Paradise Park is making a comeback on Broadway. Nashville’s Christmas Tree has been selected and was donated by a local couple from Middle Tennessee. Plus, we take a comprehensive look into the Battle of Franklin with an exclusive two-part interview. We’ll bring you that interview as well as today’s events on Nashville Daily.
Screened Threads
Today's Guests - Brad Kinnison and Sarah Falck of Battle of Frankin Trust
Events
Nashville Business
Follow us @ XPLR NASH
Media and other inquiries please email hello@xplr.life
00:00 Hello everybody. This is the Nashville daily podcast. I'm Stuart Deming and I'm Erin Pennington and we are live from Dunkin donuts down in Franklin, Tennessee. Paradise park is making a comeback on Broadway National's Christmas tree has been selected and was donated by a local couple from middle Tennessee. Plus we'll take a comprehensive look into the battle of Franklin with an exclusive two part interview. We'll bring you that interview as well as today's events on Nashville Daily
00:37 The traffic saga continues everybody. It is progressively gotten worse in the last week. Last week, the interstate 24 will shut down for like nine and a half, 10 hours. What do people do in that case? I mean, imagine being the people who are stuck behind right behind that accident. And there's, there's right, there's not an exit in front of you. What do you do? I guess you sit there for nine hours. That's where that coffee or delivery service will come in. Oh, that coffee delivery service. Let's go watch a four or five full film feature films during that time. And I've actually, so I've, I've, I was driving on interstate 81, this is in Pennsylvania, and there was a terrible car accent in front of me, like a tractor trailer ran off road and caused the other tractor trailer to run off road. It was, it was bad.
01:27 I was stuck behind that for about five and a half, six hours. Yeah. Wow. For [inaudible] how many cars would actually be in that predicament of not being able to go anywhere? They, they must have had to reroute them somewhere. Yeah. They probably, they honestly, probably, you can't turn around a tractor trailer. There's no way you could turn around. [inaudible] Yeah. So they probably had to do something. I don't know what they did, but so the accident did happen. Unfortunately, there was a loss of life in that accident that shut down the interstate. And that area has some of the highest deaths in the city of Nashville in that local area on nine 24. Yeah. So luckily tomorrow, there will not be much traffic for Thanksgiving. Thank goodness. So we can be thankful for that. Yes. but also we still have a podcast coming out tomorrow, so be sure to take a listen because we will also be announcing a giveaway that will be happening starting tomorrow morning at 5:00 AM when we released this podcast.
02:25 If you did not know that that was our release time, then you are definitely not an early morning person. Yeah. And that's okay. I'm not either, but if you listen to it, if you start listening at 7:00 AM congratulations. You've done it. Yes. so make sure to check out that episode. Just letting you know that there is a small little episode coming out tomorrow. Also stay tuned for the second half of this episode. Today we have our guests, Braddock, Kinison and Sarah Fulk and they are with the battle of Franklin trust and a man. What a interview that that this was that we are bringing to you where we talk a lot about the civil war history, how it relates to Tennessee, how it relates to Franklin and we'll bring you the actual details of the battle of Franklin itself. And we recorded it in a pretty low, pretty cool location.
03:16 It was the attic of the carton or the McGavock house. You can call it both a Stuart, what was your experience like being in that attic? I'm guessing for normal private tours that you have not been in an attic. The attic is a storage room and that happens if all of these older homes, the attic is always the storage room of some point. Like I bell me the storage room, the Hermitage. It's a storage room. Yeah. And so I literally I've been there about 25 times. Yeah. And every single time I've walked away with a new piece of information or I've gathered a new piece of information about the civil war, this time sitting there and listening about the battle and like everything that happened and then hearing some more intimate stories that you don't get on the tours. Right. I literally walked away from the place blown away.
04:02 Yeah. It was a like such, such a great interview. So we can't wait until the the second half of this episode to bring that to you guys. They also have their own podcasts. It's called 10 in 20, and it's T, E, N, N, I, N, T and the number 20. And they talk about the, some history of Tennessee thing. It's fantastic. It's a great podcast. I've listened to a couple of episodes that definitely check out their podcasts as well. If you're wanting a more in depth look of Tennessee history. Yes. All right, so today's events we have incubus at the Ryman is the 20 year tour. Aaron, 20 years. Good Lord. Well that's happening at seven 30 straightened away from your typical 7:00 PM national event time. But an event that's not straying away from your typical 7:00 PM Nashville time are the predators and the Vegas golden Knights.
04:54 Hopefully we can start winning a game or two. Aaron, this is, this is getting rough, man. This not a good indicator of a, but this happened to Susan. This happened two or three seasons ago. It did. We lost like all these games in the beginning and then we turned around and we won everything. So, so hopefully we begin to see a streak because usually how we're doing towards the end of the season is an indicator of sometimes how we do the post season. But there was a lot of change ups and everything, so hopefully probably there's just start winning happening at the Gaylord, a country Christmas at Gaylord. This is completely free to walk around the atriums, but what's not free is ice. It's about $30 a person. Usually when you go to places ISIS free but not at ice. Yeah, not add ice. This is not your typical ice in a cup type of situation.
05:37 This is millions of pounds, I think it's two and a half million pounds or so of actual carved ice and they're featuring a Christmas story. It's about $30 a person. Definitely make your way over there. It's incredible. They've done a great job every year and then happening in South Nashville. At the zoo you have Zulu nation. This is the Chinese festival of lights is this is one of the Chinese festivals, the lights in the country. This is happening till February 2nd. They are closed on Thanksgiving. So just a pretty warm, you guys are close tomorrow. We also have Glo holiday and man, what a spectacle they have created. They brought, they brought the today show down to go through glow last week. That's amazing. So glow holiday in glow Nashville that is at first Tennessee park that is happening through December 30th, four to 10:00 PM. They are close on a few Mondays during this period, but you can go to glow holiday.com for that.
