Following the fall of Atlanta in early September, Schofield's corps was sent north to assist General George Thomas in the defense of Tennessee from General John B. Hood's advancing army. The 104th and Schofield's army escaped Hood's trap at Spring Hill and helped repel the furious Confederate frontal assault at Franklin, TN, where the Confederate Army of Tennessee suffered over 6,000 casualties. After successfully defeating Hood's forces at Nashville in Dec 1864, Schofield's commanded transferred via Georgia, and Washington D.C., reaching North Carolina for the concluding portion of the Carolinas Campaign. The regiment fought a skirmish near Wilmington, NC and was near Raleigh when word came of General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Va.