From the American Battlefield Protection
Program:
The 1863 engagement at Franklin was a reconnaissance in force by
Confederate cavalry leader Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn coupled with an
equally inept response by Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger. Van Dorn
advanced northward from Spring Hill on May 10, making contact with
Federal skirmishers just outside Franklin.
Van Dorn’s attack was so weak that when Granger received a false
report that Brentwood, to the north, was under attack, he believed it,
and sent away most of his cavalry, thinking that the Confederate
general was undertaking a diversion. When the truth became known—there
was no threat to Brentwood— Granger decided to attack Van Dorn, but he
was surprised to learn that a subordinate had already done so, without
orders.
Brig. Gen. David S. Stanley, with a cavalry brigade, had crossed the
Harpeth River at Hughes’s Ford, behind the Confederate right rear. The
4th U.S. Cavalry attacked and captured Freeman’s Tennessee Battery on
the Lewisburg Road but lost it when Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest
counterattacked.
Stanley’s troopers quickly withdrew across the Big Harpeth River. This
incident in his rear caused Van Dorn to cancel his operations and
withdraw to Spring Hill, leaving the Federals in control of the area.
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