06:33 We also have holiday lights at Cheekwood. This is taking place from November 23rd to January 5th. So you get a few days after Christmas to still experience holiday lights at Cheekwood. This is from five to 10:00 PM during their weekdays. You definitely want to still go when it is dark. Those are your events for today? Yes. So this is super exciting news for people that like dive bars in downtown Nashville and they want to stay away from the expensive honkytonks. It's back paradise park honky tonk to a return to a lower Broadway. And so the building, that paradise park was in this paradise park close about a year and a half ago, I think about right between fourth and fifth Avenue. It used to be this ugly green building on the front and now it's called downtown. Is it supported downtown sports club? Downtown sportsman club. Sporting club, I think. Yeah, there we are.
07:27 And so they're going to keep the T the second and third floor while it is now and the rooftop bar, but they're converting the first floor completely back to paradise park and the theme of paradise park. Interesting. See, I didn't, you know, with the way that they made an exit, it really sounded like they were gone forever. Yeah. And I wasn't here during the heyday of paradise part. Kevin, did you ever go to paradise? I, yeah, I've been to paradise plenty of times, but within town, sporting club as what's called, yeah. Okay. Downtown sporting club. But with all the excitement of all the other bars, you know, paradise park wasn't anything. I mean the carpet was like super dirty and sticky. It was disgust. It was a disgusting bar. I didn't get to see paradise during its heyday that a lot of people got to see.
08:14 And so paradise park when I was there, it was just, it was, it was your normal honkytonk bar with a dirty sticky, correct. Themed. Yeah, exactly. Like theme, you know, you recognize it because it had a car sitting in the window right by right by Broadway. Very interesting place. I don't know if I'm on the go to the new one that opens when they reopen it. I used to, when they used to do food tours, I was in paradise park three or four times a week, Aaron, that's not often. And I was in paradise bar. What kind of food did, did you go on? On the food tour? We did their miniature cheeseburgers, which was delicious. Cheeseburgers are really good. And their drink specials. That's one thing about paradise park that downtown is missing right now and especially on Broadway is paradise park drink specials.
08:58 But when they reopen, they're going to have $6 pitcher of beers. So it's just going to be a great dive bar experience again on Broadway. Gotcha. Yeah. This will be interesting. Because paradise park does have a lot of nostalgia in it, but I don't know if that kind of nostalgia is going to be, if they, if they make it in the exact same way, I don't know if that's something that could sustain long to park in a downtown atmosphere now. I definitely think they would have to change it up, especially with fifth and Broadway being across the street now, Nashville yards being built, like where they're taking the level of hospitality to a whole nother level and downtown. Right? Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see when that is going to open up next year. And so, you know, best of luck to paradise park.
09:48 They've been there for 11 years and then I closed it closed. And so we'll see what happens at 2020 guys, I have some super exciting news for you. I'm actually really excited about this. Nashville has found its Christmas tree for the holiday season. Yay. So there's a couple in Fairview that are donating their 30 year old Norway spruce to be used by the city of Nashville. Last year that Christmas tree came from Murphysboro and this year fair view. So they, it's cool that they're getting the tree from around the city around the different areas of middle Tennessee. And so a 30 year old spruce, it doesn't say how tall it is, is it 30 feet. Oh wow. Okay. They'll say how tall they are, 30 feet, 30 foot tree. It, it was too big. It had gotten too big to be in front of their house.
10:33 It was beginning to grow over their driveway and they were planning on removing it within the next year or two. Perfect timing. So that's pretty cool that something like that would line up because you know, thinking about somebody having a Norway spruce, you'd think they might not want to give that up. But you know, in this situation it seemed to be working out for both parties. So that's kinda nice. So they're going to be lighting this Christmas tree on Friday, December 6th at 6:00 PM last year, Aaron and I had the opportunity to go to the Christmas tree lighting. It was fun. We saw [inaudible] we saw a mascot that I had no idea Nashville had for the baseball team. And it was for a N. E. S. O. N? Yes. Yeah, that was even weirder. I didn't know any electric service had my Scott's, but it started raining and then I got this we fortunately went to the LNC tower afterwards and I got this amazing photo of the skyline lit up as Christmas colors.
11:24 It's one of my favorite photos from 2018. Oh, nice. All right. So places that we have eaten locally we have had the pleasure to eat again inside of the farmer's market in downtown. That's down downtown Nashville. I don't know what you'd call that area. Right in between Germantown, Germantown still. And we ate at this a little Chinese restaurant. Pardon us? We don't know the name. I'm sorry. I just call it the Chinese restaurant and the farmer's Chinese restaurant in the farmer's market. And it sounds like it could be a song, the Chinese restaurant in the farmer's market, but it's actually reasonably priced for a downtown Chinese restaurant. And that you can get three entree, three entrees and you know, your, your rice or low, medium or low main for I think it was like seven 99 or something like that and 75 and then an egg roll, I think it was like 80 cents.
12:17 So it's extremely, reasonably priced. I think all together you can walk out the door and $11 with three different Andres, a rice Lomain egg roll and a drink. Yeah. So it's, it's fantastic. Farmer's market is has improved amazingly over the past year. And so, you know, we will continue to be there more and more. And I like the open atmosphere that they have. I wasn't a huge fan when they had all those boxes in those that was rough like that, all this, this, you know, now that they're done with that and they've got a new, a setting in there right now and they've got a more open concept and there's plenty of room, plenty of shops and camera's market's becoming a better and better place every single day. Yeah. And every third Friday they have the night market. So I believe it starts at 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM and so you can get some food there and you can do some local shopping at the night market.
