John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General

by Hood, Stephen

  31 Thomas T. Taylor Letters, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH.

  Chapter 6

  “Perhaps nobody has changed the course of history as much as historians.”

  — Franklin P. Jones

  Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: The Tennessee Campaign

  A notable characteristic of the often slanted interpretation and onesided portrayal of John Bell Hood’s military career is the highly critical account of the conception and planning of the failed 1864 Tennessee Campaign. The incomplete and often biased presentation of Hood’s final campaign has, unfortunately, largely defined his otherwise remarkable military career.

  It had long been the desire of the Confederate government that a major offensive movement be undertaken into Tennessee. In fact, Joseph Johnston was been placed in command of a heavily reinforced Army of Tennessee in early 1864 with the expectation that he would launch just such an offensive. After the fall of Atlanta, the need for an invasion of Tennessee became even more critical. Despite postwar denials, Jefferson Davis publicly announced Hood’s planned move into Tennessee (although the details were left to Hood and to P. G. T. Beauregard).

  Hood’s memoirs recorded for posterity his personal and unambiguous account of how the Tennessee Campaign was conceived and molded into a workable plan. Far from being solely dependent on one man’s judgment, the details of the campaign, so crucial to the war effort in late 1864, was the product of consultation, advice, and approval at the highest levels of the Confederate government and War Department. Hood’s long account (reproduced below) is important reading for the purposes of our discussion:

  No better proof can be adduced of the wisdom of this campaign than the foregoing dispatches, together with our success in drawing Sherman back, within ten days, to Snake Creek Gap, the identical position he occupied in May, 1864. Had the Army been in the fighting condition in which it was at Dalton, or at Franklin, I feel confident of our ability to have at least so crippled the enemy in pitched battle as to have retained possession of the mountains of Georgia. When I consider also the effect of this movement upon the Federal commanders, I cannot but become impressed with the facility with which the Confederate Army would have taken possession of the country as far north as the Ohio [River], if it had marched in the early Spring of ‘64, to the rear of the Federals (who were at Chattanooga assembling their forces); and when, in addition to the troops at Dalton, Polk’s Army, Longstreet’s Corps, and ten thousand men from Beauregard, were proffered for that purpose.

  After halting two days at Cross Roads, I decided to make provision for twenty days’ supply of rations in the haversacks and wagons; to order a heavy reserve of artillery to accompany the Army, in order to overcome any serious opposition by the Federal gunboats; to cross the Tennessee at or near Guntersville, and destroy Sherman’s communications, at Stevenson and Bridgeport; to move upon Thomas and Schofield, and attempt to route and capture their Army before it could reach Nashville. I intended then to march upon that city where I would supply the Army and reinforce it, if possible, by the accessions from Tennessee. I was imbued with the belief that I could accomplish this feat, afterward march northeast, pass the Cumberland River at some crossing where the gunboats, if too formidable at other points, were unable to interfere; then move into Kentucky, and take position with our left at or near Richmond, and our right extending toward Hazelgreen, with Pound and Stoney Gaps, in the Cumberland Mountains, at our rear.

  In this position I could threaten Cincinnati, and recruit the Army from Kentucky and Tennessee; the former State was reported, at this juncture, to be more aroused and embittered against the Federals than at any period of the war. While Sherman was debating between the alternative of following our Army or marching through Georgia, I hoped, by rapid movements, to achieve these results.

  If Sherman cut loose and moved south—as I then believed he would do after I left his front without previously worsting him in battle—I would occupy at Richmond, Kentucky, a position of superior advantage, as Sherman, upon his arrival at the sea coast, would be forced to go on board ship, and, after a long detour by water and land, repair to the defense of Kentucky and Ohio or march direct to the support of Grant. If he returned to confront my forces, or followed me directly from Georgia into Tennessee and Kentucky, I hoped then to be in position to offer battle; and, if blessed with victory, to send reinforcements to General Lee, in Virginia, or to march through the gaps in the Cumberland Mountains, and attack Grant in rear. This latter course I would pursue in the event of defeat or of inability to offer battle to Sherman. If on the other hand he marched to join Grant, I could pass through the Cumberland gaps to Petersburg, and attack Grant in rear, at least two weeks before he, Sherman, could render him assistance. This move, I believed, would defeat Grant, and allow General Lee, in command of our entire Armies, to march upon Washington or turn and annihilate Sherman.

  Such is the plan which during the 15th and 16th, as we lay in bivouac near Lafayette, I maturely considered, and determined to endeavor to carry out. In accordance therewith, I decided to move to Gadsden, where, if I met General Beauregard, I intended to submit to him, the foregoing plan of operations, expressing at the same time my conviction that therein lay the only hope to bring victory to the Confederate arms… .

