On 30 November 1864, The Battle of Franklin took place, and it was the Confederate Army’s worst disaster in the American Civil War.
The Carter House, a small red brick farmhouse, had a pivotal role in the Battle of Franklin for no reason other than its location and its proximity to where the worst battle of the war took place. It bore witness to the 9,500 soldiers being killed, wounded, captured, or listed as missing.
I arrive at the Carter House in time for the 10 o’clock tour, which includes a guided tour of the house and outbuildings with a commentary about the role the house played in the disastrous battle. Our guide looks like Colonial Sanders and provides a sanguine, brief and fully sanitised version of the events that took place on that fateful day. I know this because I have done this tour before and I received a completely different commentary. What I get today is a history of architectural styles of the 1830s when the house was built by Fountain Branch Carter, and our guide spends an extraordinarily long time explaining that the floor on which we are standing is made of fabric, not linoleum as I had first assumed. The house has been tastefully refurbished using furniture and furnishing of the time, so I assume that little of what I am seeing here today actually belonged to the Carters, except for a bookcase in the front parlour. I am disappointed that the bullet that had passed through the front of the house and lodged in the bookcase is not even mentioned today. The Carter House has the unenviable record as being the most bullet-damaged building of the Civil War that remains standing. It has at least 1,000 bullet holes that remain in the side of the house and outbuildings.
If I could cast my mind back to when the road outside of the front gate did not exist and that the undulating farmland that surrounds the house is alive with soldiers digging trenches to hold off the onslaught of the Confederates to prevent them from entering Nashville, I can almost hear the far-off thumps of rifles discharging, grey smoke and cordite in the air, and feel the panic and the fear that would have been present that day.
On that fateful day, prior to the battle, the house was commandeered by Brigadier General Jacob Cox of the Federal Army to be used as a headquarters. He ordered the family to hide in the basement for the duration of the battle for their safety. A message had been sent to the Lotz family nearby urging them to join the Carters and some of their slaves in the Carter House basement.
We walk down the red brick steps and find ourselves in a large and functional kitchen. Beyond the kitchen, are two large basement rooms, which were once probably used for food preservation and storage. Being underground and with brick and stone floors and walls, it is cool and most certainly a relief from the warm weather we are experiencing today. In one of the rooms, where the floor has sunk in part, we are told that a hole had been dug below the brick floor and the family’s most valuable items were buried in it. The bricks were replaced, and I am sure that the floor would have been covered to hide the inconsistencies. The good news is that the family’s valuables had not been seized and after the battle, when things returned to normal, the items were recovered. Between nineteen and twenty-seven Carter and Lotz families and their slaves hid here. Chairs are arranged along the walls, each labelled with either the name or a description of a person who had hidden there. Jack and Calfurnia Carter’s names are included here. Both slaves, Jack was 34 and Calfurnia was 41, were born into slavery and were the property of Fountain Branch Carter. Together gave birth to six children. Presumably some of those child slaves sheltered here and perhaps they were playmates of the Carter children.
I cannot imagine how fearful they were, especially the children, as the battle raged, bullets hitting the house and exploding around them for five hours straight. Little did Fountain and his wife, Polly, know then that their son, 24 year-old Tod was lying wounded in the battlefield outside. Later, when news of Tod’s injuries reached them, Fountain Carter searched the battlefield until he found his barely alive and mortally wounded son. He was brought back to the house and nursed for two days before he succumbed to his injuries.
We tour the rooms built on to the back porch area, rooms that have no internal access to the house. We step outside. The kitchen is directly opposite the backdoor. To the left is the timber farm office and next door to that is the vitally important smokehouse, used to preserve meat.
Our guide throws open the doors of the farm office.
Goosebumps travel slowly from my fingertips through to my scalp, A ghost has surely walked over my grave as I see the hundreds of holes from the roofline to the floor, especially on the back wall, where light shines through the perfectly round holes. Surely nobody was in the building when the battle started, and the building was used by the Confederate Army as target practice! But although our guide, who I refer to as Col. Sanders, cleverly skips around any discussion of how many people fled to the building when the battle started, I know from my previous visit here, that there were many slaves who took shelter in this building, and they had little chance of survival.
I cannot stay inside that building. There is too much sadness and grief surrounding it. Outside in the sun, it is hard to believe that a war raged in this very spot 160 years ago, and it wasn’t about borders, it was over a difference of opinion. Fathers, brothers, cousins, sons shooting each other for a cause that provided slaves with freedoms they never thought they would achieve.
I wander down towards the road and despite the steady stream of traffic, the setting is quiet and somewhat idyllic. No trenches here, only grass and bees busily collecting nectar from nearby flowers; almost peaceful until I catch sight of a couple of buzzards arguing over some roadkill on a patch of grass. Despite knowing that this is the circle of life, I shudder and make my way across the road to where I have parked the car.
I have a distance to drive today, and I need coffee before I hit the road. It is not lost on me that the tour guide this morning bears a distinct resemblance to Col. Sanders. But more on that later.
Title Quote: Johnny Cash
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