Attack on forage train and skirmish, Franklin Pike near Nashville.
December 11
C.S. President Jefferson Davis visits Army of Tennessee in Murfreesboro. Skirmishes occur at LaVergne and near Nashville. Meanwhile, Nathan Bedford Forrest leaves Columbia, Tennessee in an attempt to disrupt Ulysses S. Grant’s line of communication in the advance on Vicksburg.
Skirmish 7 miles south of Brentwood, BG David S. Stanley in command for Federals.
December 11-12
Skirmishes at Franklin and on Wilson Creek Pike. Federals re-take control of Franklin.
Nathan Bedford Forrest is ordered to raid West Tennessee to relieve pressure on C.S. forces in Mississippi.
Skirmishes at Dobbins’ Ferry near LaVergne.
Skirmish at Brentwood, 8th WI Battery drives CSA troops from their camps.
8th Kansas Battalion fires on 250-300 Rebel cavalry five miles south of Brentwood.
Skirmish near Kimbrough’s Mill, Mill Creek.
Morgan attacks Federals at Hartsville, takes prisoners.
Work on Fort Negley, the largest Union fort west of Washington, D.C., is completed. The Fort is constructed over a three-month period by Union soldiers and hundreds of black workers – free and slave – who have been conscripted into service [http://www.bonps.org/neg.htm] in what is probably the first large-scale use of contraband labor in Tennessee during the war. Most are never paid; with little food, shelter, or appropriate clothing, many of these workers will die. The construction of Fort Negley becomes a model for future projects as Union troops, lacking labor, impress black men into service and work them mercilessly. [Hunt]
“The bareness to which we are reduced [would] have seemed to me two years ago as incredible. We live on wheat, coffee, pork or goat meat, bread (both corn and wheat,) and we have a few potatoes and turnips, and one cow. . . . Butter is 1.00 per lb. and eggs 1.50 per dozen. No sugar, no molasses, a little dried fruit, and some in cans, but nothing to sweeten it with.” [Lucy Virginia French, journal]
Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan makes raid on Hartsville, Harper’s Weekly reports.
Skirmish near Holly Tree Gap on Franklin Pike.
Capture of outpost, Stewart’s Ferry on the Stones River.
Skirmish near Nolensville and attack on Union forage train, Harding Pike. Wharton’s cannoneers drive Federals away.
November 28
Skirmishes on Carthage Road near Hartsville and Rome.
Skirmish at Mill Creek.
TN State Archives
