NASHVILLE
December 15 - 16, 1864

Following his disastrous defeat at Franklin, Hood still declined to see the folly of his ways and continued on to Nashville where Thomas was heavily entrenched with about 55,000 men. As Hood's own army was now composed of less than 40,000 it was difficult to see what he could do. The only plan he could come up with was to dig in outside Nashville, hope that Thomas would attack him and that he could then repulse Thomas and follow up into Nashville. Thomas was not the most impulsive of men, however, and he watched unconcerned, well supplied behind his strong defences, as the ill-supplied Confederate army shivered in its trenches in the bleak December weather. Still, if Thomas was in no hurry, his superiors were and he received a stream of telegrams, urging him, with varying degrees of politeness, to advance. A cold snap turned the ground to ice on 8th but a thaw on 13th at last enabled him to manoeuvre. On 15th December he struck. His plan was elegantly simple. Steedman would demonstrate against Hood's right, where Cheatham was in command. Everyone else would execute a large-scale left wheel and smash into Hood's left, rolling up Stewart's Corps. As Hood had somewhat unwisely detached Forrest's cavalry to deal with the Murfreesboro garrison it seemed quite likely that the movement would succeed.
It did, although not perfectly. Heavy fog delayed the initial movement and it was not until 8 o'clock that Steedman went in. His attack met a stubborn resistance and
was repulsed but it was not expected to succeed in any case. By noon, Thomas had some 48,000 men lined up and ready to
attack on Hood's left. Stewart's Corps, depleted by detachments and casualties, was only about one tenth of that number.
Several outlying redoubts, however, put up a stiff resistance and it was not until after 4.00 pm that the left wing collapsed. The retreat was not a rout and Hood succeeded in forming a new line, some two miles back from the first and his remaining soldiers spent the night digging in. Hood still refused to run away.
The following day was initially fairly quiet while Thomas got his army reorganised. Hood had also changed around his corps and now Stephen Lee was holding the right, Cheatham the left and Stewart the centre. Lee had scarcely been engaged the previous day and his men held firm against attacks by Wood and Steedman. But on the left, Cheatham was in trouble for Wilson had got his cavalry around behind him, cutting off his line of retreat.
Finally, about 4 o'clock, the artillery rain stopped, Schofield and Smith went in and the Confederate position fell apart. Only a rallying action by Lee prevented the army from being completely overwhelmed. In the two days of fighting, Hood had lost about 1,500 killed or wounded and 4,500 taken prisoner. Thomas had lost about 3,000. Hood had finally completed the destruction of his army, begun with the futile attacks at Atlanta five months earlier.