Produced by David Widger THE GREAT CONSPIRACY Its Origin and History Part 7 BY JOHN LOGAN CHAPTER XXVIII. FREEDOM AT LAST ASSURED. As to the Military situation, a few words are, at this time, necessary: Hood had now marched Northward, with some 50,000 men, toward Nashville, Tenn., while Sherman, leaving Thomas and some 35,000 men behind, to thwart him, had abandoned his base, and was marching Southward from Atlanta, through Georgia, toward the Sea. On the 30th of November, 1864, General Schofield, in command of the 4th and 23rd Corps of Thomas's Army, decided to make a stand against Hood's Army, at Franklin, in the angle of the Harpeth river, in order to give time for the Union supply-trains to cross the river. Here, with less than 20,000 Union troops, behind some hastily constructed works, he had received the impetuous and overwhelming assault of the Enemy--at first so successful as to threaten a bloody and disastrous rout to the Union troops--and, by a brilliant counter-charge, and subsequent obstinate defensive-fighting, had repulsed the Rebel forces, with nearly three times the Union losses, and withdrew the next day in safety to the defenses of Nashville. A few days later, Hood, with his diminished Rebel Army, sat down before the lines of Thomas's somewhat augmented Army, which stretched from bank to bank of the bight of the Cumberland river upon which Nashville is situated. And now a season of intense cold set in, lasting a week or ten days. During this period of apparent inaction on both sides--which aroused public apprehension in the North, and greatly disturbed General Grant--I was ordered to City Point, by the General-in-Chief, with a view to his detailing me to Thomas's Command, at Nashville. On the way, I called on President Lincoln, at the White House. I found him not very well, and with his feet considerably swollen. He was sitting on a chair, with his feet resting on a table, while a barber was shaving him. Shaking him by the hand, and asking after his health, he answered, with a humorous twinkle of the eye, that he would illustrate his condition by telling me a story. Said he: "Two of my neighbors, on a certain occasion, swapped horses. One of these horses was large, but quite thin. A few days after, on inquiry being made of the man who had the big boney horse, how the animal was getting along?--whether improving or not?--the owner said he was doing finely; that he had fattened almost up to the knees already!"