Battlefield Reclamation
We just commemorated the 159th anniversaries of the Battles of Spring Hill and Franklin, and I am thrilled to announce that we have a month of programming planned for next year’s 160th events. Throughout November 2024 we will remember and commemorate, and the month will culminate with an Illumination event like never before. In 2006, Carnton and Carter House, along with the City of Franklin, began an annual Illumination. We think the 160th anniversary offers the perfect moment to combine the long-held Illumination with the more personal way we have remembered Nov 29-30 over the past couple of years. You will be the first to hear details as they are announced!!
Now, for some incredible news about battlefield reclamation….
In the past couple of weeks, two unique opportunities have been presented to us, and we – a nationwide community who love Civil War history – cannot let them slip away.
In Franklin, a contract has been signed on a 0.7-acre tract just south of Carter House. The northern edge of this parcel, which was once part of F. B. Carter’s property, is barely forty feet from where the main Federal line of defense was located. It was the scene of heavy combat and was littered with casualties, mostly from Gen. John C. Brown’s Division of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
Brown, originally the colonel of the 3rd Tennessee Infantry when the war broke out, had risen to major general by late 1864, and he led four brigades into the vortex of the Battle of Franklin. Brown was wounded, and all four of his brigade commanders became casualties. Two died on November 30, 1864, one died ten days later, and the other spent the balance of the war as a prisoner.
Brown’s Division suffered heavy casualties, probably not less than 1,500. The tract now under contract was covered with Brown’s dead and wounded, many of whom are today buried at the McGavock Confederate Cemetery at Carnton.
We have until October 2024 to close on the contract and help our friends at Franklin’s Charge secure this piece of core battlefield. Over time, the property will be transferred to the City of Franklin. We must have this piece of ground to finalize nearly 15 years of work at Carter Hill Park.
Please review the two Franklin maps. One is from Apr 2010 (in yellow) and shows what the larger area around this tract looked like just over a decade ago. You will see that the only properties that had been saved and cleared back then were the infamous Pizza Hut and a portion of the former Carter garden. The other map is from September 2021 and shows how the area looks today. I hope your reaction is like mine – both excitement and gratitude.
None of this happened by accident. For over two decades, a coalition of people who deeply care about history has worked day and night to reclaim the Franklin battlefield. Franklin’s Charge is composed of people from Carter House and Carnton, Save the Franklin Battlefield, the Heritage Foundation of Williamson County, the African American Heritage Society, the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, and others. In conjunction with the City of Franklin and the American Battlefield Trust, who have been our steadfast partners since day one, we have saved hallowed ground that most people thought was gone forever.
Some of the biggest contributors to this story have been people like you. None of this is possible without people who believe the work is important. And it is as important today as ever.
But wait, there is another tract of land….
On November 29, 1864, events at and around Spring Hill unfolded in a wild and confused way. A short but intense fight there resulted in almost 750 casualties and led to a series of Confederate mistakes, and the Federal army escaped to Franklin during the night.
As you know, we began to manage Rippa Villa in mid-2021. Just a few weeks ago we received word that a landowner in Spring Hill wants to sell 11.57 acres just north of the historic Cheairs home and directly adjacent to property saved by the American Battlefield Trust over a decade ago. Simply put, we must acquire this property. Not only was it once part of Rippa Villa, and only broken off and sold from the historic property in 1959, it is core battlefield.
Elements of Gen. Hiram B. Granbury’s Brigade moved across this land just before sunset on November 29, 1864 and encountered Federal resistance. Granbury took a handful of casualties before he was pulled away from Columbia Pike because the balance of Gen. Pat Cleburne’s Division, to which Granbury belonged, had become engaged. That night, Confederate troops encamped southeast and east of Spring Hill as the Federal troops slipped to the north.
Granbury, as well as many of his Texas troops, died the next day at Franklin, just east of the 0.7-acre tract we are hoping to purchase. How sadly ironic.
We will also need to close on this parcel at some point in 2024. The asking price is just over $580,000. Please review the two Spring Hill maps which show this parcel and its connectivity with the already preserved battlefield and Rippa Villa.
If there was ever a time when we truly needed your help – and we have asked a lot through the years – that time is now. Precious little ground, especially essential ground like these two tracts, remains available. Furthermore, there are few landowners left who want to sell simply to see the ground preserved.
We are asking for your assistance – and your generosity. Years from now, the people who walk these important battlefields, and visit Carnton, Carter House, and Rippa Villa, may not know how we saved this vital ground and these significant places. But they will know that essential pieces of our nation’s history were preserved. From there, they can learn and appreciate what the past means to them, and to those who follow them. That is what matters.
Let’s save some more of Spring Hill and Franklin!!!!
Please contact Laurie McPeak at 615-794-0903 or laurie@boft.org. If you would like to donate online please visit: