Battle of Franklin, Eastern Flank

Battle of Franklin, Eastern Flank. Nashville and Decatur Railroad. About 600 yards (550 meters) in front of you is the Nashville and Decatur Railroad. During the war, this line was only a few years old, but it was the most direct north-south transportation route through Middle Tennessee. Consequently, it was one reason why the Federals and Confederates fought so hard for this area., After the Union army captured Nashville in 1862, it controlled the route all the way to this point in Franklin. In the spring of 1863, one mile (1.6 km) to your right, Federal troops constructed Fort Granger to protect this line. Throughout 1863-1864, Confederate forces launched several attacks north and south of Franklin, trying to sever this vital rail link., In November 1864, as Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood headed north from Alabama, his 30,000-man army destroyed every railroad bridge and several miles of track along the way. But when Hood’s soldiers reached these very fields, they had to contend with the rail bed, which ran diagonally across their line of attack and complicated their approach. Confederate Gen. Winfield S. Featherston’s brigade of Mississippians was especially hard hit when it marched across the rail bed and became exposed to direct artillery fire from Fort Granger. The fort’s guns could fire almost lengthwise down the long and treacherous basin., After the battle, the Nashville and Decatur aided the Union side once more. Its bridge across the Harpeth River provided a primary evacuation route when the army pulled back to its fortifications in Nashville eighteen miles away.