Hood's Command Post

Oaklawn is where Hood's chain of command came apart. From the Absalom Thompson house he personally ordered Bate to sweep toward Columbia without telling Cheatham, who had expected Bate to attack beside Cleburne. By dusk the pike was still open, and in the dark Cheatham and Brown decided not to attack blind. Hood was furious. The battle cost only about 350 Union and 500 Confederate casualties, yet all of Schofield's army, with Cox's column from Columbia, passed through Spring Hill that night while the Confederate commanders slept.

What the plaque says

Hood's Command Post November 29-30, 1864 Gen. Hood and staff spent the night in the Absalom Thompson House, 2.8 miles. Advance units of his army, moving by country roads, had contacted Federal units at Spring Hill, but had not gained control of the road to Nashville. In the morning, Hood found that Schofield had eluded him and was enroute to Franklin.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Mink Slide and East 8th Street — 8.5 mi
  Columbia's Black business and church district south of the courthouse square, where on the night of February 25, 1946 a white mob gathered and Black veterans stood guard.
• James K. Polk Home and Museum — 8.5 mi
  The 1816 brick house in Columbia where Polk practiced law and campaigned for the legislature, now a museum that also tells of the people the Polk family enslaved.
• Carnton — 14 mi
  The McGavock farm in Franklin, worked by 44 enslaved people in 1860, that became the largest field hospital of the Battle of Franklin.
• Gordon House and Ferry Site — 17 mi
  A brick house of 1818 beside the Duck River at milepost 407.7 of the Natchez Trace Parkway, where a Chickasaw partner and a Tennessee captain ran a ferry and an inn.

More markers nearby

• Rippavilla Plantation — 0.9 mi
• Confederate Attacks at Spring Hill — 2.5 mi
• Ewell Farm — 2.8 mi
• William Banks Caperton — 2.9 mi