Captain Carter Returns Home

Late on the afternoon of Wednesday November 30th, 1864, as the Confederate vanguard surged over the Federal breastworks at Franklin, a 67 year-old Tennessee planter by the name of Fountain Branch Carter found himself in the thick of the battle. Earlier that day Federal Officers had commandeered part of his home, situated just 90 yards behind their main defence line; now Carter lay huddled with family members in the cellar as bullets rained against the brickwork above.

For Carter, the worst was yet to come: He would learn the next morning that his own son, Confederate Captain Theodoric "Tod" Carter, an aide in Cheatham's corps, had been gravely wounded in the assault. The elder Carter and his daughters were with the party that went in search of the boy and bore him back to the family's debris strewn sifting room, where he died the following day. He had fallen within sight of the house - his first glimpse of home in more than two years.

The above article first appeared in the ACWS Newsletter, October 1997