After the defeat on December 1-16, 1864, at Nashville, about twenty miles north of here, Confederate Gen. John B. Hood and the dispirited Army of Tennessee retreated south toward Franklin. Union Gen. George H. Thomas's forces followed closely. Late in the morning of December 17, the rain soaked and chilled the Confederates to the bone, adding to their misery. Across these rolling fields, Federal cavalry units under Gen. James H. Wilson closed in.