13:10 And that happens every third Friday. So head over to Germantown farmer's market either having a winter market. Okay. This winter, I don't know what makes it difference. I think that should closing at 2:00 PM so they're closing earlier for winter type stuff. I guess I am. I know they're branding it differently as well. So maybe it may be bringing a few different elements onto the table for that one. Oh fun. Every single day we like to give you guys explorers, Nashville tip of the day. And so our tips for the day is something I don't think we've talked about on the podcast at all. Maybe you've mentioned and talking, but a, it's head over to Belcourt theater. This is found in Hillsboro village right near 21st Avenue. I can't remember that dividing intersection, but across the street from it, it said dragon mural. So if you guys have ever Wedgwood is right near there.
13:55 Yeah, Wedgewood is right near there. Yeah, I don't think that's that directly on that streets. I'm done. Forestry. Yeah. But yeah, it's on Belky. So it's 21st in Belcourt. There's a huge dragon mural and so head over there so you don't have to worry about the weather and go see one of the movies that they're showing documentaries. They're showing the Irishman today, which is a Netflix original and they're showing it in this theater for a week. So it's super interesting. That is interesting. I saw the first movie that I saw first and think only movie that I've seen him in Belcourt this was before their renovations and it was a space jam. That's fun. Yeah, no it was, it wasn't a dance, but it was a very cool atmosphere. It's very low key. Like if you go to a local movie show and they usually have somebody introducing the movie, you know, therefore like a personal touch kind of deal.
14:45 And it was, it was space jam. It was awesome. I sat in the very back but done some renovations in Belcourt since then. And it's only from what I've heard been a, a much better experience. So go head over to Belcourt, go see a movie. You can spend the rest of your day there in Hillsborough village. There are tons of restaurants. Donut in dog is out, they're grilled cheese or if you guys are looking to warm up from this weather, grilled cheeses out there, double dogs is out there, which is a fantastic kind of sports bar atmosphere. And you can bring your dog there. Yeah. And you get coffee at though. Bring your dog there as well. At Fido they've got a couple of coffee shops. And then if you guys are looking for some, this is more female destination shopping, but if you're looking to shop, you can shop in Hillsboro village.
15:29 Guys can shop for females for Christmas. Yes, that's a great place to grab. Buy some Christmas presents. Speaking of Christmas presents, let's talk about our sponsors. Screen to threats. Let's episode. It's episode of Nashville daily is brought to you by screen to threads. Screen threads is a Nashville curious shop located in the historic marathon village. You use code Nashville daily to get 10% off your next online order. Their website is screened, threads.com mentioned this Adnan store and get 10% off as well. Guys, they have some of the best Christmas apparel that you can buy here in the city of Nashville for your loved ones, for your friends, for your dog. If they have dog toys, they have a dog theme puzzle. They have a cat theme puzzle. So if you're looking for something unique that's Nashville based and made in Nashville, screened to threads is your best bet. Meow. Meow, bark, bark. All right guys, so like we said at the beginning of this episode, we had an amazing, amazing interview with Brad Kinison and Sarah folk and we can't wait to show you guys or bring this, this interview to you. We recorded this in the attic of the Carnton and we hope that you will enjoy a lot of this information on the battle of Franklin and the civil war in general. So go ahead and take a listen.
16:41 All right guys. As we teased earlier, we are here at a very, very special interview with Brad Kinison. He is the production and design manager for the battle of Franklin trust as well as Sarah fall. KU is the education coordinator for the battle of Franklin trust. So those guys, those sound like fancy title. First of all, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. We are recording in the attic of the carton or the McGavock house. We'll, we'll talk about, you know, what people call that and everything, but you, Brad, you're the production and design manager and Sarah, you are the education coordinator. Those sound very specific are so what exactly do you guys do here? I mean it's a little bit of everything. So we both started four and a half or so years ago as full time tour guides and we did that for a long time, five days a week, given tours every day, probably for two, three years. Wow. How many tours a day would you guys give? It would depend on the day. I would say on the app on average. It's between two and three. Okay. Some days it goes up to four, but that's few and far between. When was the last time you gave a toy? Like a house tour? We both still do you still there
17:50 Yesterday. Okay. Large school group ready for everything. We still give tours every Saturday. Okay. So we're both on tour rotation one day a week. Okay, great.
18:02 Well that's nice. So what do you guys both do here? What are those titles mean?
18:06 I mostly do staff involving education, whether that be children's education with school groups, whether that be adult education with materials. Both Brad and I are the editors of our quarterly magazine that we put out the dispatch. So that's really exciting too.
18:23 Something you guys are also the host of a podcast that you guys have as well, the 10 and 20 podcast? Yes. So just over two years ago, well, just about two years ago. Exactly. We started kind of brainstorming the idea of doing a Tennessee history podcast that we shoot for episodes to be around 20 minutes, although they kind of tend to run long a little bit. But so is that where the name came from? 10 and 20 Tennessee in 20 minutes is the idea. So in two zero awesome. And so you've covered Tennessee history, so like what type of history have you covered? Well, we realized when we were first putting it together that we couldn't just do a podcast based specifically on the homes that we operate because eventually you'll run out. So, and we also realized that we couldn't be so vague as to say we're just doing a history podcast in general. We want it to be a little bit more specific. So anything that even kind of tangentially touches on Tennessee history. So we do quite a bit of episodes based on these homes, Carter house in Carlton. But then we tried to shake it up a little bit too.
19:23 And what we found out doing the podcast is there so many things that have really affect American history that took place right here in Tennessee that we did not know about because neither Brian and I are originally from Tennessee. I'm from Wisconsin, I'm from Ohio. So it's nice to kind of know this like state that we've adopted as our own and kind of figured out with our listeners. Yeah.
