The Carter House

Extremely friendly and knowledgeable tour guide. A must see if visiting. Ask about value pack, which gets you into lotz house, carter house and carnton plantation (we paid $ 30 for all three per person at the time we went)

This and Carnton Plantation (5mins away by car) are must see sights for anyone interested in American History.

Franklin such a great place with so much history!
I’m so glad we went on this tour! Our guide was Jim, and he was very knowledgeable and informative. We learned so much!
Story about Todd, who died pretty much in his dad’s back yard was so touching.
I enjoyed time I spent there, I just wish we could see more of the house!

My mother-​in-​law came to visit us, and we wanted to take her somewhere historical that wasn’t too «touristy». The Carter House definitely fits the bill. We were the only people who paid for the 4:00 tour, so we pretty much got a personal tour! It was great.
The thing that I appreciated most about this place is that they actually let you walk into the rooms, unlike the Hermitage where you have to peer through plexiglass nailed to the door frames. On the downside, you are not allowed to view the second floor. It’s always a bummer to me when I pay to view a historical site, and I can’t see all of it.
The tour was incredibly informative. In fact, it was almost a little mentally overwhelming, but I prefer that over not enough information. I’m ashamed to admit I had never even heard of the Battle of Franklin, and now I know so much about it.
My favorite part of the house is seeing where the bullets hit it and the basement. They never repaired the bullet holes, and it gives it character and history. The basement is partitioned into 3 separate areas. The far room is where the family locked their selves in during the battle. The middle room is where they would hang meats and store food, and the front room is where they dined. That was neat to me because although I know it was common in that era for the kitchen to be in a separate building behind the house, I have never seen a home with the dining area in the basement.
I would definitely recommend this to anyone visiting the Nashville area and to locals who have never stopped by. We plan to take other guests here in the future. I learned so much, and I feel that I could still absorb more on a future trip. The only reason I took away 1 star is because you can’t see the 2^nd floor and you are not allowed to take pictures of the inside, even without flash. (Bummer.)

Thoroughly enjoyed our private tour today with Carrie (it was very rainy so not too many visitors). Her knowledge and passion about the Civil War was captivating. The Battle of Franklin deserves such a memorial.

Good tour, first time here. Our guid did a wonderful job telling about the history. I thought it would be a bigger place, but overall it was great to hear and see the battle of Franklin.

Never thought I’d find myself on a plantation (by choice) but my brother is a big history buff, and since he was graciously accompanying me on my road trip west, I reluctantly obliged, and just prayed there wouldn’t be a role playing aspect to the day…
It.Was.Awesome. I absolutely loved our tour guide. She was passionate and very well informed. She knew not only the story in great detail of the Battle of Franklin, but I felt like she knew the family intimately. It was such a treat to tour the grounds with someone who could give us real insight into the events leading up to that tragic day. Very happy my brother planned this American Civil War field trip.

This home is directly across the street from the Lotz House museum. It’s a great historical site. They show a short video before the tour begins, and on the tour I participated in there was myself and one other couple – it was cool to almost have a private tour!
For the most part, once you get on the porch which is 5 – 7 steps from the ground, tour is all on one level with the exception of the visit to the cellar. I don’t recall a ramp, but the group after us included a woman who used a scooter and/​or walker, so it may be possible for those who may have accessibility concerns.
Our tour guide was quite welcoming, and older gentleman who is a volunteer at the museum. He was very knowledgeable and clearly takes pride in the history of the area and the home. I did lose track of the conversation a couple times because he did share quite a bit of info at times, both about the house and the war in general, but the tour lasted only about an hour. The outbuildings – kitchen, smoke house and slave quarters – do not require a ticket.
One slight disappointment was that the upstairs was not part of the tour, but that’s okay. What I thought was the coolest part was something that I think was called as sugar chest, which as the name suggests held sugar. This was once a precious commodity, and therefore this piece of furniture held sugar under lock and key. The party responsible for the sugar would provide access when requested. Those who used sugar from the chest were required to log their name and the amount taken in the ledger that was kept in the small drawer at the bottom of the chest. I had never heard of this piece of furniture before and I don’t know if I realized that sugar was so carefully guarded. The chests are beautiful pieces of furniture and I can’t help but want one myself!
Carter house is part of the Battle of Franklin tour ticket, which includes both Lotz House and Carnton Plantation as the other two sites. As of July 3, 2014, the Battle of Franklin ticket cost $ 30, which is a $ 10 savings from purchasing each ticket individually (I think Lotz House costs $ 10 and the other two are $ 15 individually). If you’re interested in history, especially civil war or American history, I think it’s easily worth the cost of the three tour ticket. As a added bonus, I do not believe there is an expiration date on the ticket, which means you can visit the sites on different days.

