Chapter XIII
- Grant orders Thomas to attack Hood or relinquish the command -- Thomas's Corps commanders support him in delay -- Grant's Intentions in sending Logan to relieve Thomas -- change of plan before the battle of Nashville -- the fighting of December 15 -- expectation that Hood would retreat -- delay in renewing the attack on the 16th -- Hopelessness of Hood's position -- letters to Grant and Sherman -- transferred to the East -- financial burden of the War -- Thomas's attitude toward the War.
the perilous character of the situation in Tennessee, in which it was left by Sherman's premature start for the sea and Thomas's tardy concentration of troops, wholly disappeared with the repulse of Hood at Franklin. There was no further obstacle to the concentration of Thomas's forces at Nashville, the organization and equipment of his army, and the necessary preparations to assume the offensive. Hood's army was too much shattered and crippled to make any serious movement for some days, during which it was easy for Thomas to prepare for battle all his troops except the cavalry, of which latter, however, it required a longer time to complete the remount. Indeed, Thomas could have given battle the second or third day after Franklin with more than a fair prospect of success. Considering the feeling of nervous anxiety which prevailed in Washington and throughout the country at the time, possibly he ought to have assumed the offensive
