7th OVI
Corporal
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2009
- Messages
- 599
With daylight almost gone, the Confederates who had broken through the center of the line fought like mad men. They were not military units any longer more like a mob of armed angry men. Confederate officers were pushing their men past the two Carter buildings, the office and the smokehouse, to the open fields beyond the Carter home so that they could reform and continue the attack. It was getting dark now. As the Confederate tidal wave came through the buildings, another tidal wave of angry men. More like a mob of armed angry men. "Rose out of the ground like demons", as one Confederate officer described it. They would have a "shoot out" and then engage in hand to hand fighting around the Carter house, smokehouse and office. Colonel Opdycke's brigade earned their name as "Opdycke's Tigers" for their action at Franklin in this counter attack. These two tidal waves crashed into each other on both sides of the pike and engaged in some of the most intense hand to hand fighting of the entire war. In about 20 minutes, the Federals would prevail and the Confederates would withdraw back to main line and create a "no man's land" of the Carter garden, the main entrenchments and the open fields beyond that would be fought over to well past 10:00PM. The last assaults by Lee's Corps of Confederates were done by torch light on the main works. In the morning hours of December 1st, the Federals withdrew from Franklin and moved on to Nashville leaving the field to the Confederates.
