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While reading War as Viewed from the Ranks by William A. Keesey I found his very vivid description of the Franklin Battlefield on December 17th
"On the 17th we came to Franklin. I was anxious to, if possible, find some of our missing boys. I stole away from the ranks and made for the hospital. The store buildings were turned into hospitals and were filled with both Union and Confederate wounded. On coming to the first hospital I was confronted on the porch with men terribly wounded. As a sample, one man, shot through the jaw, his tongue protruding out of his mouth, rested his head upon his hands. He could not speak. Another, who was shot in the thigh but able to be laid out on the porch, was badly doubled up. I went into the room which was perhaps 100 feet long. The men in there were laid with their heads to the wall and their feet toward the center of the room, leaving aisles between the feet of the two rows and next to the walls at their heads. These had all been lying there during the two weeks in which we had been campaigning, on the bare floor. As I stepped into the room I detected, at once, a sickening, poisonous atmosphere that seemed to suffocate me. I supposed I could soon over come this, and pressed on ; but by the time I had gotten ten feet into the room I found that I had none too much time left if I would get out before fainting. I hurried out without getting a chance to speak to any one or anyone speaking to me. The stench arising from the putrifying [sic] wounds was really unbearable.
I hastened out to take a look at the battle-ground. The first thing attracting my attention was a locust grove near the old cotton gin. On approaching this grove I thought some sportive boys, or somebody else, had taken cotton and strewn it over that locust grove ; but while I hesitate to record it for fear of being discredited, on closer observation I was amazed to find the timber so cut and fuzzed up by the bullets of battle as. to give it the appearance of being strewn over with cotton. I thought "Can it be that anybody lived through that awful hail of lead !" I went on to the line of works. There lay Gen. Clayborn's [sic] horse. This brave, but reckless Confederate officer rode his horse up to, and made the poor animal leap, the outside ditch in charging our line ; but as he leaped up onto the bank, the poor brute, with its heroic rider, was riddled with bullets.
The body of the general had been cared for. The putrifying [sic] carcass of his noble horse still lay there to tell the story.
So far as my eyes could see there were rows of graves, side by side, where mostly men who had died of wounds since the battle, were buried. The partially filled ditches told where the dead of the battle were laid. As I stood there and thought of the awful suffering and slaughter of the battle, and how nearly I had come to being one of the number to inhabit those ditches, I trembled ; and from my heart I thanked God, and fled from the spot to join my comrades in the ranks. I was glad to know that, while our wounded and the town of Franklin had been in the enemy's hands since the battle there, now they would have the care of our own people, and being convenient to the great city of Nashville they could receive much better care than the Confederates could possibly have given them."
"On the 17th we came to Franklin. I was anxious to, if possible, find some of our missing boys. I stole away from the ranks and made for the hospital. The store buildings were turned into hospitals and were filled with both Union and Confederate wounded. On coming to the first hospital I was confronted on the porch with men terribly wounded. As a sample, one man, shot through the jaw, his tongue protruding out of his mouth, rested his head upon his hands. He could not speak. Another, who was shot in the thigh but able to be laid out on the porch, was badly doubled up. I went into the room which was perhaps 100 feet long. The men in there were laid with their heads to the wall and their feet toward the center of the room, leaving aisles between the feet of the two rows and next to the walls at their heads. These had all been lying there during the two weeks in which we had been campaigning, on the bare floor. As I stepped into the room I detected, at once, a sickening, poisonous atmosphere that seemed to suffocate me. I supposed I could soon over come this, and pressed on ; but by the time I had gotten ten feet into the room I found that I had none too much time left if I would get out before fainting. I hurried out without getting a chance to speak to any one or anyone speaking to me. The stench arising from the putrifying [sic] wounds was really unbearable.
I hastened out to take a look at the battle-ground. The first thing attracting my attention was a locust grove near the old cotton gin. On approaching this grove I thought some sportive boys, or somebody else, had taken cotton and strewn it over that locust grove ; but while I hesitate to record it for fear of being discredited, on closer observation I was amazed to find the timber so cut and fuzzed up by the bullets of battle as. to give it the appearance of being strewn over with cotton. I thought "Can it be that anybody lived through that awful hail of lead !" I went on to the line of works. There lay Gen. Clayborn's [sic] horse. This brave, but reckless Confederate officer rode his horse up to, and made the poor animal leap, the outside ditch in charging our line ; but as he leaped up onto the bank, the poor brute, with its heroic rider, was riddled with bullets.
The body of the general had been cared for. The putrifying [sic] carcass of his noble horse still lay there to tell the story.
So far as my eyes could see there were rows of graves, side by side, where mostly men who had died of wounds since the battle, were buried. The partially filled ditches told where the dead of the battle were laid. As I stood there and thought of the awful suffering and slaughter of the battle, and how nearly I had come to being one of the number to inhabit those ditches, I trembled ; and from my heart I thanked God, and fled from the spot to join my comrades in the ranks. I was glad to know that, while our wounded and the town of Franklin had been in the enemy's hands since the battle there, now they would have the care of our own people, and being convenient to the great city of Nashville they could receive much better care than the Confederates could possibly have given them."
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