[252] his lines very seriously. He had anticipated surprising the Federals on their retreat; convinced of his error, he recalls his troops and leads them back to Spring Hill. The combat at Franklin had cost about one hundred men to each side.
On the same day, much more to the westward, a detachment of Van Dorn's cavalry which was making a reconnoissance between Duck River and the Tennessee, met and dispersed at Waverley a party of Union cavalry coming from Fort Donelson, who in search of horses had pushed their expedition as far as that place.
The attempt against the Federal right on the part of the Confederates, which had just miscarried before Franklin, was to be the last for a long time. Van Dorn would undoubtedly have endeavored to retrieve this defeat, but he perished a few days later, being stricken down in the midst of his officers by a husband whom he had offended. His death was a great loss to the cause of the South. We have criticised in severe terms his defection in Texas at the time of secession; we will endeavor now to do justice to his rare military talents. Stuart, Morgan, Fitzhugh Lee, Grierson, Kilpatrick, Kautz, and others were remarkable cavalry officers: Sheridan and Wilson in the armies of the North, Van Dorn in those of the South, were the only generals of mounted infantry; no one knew as they did how to handle this complex and difficult instrument. The latter was replaced by Forrest in his important command. Forrest possessed some of the qualities of his predecessor, but he lacked sound military education; he was not, like Van Dorn, an officer of the old regular army.
Up to the 1st of May we have no encounter to mention between the hostile forces which occupy Franklin on one side and Spring Hill on the other, with the exception of a slight skirmish at Carter's Creek, near the road from Nashville to Columbia, between a party of Federal cavalry coming from Murfreesborough and a detachment of Texas cavalry: some of the latter were taken prisoners.
The numerous forces that Morgan had displayed before Hall at the battle of Vaught's Hill were a menace to the Federal left wing, and Rosecrans a few days before the engagement at Franklin determined to drive away from his lines so venturesome an