19:44 So the presidents who called Tennessee home big events that took place in Tennessee other interesting and crazy characters from the state. We cover all that.
19:54 Do you guys have like a fun fact that you usually like to share about historical events in Tennessee that you really liked to or discovered during the creation of your podcast?
20:08 My favorite discovery was not someone that, an event that took place here in Tennessee, but someone who's from Tennessee, William Walker, you're like, dang, I took yours. He was a Tennessee resident who decided that he would lead to multiple campaigns to just start his own country in Latin American. [inaudible].
20:27 Yeah, he tried to take over. Was he successful? Depends on what you mean by success. He tried to take over portions of Mexico and when that failed, he led multiple attempts to take over Nicaragua. Wow. And actually succeeded for a time and taking control of the the Nicaraguan government. Whoa. For a couple of months. And it's actually, it's actually a really tragic story but fascinating at the same time because it digs into this whole idea that he was wanting to extend the American slave empire deeper into the South to protect the ideals of, of slavery and slave ownership. And it's a really tragic story, but fascinating. Did he have an army with them too?
21:09 Yeah, he got a surprisingly large number of people. Most of them, Tennessee is to go down there and you know, multiple times tried to take over these
21:18 Kind of, kind of a mercenary armory, but then also a lot of people who were like young and got caught up in the excitement of wow. On an adventure. And so they follow him on this journey.
21:27 Yeah. Wow. So this wasn't on our list of questions yet, but since we're in the, the idea of, you know, trying to expand and create your own territories, frankly, there was a, the idea of the state of Franklin, you know, have you guys covered that on the podcast yet? We have mentioned it, but not specifically dedicated an episode to it. Yeah, it's definitely an interesting topic for sure. We talked about it a little bit when we started getting into Nashville history cause it has, it's kind of around the time that Tennessee formed and everything. But is, have you guys looked into that? The state of Franklin? Yeah,
22:00 I mean it was basically like, as our country was expanding Westerners, they're granting land grants to specifically former veterans revolutionary war veterans. There was a need to form a new state in different areas that were part of the Carolinas. And I think part of the Virginia and Kentucky, an areas that would become Kentucky and Tennessee. And so the idea was to call it the state of Franklin and that ends up failing, but kind of eventually big portions of it morphed into what is today today.
22:32 Yeah, I was going to say, it seemed like they didn't have enough people living in the areas at the time.
22:36 Well I think cause I think it was primarily like Knox County and I think like they only had maybe like a thousand residents at the time. That sounds very low, so. Huh. So what exactly is the battle of Franklin trust? The trust is an organization that was formed almost exactly a decade ago to run two preexisting historic sites, Carter house, which was a state run site since the 1950s and Carnton, which we're in right now, which was organized as a historic site in the late 1970s. And so those merged to be run by the same organ. Well, those were run by the same organization starting in 2010.
23:16 Okay. Gotcha. And so, you know, what kind of important role does the battle of Franken trust play in, you know, kind of educating people today about these, these historic sites?
23:28 Well, I honestly think our tagline says it all. Learn how the civil war redefined America. We're taking this specific event, the of Franklin, which is part of a larger event, the civil war and how the, the politics, the social economics, the how America was run prior to the civil war, the civil war happening, how that still defines us and creates the America that we know today. Cause we're only six, six years away from the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country, which is just kind of crazy when you think about that.
24:01 We have tried to, yeah, we've tried to expand our era of interpretation to not just be the day of the battle, even just the war itself, but the big wave of American history that led up to the war and then the era that followed it as well.
24:15 But it's really awesome because we have two homes. We have two families. We have two groups of incite people on one day that we can tell all these stories through this singular event because it is just everything combined that we have with the Dom. So it's really fun for us. We love it.
24:33 Awesome. So let's start kind of in the, the beginnings of, not necessarily the battle, but you know, some things that led to this happening. So you know, what was going on in the civil war before the battle of Franklin and what was going on in Franklin, really kind of up to that time of the battle. What feels like we should start with Tennessee story in the war
24:55 And then we can come on into Franklin.
24:57 So Tennessee was very divided over the issue of succession. Succession means to separate. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president, who was the first Republican president, that party was founded as the party opposed to the growth of slavery into the territories. And upon Lincoln's election, the secession crisis began where States wanted to secede from the union. South Carolina was the first. They succeeded. I mean, Lincoln was elected in November. South Carolina succeeds in December of 1860 stating that the various Northern States have banded together behind a president hostile to the institution of slavery. If you look at their causes of secession, they're very clear about why they are wanting to separate themselves from the federal government. But Tennessee and Tennesseeans, not everybody agreed on what was their credit course today.
25:49 Yeah, they seem to be, or I shouldn't say they seem, they are pretty evenly divided here about the session. For the longest time prior to the civil war, it's not till actually the first shots of the war were fired. So April of 1861 at Fort Sumner that they do finally vote to leave the United States. They had a vote a little bit prior to that where they actually voted no, that they were going to stay and well, I think the most amazing thing is that after Tennessee sissies talking about Knox County again and East Tennessee, they try to leave Tennessee and go back into the union.
26:23 So it's kind of succession inception there. [inaudible] Christopher Nolan crazy.
26:33 The craziest thing is that when they apply to the Tennessee state government, they're like, no, you can't do that. You can't just leave. That's USI allowed. So even though we did it,
26:45 Tennessee was very divided. And part of that also is, if you think about it, where this big long state that divides the North and the South. And so if the war comes in the West, which that's where Tennessee was, Tennessee was the West at that point where's the, we're going to be fought in the Western theater. Well, Tennessee. And that's exactly what happens. There were more battles in this state than any other, except for Virginia, which is why a lot of the Eastern theater that war happened
27:12 And yeah. And Tennessee actually becomes reabsorbed into the union as a kind of martial law state relatively quickly into the war.
