Point. They knew eachother. Were friends..."
Limes, thanks for the update. Look froward to hearing what you find out.
Constance, the old boy network was well and strong in this war, as it was after the Battle of Franklin when blame for the Union mistakes was shifted from a West Point grad to a non-West Point grad. As for Louisiana, lived there 29 years. Been here in Tennessee the last 17. Like it better here. :-)
I will be slightly less ignorant after reading your blog and seeing The Civil War series. May even stop using my immigrant status as an excuse. Re old boy network - easy to believe shifting of blame & how much else. Saw Anna Karanina tonite & it somehow fits into the Civil War mood -- high stiff collars, stripes & medals (military men); gorgeously bold & feminine hats drooping with roses & netting (women), and death.
Hi, Trée! There's a lot going on in the spaces between the words of your last two sentences.
Wow. They render me speechless. I think of my teenaged boys fighting and my blood grows cold and something cluthces at my heart...
I think of my boy, not fighting, but dying because some jackass had his head up his rear. A lot of boys did, not just in this battle. I make no judgment on Hood and his command, but these boys died for no damn reason. In a frontal assault against fortified positions manned with musket and cannon, and this after they had marched all day from Spring Hill to Franklin, then to be put into the fire, across two miles of sloping open farmland. Whole platoons fell en mass on the first volley, feel as if choreographed, as if still in formation, as if they never stood a chance. As did six Confederate generals who died with their men, on the works.
The more you read of war, of this battle, the more nothing is clear, nothing sure, but the death left behind. Everything else is a frailing mess of conflicting information.
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