  Shortly after my arrival at Gadsden, General Beauregard reached the same point: I at once unfolded to him my plan, and requested that he confer apart with the corps commanders, Lieutenant-Generals Lee and Stewart and MajorGeneral Cheatham. If after calm deliberation he deemed it expedient we should remain upon the Alabama line and attack Sherman, or take position, entrench, and finally follow on his rear when he moved south, I would of course acquiesce, albeit with reluctance. If, contrariwise, he should agree to my proposed plan to cross into Tennessee, I would move immediately to Guntersville, thence to Stevenson, Bridgeport, and Nashville.

  This important question at issue was discussed during the greater part of one night, with maps before us. General Beauregard at length took the ground that if I engaged in the projected campaign, it would be necessary to leave in Georgia all the cavalry at present with the Army, in order to watch and harass Sherman in case he moved south, and to instruct Forrest to join me as soon as I crossed the Tennessee river. To this proposition I acceded. After he had held a separate conference with the corps commanders, we again debated several hours over the course of action to be pursued; and, during the interview, I discovered that he had gone to work in earnest to ascertain, in person, the true condition of the Army; that he had sought information not only from the corps commanders, but from a number of officers and had reached the same conclusion I had formed at Lafayette: we were not competent to offer pitched battle to Sherman, nor could we follow him south without causing our retrograde movement to be construed by the troops into a recurrence of retreat, which would entail desertions and render the army of little or no use in its opposition to the enemy’s march through Georgia. After two days deliberation General Beauregard authorized me, on the evening of the 21st of October, to proceed to the execution of my plan of operations into Tennessee. At this point, it may be considered, closed the campaign to the Alabama line.1

  In spite of Hood’s explanation, modern authors have taken an opposing view of his rationale as well as his competence to accomplish the mission. In his biography of the general, historian Richard McMurry—by comparison with most other historians a generally sympathetic and very careful Hood scholar— labeled the Tennessee Campaign an “unrealistic dream,” and in a later publication described it as “probably the most poorly planned and executed major campaign of the war.” In their treatment of Hood’s Tennessee Campaign entitled Five Tragic Hours: The Battle of Franklin, Thomas Connelly and James McDonough seemed to concur with McMurry, alluding to the abundance of “outright errors” in Hood’s plan. They concluded with a suggestion that the failed campaign should be utilized for military study: “the difficulties and outright errors in such a plan were so profuse that the schem
e would have made a textbook study at West Point.” Likewise, James McPherson depicted Hood’s late 1864 plan to press into Tennessee as one that “seemed to have been scripted in never-never land.”2

  Eric Jacobson, one of Hood’s most supportive modern authors, described Hood’s 1864 strategy as “grandiose,” and criticized Hood for wanting to go north: “Furthermore, as he readied for the offensive, the old and dated dream of the Ohio River and what lay beyond came alive.” There is no record of Hood desiring to take his army beyond the Ohio River.3

  In retrospect, it is easy to judge the late-war Confederate invasion of Tennessee as unrealistic, unnecessary, and futile. In late 1864, however, Southern politicians urged the military to act. In a speech to the Confederate Congress on November 29, 1864—delivered during Hood’s flank march to Spring Hill, as fate would have it—Tennessee’s Senator Gustavus Henry appealed to the Confederate War Department with flamboyant eloquence:

  The Jews when they were carried away into captivity in Babylon, never looked more anxiously for deliverance than they are looking even now for the Confederate army to enter (Tennessee), and strike from their limbs their galling chains. They are now, sir, standing on tiptoe, straining their eyes to catch the first glimpse of the Confederate flag as it floats out upon the wild winds free on yonder hill, and long for its coming as the hunted heart pants for the water brook. I confidently predict, if our army enters (Tennessee) and maintains its position there for three months, that its numbers will be doubled.

  I further predict, Mr. President, if our army goes into Kentucky and stays there three months, and gives to that people any assurance that we will hold it and stand by them and not, by coming speedily away, hand them over to the ravenous wolves who will thirst for their blood, thousands will join our army, and re-enact the scenes of the “dark and bloody ground,” and add new lustre to this, the most memorable struggle in the annals of time, in which Kentucky has not as yet, as a State, participated. I do not overestimate it when I predict that fifty thousand as gallant men as ever shouldered a musket or hung a sabre to the thigh, will be added as fresh recruits to our army from Kentucky and Tennessee. Sir, they constitute the best recruiting grounds now in America. The people of both States are now ripe for action, and will come to the rescue of our gallant army with alacrity.4

  It is quite revealing that a copy of Henry’s speech was found in one of the recently discovered collections of Hood’s personal papers. Among the artifacts held by a private collector in Fort Worth, Texas, are Hood family photographs, news articles, memorabilia, and miscellaneous ephemera. Hood, who died in New Orleans in 1879, kept a typescript of the Tennessee senator’s speech in his collection of important papers, which strongly suggests that Senator Henry’s view on the contemporary public mindset and importance of the Tennessee invasion may have been a primary influence on Hood’s decision-making in the winter of 1864.5

