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The Army of Tennessee under General Hood, pursuing its march northward late in November and early in December, came upon the Federal forces under General Schofield at Franklin, and General Thomas at Nashville, Tennessee, where desperate battles were fought, until Hood's army was reduced to skeleton commands and forced to retreat. --Lieutenant-General James Longstreet, C. S.A., in From Manassas to Appomattox.While Hood was turning back from Atlanta in the great northward movement, which, in the hopes of the Confederacy, would bring the Army of Tennessee to the banks of the Ohio, there was gathering at and around Nashville a force to dispute the progress of Hood. General Thomas was sent by Sherman “to take care of Tennessee,” and he was preparing to weld many fragmentary bodies of troops into a fighting army. After a month of bold maneuvering, the advance of Hood's army appeared, on the 26th of October, at Decatur, on the south side of the Tennessee. It had been a time of perplexity to the Federal authorities and of intense alarm throughout the North. Hood had twice thrown his army between Sherman and the latter's base; had captured four garrisons, and destroyed thirty miles of railroad. His movements had been bold and brilliantly executed. At Decatur, Hood found himself too far east to join with Forrest, whose cooperation was absolutely necessary to him. So he moved westward to Florence where the first division of his army, with but little opposition from Croxton's cavalry, crossed the Tennessee on the 31st. Forrest had gone down the river to intercept the Federal line of supplies. At Johnsonville