Our tour guide was very knowledgable and enthusiastic She gave us a clear description of what this family went through in this battle.

The tour guide and her passion for history made the tour. She was incredible! She almost cried giving us a description of what took place during the battle. She said as a mother I can’t imagine what files had to go through when there sons went off to war. She was also patient when I asked her questions and there were a ton of questions haha. I highly recommend this tour.

We toured the house as part of the Lotz House and Carnton Plantation combination tour. The cost of the tour is $ 30 per person and allows you admission into all three. There is no time table as to when you have to do the tour. The tickets never expire. We toured this house first. The tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and willing to answer any questions. The history that happened here is incredible. I am not a huge history person and knew nothing about this battle. Shocking was my thought as the guide kept explaining the battle. You get to tour the inside the main home. You also get to go into the basement. Know there are stairs that go down into the basement. Then are a few out building that still have bullet holes in them. The actual tour with the guide is about 45 minutes long. The visitor center has a small museum with some interesting artifacts. Additionally, a small gift shop. This is worth your time and money. Glad this was «saved» and not turned into a gas station.

This place was absolutely amazing and the guide taught me so much about this oft looked over battle during the Civil War. The history is bloody, scary & powerful and the people affected persevered. The bullet holes and cannonball hole outside of the home are quite evident of what happened so long ago. I’m glad I was able to learn about the Carter family and see what happened to them that fateful night and how it changed their lives.

Great way to spend a Memorial Day. They have a military/​veteran discount for tours. Our tour guide was very knowledgable and entertaining. This place is full of history. It is the most battle scared structure still standing.

Great history… bad tour. The tour should start with the video then the tour guides should fill in the gaps. If you have the option start with the video and then head out to the tour.
The tour was way too long and our guide spoke slower than Forrest Gump. I spent most of the tour wanting to help the guide finish her sentences. Don’t get me wrong the tour was very informative and the history lesson was cool. I just would have liked the tour to fill in what the history channel leaves out and have a guide that could entertain/​educate me. I apologize for not remembering the person’s name so you can avoid them but then again the guide I had may still be finishing up the tour I was on.

We weren’t really interested in the tour, so we just walked around and looked at things on our own. It was really cool to see all the bullets in the houses. We checked out the slave house and sewing rooms as well. Overall, this was an interesting stop. We spent about 15 minutes here.

There are people who love history, I am not one of those people! However, I thoroughly enjoyed this tour. The stories of the Battle of Franklin are fascinating. Being at the battle site makes those tragic stories come to life. I have been to The Carter House several times. The tour guides are all awesome. Their depth of knowledge is impressive.
I highly recommend a visit to the The Carter House.

For many interested in the American Civil War, this place is seen as some sort of shrine comparable to the hollowed fields of Gettysburg, Antietam and Shiloh. Unlike those locales however, the Carter House is not owned by the US government and remains hidden in the middle of what is now suburban Franklin, a bedroom community of Nashville. There it resides as a roadside attraction, probably best known as the «House with 1000 Bullet Holes».
For its importance, we need to go back to late 1864 the twilight years of the American Civil War. Union General William Sherman had just captured and burned Atlanta to the ground, assuring Lincoln’s reelection and beginning his March to the Sea. Instead of confronting this vastly superior force, the Confederates in the West under General John Hood instead struck North in a ludicrous attempt to retake Nashville. The Southern troops managed to trap a small Federal Army under John Schofield in Franklin.
Hood launched his army in a suicidal charge against the Federal forces entrenched around the Carter House. What followed was five hours of some of the bloodiest fighting in American history. For a brief moment, the Confederates broke through, only to be stopped by a ferocious counterattack that dissolved into a bloody mêlée around the house the Carter Family huddling for safety in the basement. That night, the family crawled out from cover to find the house and garden littered with bodies. Among the bodies was Tod Carter, the middle son of the Carter family who fell fighting in the family garden, his first view of home in three years.
Though the Federals retreated that night, Hood’s victory crippled his army; too many of the South’s few remaining soldiers and generals fell in this short fight. Two weeks later his army would be destroyed at Nashville, ending the Civil War in the West.
The house remains much as is was on that fateful day, a plebeian brick building pockmarked with bullet holes and cannonballs. After a visit to the museum filled with artifacts recovered from the battle, a docent leads you through the grounds, relating the bloody history that occurred here. The 1-​hour tour was done at a brisk pace, and the docent, an old guy who seems to have played guide for a while, put this site in the context of American history. He then showed us several points of interest, the small lawn where forty-​seven bodies were recovered, the basement where the Carter family hid during the battle, the poignant bedroom where Tod Carter died. As a history buff, I was enthralled during the entire time. Right outside, you can walk along the streets where the battle took place, now mostly covered by development but interspliced with interesting little tidbits: a small park with a cannonball monument, small cairns where famed southern general fell.
All in all, it was quite an interesting location. Most of the battlefield has been lost to development, leaving a small chunk the size of a small city park. The tour is also quite expensive, around $ 15. However if there is one location to understand the American Civil War in Middle Tennessee, it is at the Carter House. Even those with a passing interest in history and the bloodiest conflict in American history would likely find this to be a place worth visiting. As for the rest of you, well there really isn’t much of a reason to come down from Nashville.