27:20 Yeah. February of 1862 us soldiers led by Ulysses S grant and move through Tennessee and take over Nashville. Yup. So from February of 62 on this whole areas, federally occupied, occupied by Northern soldiers. And so it is a Confederate state for about a year. Well, technically it was always a Confederate state, but it was a Confederate state occupied by us soldiers.
27:46 Okay. Yeah. So it's under technically U S control. Franklin falls as well when Nashville falls, just because of its close proximity. So from, yeah, from 1862 onward, there are us soldiers in Franklin all the time.
28:00 Specifically, there was a Fort built in Franklin called Fort Granger that was built as a U S Fort, just North of town on the other side of the Harpeth river. So there was a large Garrison, a federal soldier stationed here for a while.
28:13 And that actually brings me to something that I don't think most people realize about the civil war, especially in Nashville and in Franklin. Here is the U S soldiers. They took over these people's lives. You had to get passes to take the train up to Nashville to use the roads to sell things. And the grocery store, you go to the grocery store. Many of these people here had to sign an oath of allegiance. It's back to the U S a government simply to conduct their daily business. Wow. That's interesting to, I didn't know that
28:42 Was slave labor used to build for Granger, cause I know at Fort Nagley in Nashville, slave labor was used. Slave labor was used to build a portion of Fort Negley up in Nashville. Fort Granger. I have not read specifically that. It was, I can't say definitively that it was not,
29:00 I feel like I've seen maybe some reference to it happening a little bit. But again, I can't, I can't say that for sure. I don't think it's very clear as to whether it was used or not, just from the records that we do have.
29:13 And, and to clarify that question after the fall of Nashville, thousands of slaves in middle Tennessee learn that Nashville is occupied by the United States army. Yeah. And so thousands of people almost like refugees end up escaping behind this line. And like you're saying, that doesn't mean that their life was immediately easy. There was a big debate on what should those armies do with the slaves who escaped to Northern controlled areas like Fort Negley or like Nashville in general. And sometimes they were put to work. Now technically they weren't put to work as slaves. They were put to work with the promise of pay. Now did that pay always come through? No. Was it always fair treatment? Absolutely not. But these are people who have largely chosen to attempt to grasp freedom by escaping behind the U S lines.
30:04 And we always talk. I think one of the biggest things that people talk about is that there were about 280,000 U S TC soldiers who followed the U S army. So that's the U S colored troops. But there were more than that. I can't remember the exact name. I think it's like close to half a million, but don't, don't quote me on that. People who serve in the U S army, African-Americans in non-combat roles, they were doing more than just fighting as well. And I think that also gets kind of lost. Right.
30:30 Okay. So, you know, now we've got the context of kind of what was going on. How did this, this, this battle and everything end up here in Franklin. So a couple of things play out. As the war progresses, so battles all throughout Tennessee, was this one of the largest battles to happen in Tennessee by the battle of Franklin? Yes. No. Okay. There are battles that lasted longer. There are battles that had more casualties and we'll get, we'll get into that when we talk more about this specific fight, but it wasn't as much about the number of casualties as the intensity of the combat. But in order to get there, so starting in the summer of like, imagine from the night of this battle, folks who've lived here would have a memory over the last few months of a few big things happening. So just a couple of months ago us soldiers commanded by general, William Sherman took over Atlanta, Georgia. Yup. This was one of the biggest defeats the Confederacy suffered because that was a major stronghold manufacturing facilities. So Sherman takes over in Nashville or, sorry, takes over Atlanta kicking out the army of Tennessee, which was the Confederate army that occupied it and
31:37 Under the command of general John Bell hood
31:39 Under, under the general hood. And then Sherman plans his next big move, which if you're familiar with, you know, learning about general Sherman from grade school, you probably remember the phrase the March to the sea. So Sherman then is marching from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia burning down anything to Confederate war effort could find useful taking the fight to the civilians. Now those, he's killing people, but he's burning down their crops, rubs houses, not even as much houses, but burning down crops and manufacturing facilities and supply lines, things that could help aid the Confederate war effort,
32:13 Taking horses,
32:15 Things like that. Yeah. Yeah. along with that, so Atlanta falls, Sherman is now marching to the sea. And the other big thing that's playing out is that the federal government is in the midst of an election cycle. And Abraham Lincoln is up for reelection. And Lincoln was the candidate who was saying, I wish to prolong the war until the union is saved and slavery's ended. So this was early six, 1864 then? Well, so this is like summer of 1864 on, so the election will be November. Okay. So as we're gearing up towards that election, Lincoln is the candidate who's saying we're going to keep fighting until the war is won and the union is saved and slavery is in it. Like emancipation has already been proclaimed, like the world knows the stakes of the war at this point in time. Right. So that's what Lincoln is saying.
33:04 Some of that oftentimes gets left out is the party that Lincoln was running against the democratic party, what their platform was to Sue for peace and in the war. Now granting the Confederacy, their independence. So the question that the Northern public had to had to answer with that election was, will the union exist anymore? Because if you can admit that a state can succeed and set up their own government, why is it just gonna happen once, right. It'll happen again. And so the country has to decide if we're going to allow that or not. Of course, the Northern public does reelect Abraham Lincoln. How close was the election if you guys are listening to six?
