The Battle of Franklin: When the Devil had Full Possession of the Earth 1st Edition by James Knight (The History Press)

The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, has been called "the worst Civil War battle you've never heard of," but hopefully more people have become aware of it in recent years. If they haven't, they should. I find it one of the most fascinating and tragic battles of the entire war. It involved a frontal assault, larger than the famous one by Pickett at Gettysburg, on a strongly established Union position and resulted in brutal hand-to-hand fighting and huge numbers of casualties which decimated the Army of Tennessee. The Confederate losses included six generals. This book is an excellent depiction of the battle. It is brief--110 pages of text and 48 more pages of epilogue and appendices--but the author makes the most of every word. He makes the strategy and action very clear and he makes the reader understand and feel the horror and devastation of the battle. The book includes many photographs of the people and places involved and several maps. For those unfamiliar with the Battle of Franklin, this is the perfect book to begin your studies. For those who have read many works on the subject, this one should not be missed. I can't recommend it highly enough.

In late November 1864, the last Southern army east of the Mississippi that was still free to maneuver started out from northern Alabama on the Confederacy's last offensive. John Bell Hood and his Army of Tennessee had dreams of capturing Nashville and marching on to the Ohio River, but a small Union force under Hood's old West Point roommate stood between him and the state capital. In a desperate attempt to smash John Schofield's line at Franklin, Hood threw most of his men against the Union works, centered on the house of a family named Carter, and lost 30 percent of his attacking force in one afternoon, crippling his army and setting it up for a knockout blow at Nashville two weeks later. With firsthand accounts, letters and diary entries from the Carter House Archives, local historian James R. Knight paints a vivid picture of this gruesome conflict.