Civil War bones found in Franklin

While I am extremely interested in this story, I'm scratching my head over the news stories I've read so far.

This one from ?Columbus, Ohio? actually says...

About 2,000 soldiers died in the 1864 Battle of Franklin. Nearly all who died were Union soldiers.

Uh, what? Let's try 10,000 casualties*-7,300 were Confederate! Nice try yankee.

Then there is this one from Fox News 17 in Nashville(you'd think they get the facts straight) that says this:

Historians believe the body belongs to a Union soldier, who may have been killed around November 30, 1864.

That's when the Union Army was pursuing Confederate soldiers as they retreated from the Battle of Nashville.

Yes, the Battle of Franklin was November 30, 1864. But the Battle of Nashville was December 15-16, 1864. And if they meant "Battle of Franklin" from the date, well this guy was found at the base of Winstead Hill, which is where the Confederate higher-ups(namely Hood) watched the slaughter unfold. It is just over a mile south of the Union's line of defense.

So this soldier could have died as the Union made their way north from Spring Hill and was quickly buried where he fell(most likely of an old wound or disease) before the trenches were built near the Carter House. Or he died on the way South after December 16.

Or is it possible that this soldier was killed during a cavalry skirmish that occurred on April 10, 1863 when Confederate troops moved north from Spring Hill just to scout whether the Union held Franklin or not. Forrest was one of the cavalry leaders here and he was moving north along the Lewisburg Pike, which is just east of this site. There were Union pickets in the area and there were roughly 100 casualties on both sides.


I'm not an archaeologist or a certified historian or anything. My guesses on when this soldier died are just that, guesses. But they are educated guesses. How do these news sources get away without any fact-checking? Oh wait, they do that every day, why should I be surprised?


As to the site where the remains were found, I am ambivalent. On one hand, yeah they are going to stop the construction and do more searching, and yeah another golf course built on battleground bites the dust. But for what...more townhouses and shops. I'm already disgusted at the site of that Target sitting next door. And not to mention the Pizza Hut that was allowed to be built on top of a known mass grave. What a sad thing to see. To see the difference between such historic places like Gettysburg and Franklin. Yes, yes, we lost. That's no excuse to forget what happened and act like it never did happen. What a shame, Franklin, what a shame.


*want to clear up "casualties": "casualties" are listed as dead/wounded/captured. For Franklin, Union had 189 killed, 1033 wounded and 1104 captured. Confederates had 1750 died(or died from wounds within a few days), 3800 wounded and 702 captured. There were more Confederates killed in this 5 hour battle than the whole 2 days at Shiloh(often called the Bloodiest Battle of the Civil War).