this was a wonderful and informative tour, full of amazing information and great stories! i normally don’t pay for tours, but this was money well spent. our tour guide, russell, was polite, informative, considerate and very entertaining. not only did we learn the history of the battle of franklin, which took place in the yard and surrounding area of the family home, but of the carter family itself.
and trust me, both stories are poignant and will give you something to think about as you look out over the yard and imagine what occurred there.
if you have an hour, i strongly suggest going and getting your history on.

One of the best things about Middle TN is the history. And Franklin is ripe with Civil War history so it only stands to reason that I would take the BF to experience a bit of it at the Carter House.
So you pay in the front building and they tell you what time to meet on the Carter House front porch to start your tour. Then you are free to tour the museum while you wait. I found the museum interesting — personal articles of clothing, letters written home from Civil War soldiers, pictures of soldiers that died there including the Carter family member that was fighting on the Confederate side (even though the father was a Union supporter!), muskets, coffins, etc. Really fascinating!
Then you can walk the grounds and see the smokehouse, the office with all the bullet holes in the back of it, and the kitchen building. I thought it was cute how they had Carter house cats too — the one had extra paws that made him look like he had opposable thumbs. Maybe he could open the door at my house like my cat always tries to do!
You meet your tour guide and he starts telling you the story. The one we had definitely had a flair for drama and told everything like a story starting with lead up describing the Carter family and how the armies came to be there in Franklin. Very interesting. You get to go in the master bedroom and also the parlor area that was specially decorated for entertaining guests. Check out the molding around the bottom of the room that was painted to look like marble! Check out the rocking chair with a bullet hole through it! And then they take you out on the grounds to show you where the battle was taking place. Then you go back in to see the basement where the Carter family hid while the battle waged on around them. You also go in another bedroom too where the middle Carter son died a day after the battle from his wounds.
The entire tour takes about an hour and the guides are all knowledgeable. As I said, our tour guide had a flair for the dramatic and I liked it all up until the end when it sounded like I had transformed from a tour of the house to church where they were about to beg for $$. He didn’t and it wasn’t like that, but I had that same weird uncomfortable feeling. Maybe I was just hungover and things struck me as weird. But he was still kickass in all other ways. Speaking of hungover, the musty smell in some of the rooms kind of stifled me and made me feel sick to my stomach so if you have a sensitive stomach or drink too much just be aware. Also, we didn’t get to go anywhere upstairs. I thought that you used to be able to go up there on the tour? I might be mistaken, but when I came as a kid for field trips I thought we did.
Definitely go to the Carter house if you are in town and want to learn a bit more about the Battle of Franklin, the Civil War, and history in general.

Our tour guide was awesome! The tour was awesome. I learned so much from this one place. It poured on us but that only made everyone of us on this tour bond. The tour guide had us huddling under the roof of the smoke house. Soon the water started to cover our feet. That was when some of us in flip flops decided to make a run for the porch. We all ran to the porch and were drenched but they let us go inside anyway and continued our tour. I really can’t say enough about this place and the people running it. They really know their history and they have a way of making you feel important. I would definetly go back again.