33:42 That's a great question. Okay. It's only a couple of months before this spot because there are a couple [inaudible]
33:48 Oh, how close was it to the battle? No, like the election as in general, like between Democrats and Republicans. Popular vote. Okay. So electoral vote, Lincoln crushed it. Okay. Popular vote was a little bit closer, but you know, the presidencies is not decided by decided by popular vote. Right. Electoral vote. Lincoln crushed it. I mean he McClellan was the democratic party nominee. He was a former U S general. He didn't do poorly, but he did not win many States. Okay. And the thing that I find the most telling about all that is that us soldiers, so the guys who are actually risking their lives had the choice between one of their old commanders and this guy who saying, we're going to keep fighting while around 75% of us soldiers vote to reelect Abraham Lincoln. Wow. That's telling. I think it is because it's saying like, this war has to be about something and we cannot give up now. And I always think about what messages does that deliver to the other side Confederacy. Who suffered defeat after defeat and they're ill supplied. They're outnumbered.
34:55 Well, I think we can see what it tells them because around this point in time to the Confederacy's desertion rates are extremely high. Absolutely. People are asleep. They are, soldiers are leading the Confederate army going home. Few of them even read you read, they joined the U S army
35:17 And to be fair and desertion rates were high on both sides. A great movie that came out a couple years ago called the free state of Jones was a perfect example of this, of a soldier named Newton Knight, who as the war raged on, he's like, I'm, why am I fighting so that the rich can stay wealthy so that slave owners can continue on their slaves. And that's one of the biggest questions that people have. I think one of the biggest hangups people have when talking about the civil war is it's hard to separate the causes of, of the war from the men who fought in it. You know, the war was caused by the institution of slavery. No doubt about it. Does that mean that every guy who joined the war was going off to war because of their personal stances about it? No. plenty of guys fought because they had two guys fought because they were conscripted or because they were defending their home or for excitement, all sorts of different reasons.
36:04 But that doesn't mean we didn't know why the war was being fought. Right. Just their own personal motivations are, and it's, it's a benefit of the doubt that we give to modern soldiers. Like we don't say that just because somebody joined enlists in the army that they agree with everything their country does. They may know what it does, but they don't, they don't have to agree with it all right. To volunteer. Yes, absolutely. That's, that's a good comparison. Yeah. So same thing back then, so to say, the war is caused by slavery is not to say everybody fought and it was evil or everybody fought for the South was evil. But as the war rages on for some, they're like, what am I doing? Why am I still fighting for something that does not directly benefit me at all? And so in this movie, Newton that goes home and helps his home County to secede and start their own kind of independent County, wonderful movie that's pretty historically accurate.
36:55 So if you want somebody talking about desertion, that's a great example of that. Right. Nice. All right. So it's the summer before the, the battle. What were some of the other things that he kind of led up to, to this, this battle happening? Well, so the summer of 1864, that's in some ways it's like one of the darkest points in the war because this war is going on for over three years now. And is there a number of how many casualties over 600000.0 have already died. Wow. And so the war has raged on for a long time. And really until, until the fall of Atlanta, there wasn't, it wasn't clear who was in the lead. And so we're this far in and it's like, well, what has happened? What has been gained on either side? You know, emancipation has been proclaimed, slaves are escaping North slaves are fighting for the union.
37:51 And that's, you know, one, one big thing that has happened is that since now there are slaves who are fighting as USC T soldiers, the Confederacy ceases to allow a prisoner exchange because they refuse to exchange black prisoners. Instead they send them back to slavery. And so things were just breaking down all over the place. With the fall of Atlanta though the tide changes in favor of the North. The union is, I think it's safe to say by, by the summer, by the fall of Atlanta the United States is, is winning, the war is in the lead. There's out the morale boost that can build off of that great victory. And the Confederates are now feeling the, like the hardship and the last morale,
38:36 Was there a lot of like marketing campaigns after the battle of Atlanta in the North? Like they did they do like some blitz marketing after that battle?
38:44 That's a good question. I mean, certainly newspapers, everybody would know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be a secret. And that's, that's really one of the big things that changes the tide in the election cycle is that with the fall of the Atlanta Lincoln's victory in the election is kind of secured like public opinion is now clearly behind let's just finish.
39:06 They're no longer at a stalemate. We have our momentum.
39:09 Okay. Did that hurt the morale of what was happening here in Franklin? Did that have an effect on what was going on here?
39:15 Question?
39:18 It's, it's hard to say Franklin's pretty evenly divide whether it's people who are pro Confederate or pro union like most of middle Tennessee is. So there's, I've definitely read some people who lived in Franklin who are pro union who really knew that victory was happening. They were getting behind it. But also there are people in who are pro Confederate who's don't seem to be.
39:42 And then a lot of people like fountain branch Carter over at Carter house who is in his late sixties. He's got a house full of his kids and grandkids. He's got two sons who are still out fighting. He hasn't heard, at least from Tanya, hasn't heard from him in months, one of his sons. And it's this guy like imagine being almost 70 years old in 1864 you were born in the 17 hundreds your potentially guys that were your fathers and grandfathers age fought to create this country and you've gone through the succession crisis in which the country has risked being pulled apart. Like I think a lot of guys who are in that position who were like, I don't know what the right,
40:21 Yeah, yeah. They definitely own slaves and they want to keep their slaves on. It's not up for debate, but were they willing to also tear apart the country? Maybe not
40:30 Plenty people in that generation where like, I don't, I just don't know. I don't know what the right answer is right now. So,
40:36 You know, what, what led up to this battle happening because this battle is very, very interesting. Yeah. So, you know, when did this battle occur and you know, when did these, the a U S troops move into Franklin?
