ic action on the part of any of them after they had crossed
Rutherford's creek; and, no doubt, if Cleburne had not been halted by
Cheatham's order, he would have gone on until he had reaped the full
measure of success made so easily possible by the faulty situation of
our army. But amid all the exciting occurrences of that eventful evening
it is amazing that no inkling of that faulty situation seems ever to
have entered the mind of any one of those veteran generals.

Hood made a mistake, as stated by himself, in not taking Bee's corps on
the flank march instead of Cheatham's corps. He believed that with Bee
in Cheatham's place he would have succeeded, and in view of the skill
with which Lee executed the part assigned to him to hold Schofield at
Duck river, it is more than probable he would have given at Spring Hill
far better support than Cheatham gave. Hood led Cheatham within sight of
an easy and brilliant success, and it was the hesitation displayed by
Cheatham. Brown and Bate at the critical time, that defeated Hood's plan
and saved Schofield's army. That their hesitation was not due to any
lack of courage on their part, or on the part of the troops they
commanded, was abundantly proved by the unsurpassed courage with which
they assaulted at Franklin next day when it was everlastingly too late.
If they had fairly utilized at Spring Hill one-tenth part of the courage
that was thrown away on the breastworks of Franklin they would have
changed the later current of the war with results too far reaching to be
estimated.

The prime purpose of Schofield's campaign was to delay Hood. How well he
succeeded in that purpose can be significantly stated in a single
sentence: The evening of November 29th he was at Duck river, and the
morning of December 1st he was at Nashville, more than forty miles away.
Then followed the panicky feeling displayed by the Administration, and
by General Grant, because General Thomas was not ready to attack Hood
immediately on his appearance in front of Nashville. If Schofield's
orders at Duck river had been to make no effort to delay Hood but to get
inside the fortifications of Nashville with the least possible delay, he
would not have covered the distance in so short a time without the spur
of Hood's flank movement, and the celerity with which he ran out of the
country was due to the scare he got at Spring Hill.

From Franklin next day he wired General Thomas at Nashville that he had
come throu