The Battle of Franklin & Carnton Plantation
The week of July 19th, we took our first two days off work, and did chores, cleaning, washing and getting things put in their places in the RV. The weather forecast for the week had said rain on Monday and Tuesday, but clear and cooler for the rest of the week. Yeah!! We would be okay to explore and learn and Wednesday and Thursday.
Wednesday, July 22, we were up bright and early, dressed and ready to go! The heavens opened up and it didn't look like the rain would ever stop. We decided to drive in the rain and pray that it cleared as we got to Franklin, Tennessee. On the drive down, the rain came in huge gushes and a lot of people in Tennessee don't seem to know to turn on their lights.
We arrived in Franklin, starving, and found an Irish Pub, called McCreary's, in the historic downtown area. We were treated to an appetizing meal of red bean and ham soup and half a rueben sandwich. That sandwich had real corned beef thick slices. Finally the rain had gone down to a drizzle at the end of lunch, so we headed to Carnton Plantation to hear about the Battle of Franklin.
Cranton Plantation was built by Randal and Sarah McGavok in 1826. It is located in Williamson County, south of Nashville and covers 1,420 acres. Their ancestral home was in County Antrim, Ireland. The name Cranton comes from the Gaelic word "cairn" which means "a pile of stones raised to mark a memorable event or to honor a fallen hero". Little did anyone know how prophetic this would come to be.
The Cranton Plantation, at the time of the battle, was held by Randal's son John, who had inherited it upon his father's death, and his wife, Carrie Winder. Carrie was John's first cousin, once removed, a practice common at that time, according to our guide. On November 30, 1864, late in the afternoon, while this young woman was standing on her walk she watched 19,000 young men, part of the Army of Tennessee, pass around her home headed toward an already entrenched Federal Army that was equally as big. How terrifying that must have been. The strange thing was that one of the men that passed by was a minister, Rev. Thomas Markham, that Carrie had known before her marriage, when she lived in Louisiana. She called to him and they talked. This was probably the reason that the plantation ended up being used as a hospital after the battle.
The battle started just after 4 PM and lasted for 5 hours. The right wing of the southern army was the one that came past Carnton on their way to the Federal hold. They ran into a forward line of Federal defense, with artillery fire in the fields around the plantation. Our guide said there was fierce, hand to hand combat, with many southern casualties. For the whole Battle of Franklin, which ran from the town of Franklin and out around Cranton, there were nearly 9,500 causalities, which included 2,000 dead, 6,500 wounded and 1000 missing, of that number nearly 7,000 were Confederate soldiers. Cranton became a field hospital with wounded southern soldiers in every room of the plantation except one, which was reserved for the family. Their yard was also filled with wounded and dead.
Our guide said one soldier screamed all night long because he had an abdominal wound, among other things, and his intestines were hanging out. He wanted morphine, but they wouldn't give it to him, choosing to keep it instead, for young men who had a better chance of surviving. He finally died in the morning. In the morning the bodies of four confederate generals, were laid out of the back porch of the plantation, so that the remaining soldiers of the Army of Tennessee could file past and honor them.
The plantation had four rooms downstairs, a parlor, a room used as a office, dining room and another sitting type room. Of course there was a very large area that ran from the front doors to the back doors and the rooms led off of it. Upstairs were four bedrooms, one was what the family used, the rest were for wounded. Again, like the downstairs there was a wide center area that ran the width of the house and there were chase lounges there. We saw bloodstains in the bedrooms on the floors, the heaviest which were in the children's bedrooms, which were used as operating rooms. Those blood stains were a reminder of the ravages of war. Although the rest of the rooms of the house had been filled with wounded and dying, a lot of the rooms had been refurbished and the blood stains gotten rid of.
The dead were buried on the battlefield, their graves marked with wooden boards, that had the soldiers name, company and regiment. As the months stretched on, the writing began to fade, so to preserve the graves, the McGavok's donated two acres adjoining their own cemetery. Carrie had carefully kept a cemetery record book with the information from all of the grave markers. The
Mc Gavok's and some other people from Franklin donated money to have the bodies dug up from the battlefield and moved to the new cemetery, where each was marked with a small stone, with the information Carrie had kept in the book. The cemetery was organized by states. Over the years, as families came and found their loved ones some replaced the small headstones with ones their families purchased.
When you look at the plantation and go stand at the cemetery your heart breaks for all of the loss of life and this was only the Confederate side, how much more devastation there actually was. There are 1,481 men men buried here. It is the largest privately owned cemetery in the nation. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the entire Civil War.
When we left the plantation, we walked out to the slave quarters, which were across the back yard. These quarters, shown below, were for the house slave families. There were two rooms up and two down. There were no slaves here, during the time of the Civil War, because the family had sent them south to Louisiana to live with relatives.
The battle started just after 4 PM and lasted for 5 hours. The right wing of the southern army was the one that came past Carnton on their way to the Federal hold. They ran into a forward line of Federal defense, with artillery fire in the fields around the plantation. Our guide said there was fierce, hand to hand combat, with many southern casualties. For the whole Battle of Franklin, which ran from the town of Franklin and out around Cranton, there were nearly 9,500 causalities, which included 2,000 dead, 6,500 wounded and 1000 missing, of that number nearly 7,000 were Confederate soldiers. Cranton became a field hospital with wounded southern soldiers in every room of the plantation except one, which was reserved for the family. Their yard was also filled with wounded and dead.
Our guide said one soldier screamed all night long because he had an abdominal wound, among other things, and his intestines were hanging out. He wanted morphine, but they wouldn't give it to him, choosing to keep it instead, for young men who had a better chance of surviving. He finally died in the morning. In the morning the bodies of four confederate generals, were laid out of the back porch of the plantation, so that the remaining soldiers of the Army of Tennessee could file past and honor them.
The plantation had four rooms downstairs, a parlor, a room used as a office, dining room and another sitting type room. Of course there was a very large area that ran from the front doors to the back doors and the rooms led off of it. Upstairs were four bedrooms, one was what the family used, the rest were for wounded. Again, like the downstairs there was a wide center area that ran the width of the house and there were chase lounges there. We saw bloodstains in the bedrooms on the floors, the heaviest which were in the children's bedrooms, which were used as operating rooms. Those blood stains were a reminder of the ravages of war. Although the rest of the rooms of the house had been filled with wounded and dying, a lot of the rooms had been refurbished and the blood stains gotten rid of.
The dead were buried on the battlefield, their graves marked with wooden boards, that had the soldiers name, company and regiment. As the months stretched on, the writing began to fade, so to preserve the graves, the McGavok's donated two acres adjoining their own cemetery. Carrie had carefully kept a cemetery record book with the information from all of the grave markers. The
Mc Gavok's and some other people from Franklin donated money to have the bodies dug up from the battlefield and moved to the new cemetery, where each was marked with a small stone, with the information Carrie had kept in the book. The cemetery was organized by states. Over the years, as families came and found their loved ones some replaced the small headstones with ones their families purchased.
When you look at the plantation and go stand at the cemetery your heart breaks for all of the loss of life and this was only the Confederate side, how much more devastation there actually was. There are 1,481 men men buried here. It is the largest privately owned cemetery in the nation. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the entire Civil War.
When we left the plantation, we walked out to the slave quarters, which were across the back yard. These quarters, shown below, were for the house slave families. There were two rooms up and two down. There were no slaves here, during the time of the Civil War, because the family had sent them south to Louisiana to live with relatives.
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| Cemetery |
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| Carnton Plantation |
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| Slave Quarters Outside |
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| Slave Quarters Inside |
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