40:52 Okay. So Atlanta falls and the army that controlled Atlanta was called the army of Tennessee. And this army had just recently been put into, put under the control of a guy named general John Bell hood. General hood was appointed by Jefferson Davis the president of the Confederacy. And he was one of the only picks that they had because he was a West point graduate. It wasn't, he's a West point graduate. By this point in the war, he had gone through every rank he needed to go through to, I mean, he'd gone from regimental brigade division and core command. And so he's advanced like you supposed to. And he had the battle scars to prove it. They, one soldier said he had a, an arm and a leg in the grave already because you're prior to this, his left arm was severely injured in the battle of Gettysburg and his right leg had been amputated after the battle of Chickamauga.
41:44 Wow. This is the youngest guy ever given army command in the Confederacy. And he's, he's now in charge of this army and just suffered a major loss, like Atlanta just fell. So he's got to think what do I do now? And so he turns his sights towards the first state Capitol, the Confederacy ever lost, which of course was Nashville. So he starts to pull away from Atlanta kind of giving it up because it's already fallen to Sherman Sherman outnumbers him. And so he pulls away from Atlanta thinking I'm going to try and cross the Tennessee river and head towards Nashville. Remember this whole middle Tennessee is all federally occupied,
42:20 And despite the fact that he is the youngest commander, he also has permission to do this from a higher up [inaudible] himself so that everybody's onboard for him to push into Tennessee.
42:30 And the soldiers are too, because think about these guys in his army who have suffered defeat after defeat. Their enemy just voted overwhelmingly to keep fighting for four more years following the election of Abraham Lincoln. And yet for the first time in years, this army is now on the offensive and they're heading back to take back their home state. So their stories of finally when they cross the Tennessee river on November 21st it's sleeting and it's gross and it's rainy, but as they're heading into Tennessee, these guys are letting out a cheer, thinking like we're heading home and we're doing something fun.
43:05 Yeah. Like for Todd again and one of the sons over at Carter house, this may have been the first time he's been in Tennessee in years.
43:13 Hmm. Yeah. These guys are finally home. They're on the offensive and they're trying to do something which they haven't been on retreat and retreat in defense and defense and now they're, they're trying to accomplish something. So hood starts to move his army through middle Tennessee. And as a response to that general Sherman who's leading his March to the sea kind of at the request of Ulysses S grant, he's not a great man of all Northern soldiers yet, does a couple of things. He sends a guy named general Thomas up to Nashville to command all us soldiers in Tennessee. But the more the more urgent thing he does is he dispatches to core under the command of a guy named general John Scofield to get their men between hood and Nashville, delay him and then get behind the defenses in Nashville to help defend that city.
43:58 Because at this point in time, Nashville doesn't have a lot of the U S soldiers right now. Would you say? Like eight to 10,000.
44:04 Okay. Oh wow. There were more, they were spread out from Fort Nagley to like love circle area in Nashville. Well, and there were more than that, but they were recovering in hospitals. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually stationed in Nashville, like Sarah said, only maybe 10,000. Wow. So, and that is incredibly well defended. It has major fortifications all around it. It's one of the most heavily diff fortified cities in the country, which doesn't have the men. So Schofield has to perform a delaying action against general hood. Interestingly, not unique in the civil war, but interestingly, general hood and general Schofield were former West point classmates. That's crazy. Wow. And I always like to send my battlefield tours when hood takes command to the army of Tennessee up against him in Sherman's army, our two former West point classmates and one former West point instructor.
44:52 Wow. Wow. Which isn't all that rare because a lots of men who fought in both the [inaudible] army were West point graduates. Yeah. Wow.
45:01 So what you see is, is these two armies maneuvering through middle Tennessee, and you could boil it down to say they're racing to Nashville, but what they're really doing is kind of dancing around each other, trying to outflank one another. Schofields trying to,
45:15 The one behind outplaying is like getting up behind the other person.
45:18 So Schofield's trying to delay hood by staying in front of his army and giving Nashville time to reinforce itself hood. The Confederate commander is trying to outflank or get a run behind Scofield to either cut them off or wipe his army out. But regardless, he has to get to Nashville first and he can't get to Nashville and then have Scofield's army come in right behind him. Oh no, absolutely not. Yeah.
45:41 So what this, so I'm guessing this is one of the things that led to the battle of Franklin is, is you know, this ultimate meet between the, these two sides and, and this didn't happen. Fortunately this did not happen during the daytime. They do meet a few times prior to being at Franklin with minor altercations between the two arms
46:07 Towards like Columbia, Tennessee and stuff. Right? Yeah. Essentially what happens is in in between Columbia and SpringHill Tennessee in the days leading up to this battle general hood, the Confederate army commander is able to get most of his forces in around behind the U S army in SpringHill and nearly cuts them off in that village, which is about 15 miles South of Franklin. He,
46:29 So this is happening the day before the, I said November 29th of 1864. Wow.
46:36 The hood is able to get most of his men in and around behind the U S army in spring Hill. He issues orders to cut off the road. The Columbia turnpike, which goes from Columbia SpringHill to Franklin, which is now highway 31. So he issues the orders to block that road. But in the exhaustion and confusion and darkness and unknown terrain, his orders are not followed through, resulting in the remainder of the, the majority of the U S army marching right past the Confederates with about 200 yards. If some of the Confederate brigades in the middle of the night of November 29th. Oh my goodness. And the Confederates going here, the artillery and stuff. Okay. They absolutely could. There are stories of men hearing what's on the road walking up to see what the commotion is, but, and getting captured in the process. There are stories of us soldiers walking up to the Confederate army not realizing it's the other side because remember, nobody has a radio.
