Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 2

[219] also very greatly over-estimated Hood's force, both in infantry and cavalry; but after Hood was defeated with a loss of six thousand men at Franklin, and Thomas was reinforced by ten thousand men under Smith, and five thousand under Steedman, as well as the black brigade from Chattanooga, while additions were daily making to Wilson's command, there could be no question of the national preponderance. On the 2nd of December, Thomas's infantry in front of Nashville, numbered forty thousand,¹ while Hood was reduced to twenty-three thousand; yet Thomas remained behind his fortifications and Hood enjoyed all the moral and substantial results of a victory. The national army was besieged by a force at least one-third smaller than its own; every railroad but one was abandoned to the enemy, and there was no telegraph line out of Nashville except to the North. These were not the fruits which should have followed a victory; and either Grant, Sherman, or Sheridan would undoubtedly have moved upon the enemy, disordered by defeat and weakened by loss, before he had time to recover.

Doubtless there were difficulties. Thomas complained