Daily News Journal, Greg Tucker, March 7, 2015
Nathan Bedford Forrest did not lead his Confederate forces to victory in what has been known as the Third Battle of Murfreesboro. (Photo: Gannett Tennessee)
Tactical misinformation (“bad intelligence”) was a factor in an embarrassing 1864 defeat for Nathan Bedford Forrest in Rutherford County. In contrast, his Union rival obtained valuable information on the Confederate battle strategy from a local “loyalist.”
After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Franklin, while the remainder of the Confederate forces under Gen. John Bell Hood were advancing on heavily fortified Nashville, a Confederate infantry brigade under Brig. Gen. William B. Bate was sent east into Rutherford County to destroy the railroad north of Fort Rosecrans, the major Union supply depot near Murfreesboro. (Bate was a Sumner County native who later served two terms as Tennessee governor and three terms as a U. S. Senator.)
By early December 1864, Bate had destroyed all but one of the railroad blockhouses north of the fort and halted rail traffic between Nashville and Murfreesboro. On or about Dec. 4, Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had wisely avoided the Franklin engagement, joined Bate bringing two infantry brigades and two cavalry divisions. As the ranking officer, Forrest assumed command of all the Confederate forces then assembled several miles northwest of the Union fort.
According to a dispatch Bate received from the Hood command, the Union forces under Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau at Fort Rosecrans and in Murfreesboro consisted of approximately 5,000 largely inexperienced federal soldiers. The actual number exceeded 8,000 including a number of battle-experienced regiments, notably, the 8th Minnesota and the 61st Illinois. The battlefield commander under Rousseau was Union Maj.Gen. Robert H. Milroy.
Milroy had been a battlefield commander in the early war years in the eastern theater. He had, however, lost an entire division at the second Battle of Winchester (surviving himself unscathed). This questionable performance prompted a formal military inquiry. Avoiding a court martial or demotion, Milroy was transferred to the rear of the western front where it was believed he could “do no harm.” According to his own written accounts, Milroy believed he had been unfairly judged and was looking for a chance to recover his reputation. He was based in central Murfreesboro with several experienced brigades.
Forrest had no desire to attack the fort itself. He planned to use the infantry as “bait,” staging a direct challenge from the northwest to draw federal forces out into the open. One cavalry division was positioned to the north with orders to attack the northern flank of the Union force when they responded to the Confederate infantry. The second cavalry with one or two artillery pieces was sent wide around north of Murfreesboro with orders to attack the town from the east when the battle commenced west of the fort. It was apparently expected that the town itself would be lightly defended. The artillery was to set up southeast of town and target the courthouse area where Union troops were thought to be camped.
On Dec. 6, the Confederate infantry “demonstrated” against the fort. Rifle and artillery fire was exchanged, but the federals did not come out to engage the assailants. According to one account: “Fighting flared for a couple of hours, but the Union troops ceased firing, and both sides glared at each other for the rest of the day.”
During this action, Milroy went southwest on the Salem Turnpike with four regiments. From Salem they turned north stopping at the Spence farm. The Spence family gave Milroy a fairly detailed and accurate account of Forrest’s position and deployment of personnel. For this “loyalist” service, Milroy detached a company to take “a drove of 60 fine, fat hogs” from the Spence farm back to Murfreesboro. He rationalized this confiscation as necessary to keep the livestock from being seized by the Confederates.
(In late December 1864, John Spence wrote: “General Milroy…had the name of being a tyrannical man in his way, having little respect as to rights of people. His habit was having citizens arrested for some supposed injury, imprisoned, sometimes having them condemned to be shot or hung, under the plea they were ‘bushwhackers.’ Generally unpopular…while he was (in Murfreesboro) he took possession of a citizen’s dwelling for his headquarters, ordering the family out. They were to leave everything in the house as it was. No argument could stop him. They must go and leave things in his charge and use. In such cases soldiers generally helped themselves to what suited them.” John C. Spence, “A Diary of the Civil War” (1861-65), pages 153-54.)
Under cover of darkness, Milroy moved his men north to positions south of the Wilkinson Turnpike (later known as the Manson Pike) where they hid in the thick cedar forest. When the Confederate infantry again challenged the fort from the west on the morning of December 7, the response from the fort was supported by a deadly assault by Milroy’s brigades on Forrest’s right (southern) flank. Caught in a crossfire, much of the Confederate infantry “broke and ran” as the Confederate line collapsed. (This engagement centered just west of today’s I-24 and Medical Center Parkway intersection.)
Riding in among the fleeing infantry, Forrest tried in vain to rally his men. Several witness accounts allege that Forrest, angered that a fleeing flag bearer ignored his command, shot the soldier and took up the flag himself in a desperate effort to halt the chaotic retreat. The cavalry division gave cover to the retreat and accounted for most of the Union casualties.
At about the same moment that Milroy attacked, Forrest’s second cavalry division attacked Murfreesboro from the east on the Woodbury Pike (East Main Street) and encountered unexpected resistance and firepower before withdrawing. The Confederate artillery put two rounds into the courthouse and damaged Lawing’s Cabinet Shop (the site of today’s Center for the Arts) with another round, but succeeded only in killing one Union soldier and aggravating the local population before being run off by return fire. (S.N. Lawing prospered as a coffin maker during the war.)
In his formal report, Rousseau said the enemy had been “utterly routed and driven off in great confusion.” Milroy reportedly captured 207 Confederates, “including 18 commissioned officers.” The captured artillery was put in place at the fort. (See Reports of Major General Lovell H. Rousseau, U. S. Army, OR Series 1, Vol. XLV, Part 1, page 612.)
This “minor engagement” on Dec. 6-7, 1864, is known as the Battle of the Cedars or the Third Battle of Murfreesboro.