47:28 Nobody has a bird's eye view. And so if you, it's pitch dark, nobody knows what's going on. Your orders are just to kind of hang out here and walk and walk if you're the U S army. Wow. And so like the U S army is wrapping blankets around their wagon wheels. They're trying to silence their horses. They're going as quickly and as quietly as they can and expertly get like, cause you could panic, right? Like the enemy's right there. If you start freaking out and your men start scattering and your horses freak out, then it's all over. Yeah. There was one of us soldier who said if hood had gotten one I think it was either one brigade or one division on top of the road in a defensible position, he could have effectively cut off the entire us advanced to Nashville. Wow.
48:10 Yeah. I was just thinking of William Warman's quote, cause you know, I love him. He says that they're like so close to where some of the Confederates are camping, that they can hear their fires and hear their voices and the distinctive like clanking of their willing candies against their guns as they're walking around. Wow.
48:27 So, and it's, I mean, it's safe. I think it's safe to call this one of the biggest blunders of the entire war. It was a huge inconstant mistake in the Confederate behalf. And on the U S Dorian behalf. It's one of the most brilliant temporally executed tactical nighttime maneuvers to Mart to March your men in marching formation right past almost right through an enemy force is pretty incredible. Wow. Wow.
48:52 So, you know, obviously from there the battle takes place. So talk about, you know, was there a moment that actually led to that first, you know, charge into into each other and then the battle begins? What happened there?
49:07 Well, the U S army does begin to arrive here on November 30 and to Franklin the very, very early morning, they actually don't want to be in Franklin. Again. Their ultimate goal at this point in time is to get into Nashville.
49:19 When are you going to try reinforcing as well for Granger putting some more soldiers there or the hall haul internationally at this point. So Fort Granger in Franklin had a capacity of something like 1500 men, but most of them have already been pulled away from Fort Granger to Nashville, to Nashville. And so the U S Army's objective upon getting to Franklin is really just to get across the river and continue on.
49:45 Yeah. So they, but they aren't [inaudible]
49:47 Alluding the river.
49:48 Yeah. The bridges that they need to cross. Some of them have been damaged and then it had been destroyed. Some of them are not usable for their wagons for the horses. So they end up being stuck here.
49:57 Yeah. Stoke. You're repairing the bridges and which is something they could do. It would take most of the day. But the problem is as they're repairing those bridges and then they're also digging battle lines, which you could go visit Carter house, you can see where the defensive lines went right through that family's property. Oh wow. So who made that decision say, okay, we need to repair the Bourges and start building battle lines just in case. Right? The army commander general scope. Okay. He would have made the decision, he basically goes to general Cox who was essentially his right hand man. General Schofield was the commander of the 23rd Corp when he was promoted to army command. His second in command, general Cox took over the 23rd Corps. So long story short, he goes to this guy and he basically just says general Cox has already taken over the Carter house to use it as his headquarters.
50:42 He tells him, I need you to do battle lines while I make sure the bridges get repaired. And so you have general Schofield who's the commander of all these men. But then general Cox is in charge of the line. So they start digging in as at sunrise that day. And a lot of these guys are just taking precautions. You know, like we have a quote here from Adam Weaver who was a soldier in the a hundred fourth Ohio and he's writing letters to his girlfriend all day. And at one point that morning he says to my eyes, there appeared no panic. There appeared no panic here. Only serious apprehensions of danger. The general opinion of most of our officers seem to be that general hood would not attack us here, but would again attempt to flank us. Okay? So that morning they're digging lines and he's thinking, this is just a precaution. You know, it's kind of a scary precaution, but Hood's not going to attack us from the front. He's going to try and get around behind us like he has done over the last couple of days.
51:32 Yeah. And by that time the bridges will be fixed and we'll be out of here and up in Nashville. So they don't really seem to be all that concerned. That's majority of the day.
51:41 Is it from Franklin to Nashville? 15 miles. 15 miles. Zoe would be a five hour March. Right. Well being for if we were to March, it may be, but if you're marching 20,000 men a longer, yeah,
51:55 I probably took them an entire night to get
51:58 And then the Confederate army wakes up probably before sunrise, but they wake up that morning. General hood and his staff have a quick conversation and then they're pursuing the U S army. They don't get here until early afternoon, so it would take almost a full day to, they have 20,000 men from SpringHill to Franklin. The Confederate army starts to arrive early afternoon. They sort of bought two miles South of Franklin. General hood decides pretty early that day that if Nashville is his ultimate goal, he cannot let his adversary cross the river and get behind the defenses there first. And so he starts to, he says, we will make the fight. He assembled his men into an attack to an attack formation, which takes a couple of hours. And as it gets into early afternoon, the Confederate army of Tennessee is about 20,000 men, about two miles from one end to the other in an attack formation.
52:49 And the U S army has just a little bit less than 20,000, so they're almost a dead even fight as far as men go.
52:56 Wow. and so, you know, I think as this formation is beginning and the day continues, whether kind of has a factor into what goes on for the the remaining of the day. All right, we will get back with Brad and Sarah hope you guys are enjoying this interview so far. But before that you're going to have to wait for Friday's episode because tomorrow guys, cause tomorrow's Thanksgiving, we are announcing our giveaway. We have a Thanksgiving special. Yes. That's what the episode's called. Yes. So
53:26 We're going to wait and release the second half of Brad and Sarah's interview on Friday. So that'll be on Friday's episode. Stay tuned for our Thanksgiving episode tomorrow, and then also give us a lips. Listen on Friday to check out part two of our interview with Brad and Sarah talking about the amazing, amazing stories that are coming out of the battle of Franklin and the civil war itself and everything that has to do with the civil war and the history of Tennessee. Also, if you guys are planning out your calendar for the weekend the battle of flanker and trust is having the hundred and 50 face, the anniversary of the battle of Franklin happening down in Franklin. So make sure to go do that. You'll hear more about that on Friday's episode. Yes. So we will see you guys tomorrow for a Thanksgiving special.
54:17 Have a great day.