  In Autumn of Glory, Thomas Connelly ominously titled his chapter on the Tennessee Campaign “Dreams of Glory,” a clear foretelling of the cynical interpretation and portrayal that followed. Writing of Hood’s postwar explanation, Connelly called him a liar: “Hood was blatantly dishonest. He asserted in his memoirs that from the outset he had planned to defeat forces accumulating in Tennessee under the command of Generals George Thomas and John Schofield. Yet Hood did not even know such forces were accumulating.” (Surely Connelly did not believe that Hood and his superiors assumed Tennessee would be surrendered by Lincoln and Grant without a fight?)6

  Continuing his allegations, Connelly strongly opined in eloquent detail for several paragraphs (supported by no primary sources) that Hood’s invasion was little short of lunacy. Moreover, Connelly belittled Hood’s long-range plan of moving to Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, asserting that he had no short-term plan for contending with Schofield and Thomas: “Hood’s objectives in the march were clouded. Apparently the general himself was not certain where he was going… . Later he claimed that he knew that Thomas was at Nashville, separated from Schofield… . Thus, he and others created the impression of a race for Columbia that probably was more fiction than reality.”7

  The historical record conclusively proves Connelly was wrong. General Henry Clayton wrote to his wife on September 21 from Palmetto, Georgia, that “The troops are delighted at the idea of an advance move and in most excellent spirits.” Clayton wrote to her again on October 15 from Lafayette, Georgia: “The spirit of our men is improving daily. The Tennesseans are perfectly jubilant at the prospect of going again into their state.” On November 8, Clayton confirmed the movement to Nashville, writing: “The impression is that we move in the direction of Nashville.” A regimental surgeon, Dr. Urban Owen, wrote to his wife on November 19, 1864, from Florence, Alabama, confirming that Hood knew Federal forces commanded by Schofield had been detached from Nashville: “Our Gen’ls all say that our route is to get between Thomas’s army and Nashville.” (At that time “Thomas’s army” consisted solely of Schofield’s single corps, camped in Pulaski, Tennessee.)8

  Many scholars have innocently misinterpreted Hood’s long-range plans and intentions for the campaign, among them bestselling novelist and military author Winston Groom. After evacuating Atlanta, Groom wrote, Hood decided to “march his army up to capture Chicago, an expedition that ended in tragedy with the battles in and around Nashville, Tenn.” In fact, Hood said nothing about Chicago; rather, it was Ulysses S. Grant who wrote, “If I had been in Hood’s place I would have gone to Louisville and on north until I came to Chicago… . We would have had to raise new levies. I was never so anxious during the war as at that time.” The popular concept of Chicago being a possible goal of Hood originated from Grant’s pen, not Hood’s.9

  After the fall of Atlanta, Hood and others were convinced of the urgent need for the Army of Tennessee to take the offensive. Beginning with the defeat at Missionary Ridge in late 1863, the army had retreated steadily from the mountains of north Georgia in the spring of 1864 to the gates of Atlanta in mid-July. After the change of commanders, the Confederate army fought a series of large-scale battles in July and August, but Atlanta fell in early September. Although still a potent force numbering some 40,000 battle-hardened veterans and support personnel, the Army of Tennessee, like all Confederate armies at this point in the war, was plagued by desertions during the tenures of both Johnston and Hood.

  Hood believed that taking the offensive was absolutely necessary in order to restore the morale of the army, and he was not alone in this estimation. In his official report dated January 30, 1865, corps commander Stephen D. Lee commented on the disposition of the army after the Atlanta Campaign but before the movement north into Tennessee: “It was my opinion that the Army should take up the offensive, with the hope that favorable opportunities would be offered for striking the enemy successfully, thus ensuring the efficiency of the army for future operations.” Another of Hood’s corps commanders, A. P. Stewart, concurred that the Army of Tennessee’s low morale after losing Atlanta made an offensive movement of paramount importance: “I deem it proper to say that after the fall of Atlanta, the condition of the army and other considerations rendered it necessary, in my judgment, that an offensive campaign should be made in the enemy’s rear and on his line of communications.”10

  A Canadian journalist who interviewed Hood in mid-November 1865 recalled the general’s explanation for the invasion of Tennessee: “It was necessary for him to go on, he said, for the men were losing spirit by failure, and only some bold effort could reanimate them.”11 As Hood explained in an 1867 letter to postbellum Southern author Sarah A. Dorsey, “My experience as a soldier taught me at an early day during the Revolution that an army could not retreat in the face of an enemy without great loss in spirit and numbers.” Noting that the Army of Tennessee was depleted when he took command in the summer of 1864, having lost more than 20,000 men during Johnston’s “unfortunate” retreat, Hood was promoted to lead the Western army “although I did not desire the command.” “The ho
lding of my position around Atlanta for forty-three days improved the morale of the soldiers,” Hood claimed, “but finally being forced to abandon this untenable city, again causing the recommence of retreat, my army was very much discouraged.” Thereafter, according to Hood,

  All the corps commanders expressed the opinion that to stand still was certain ruin, and recommended that the offensive be taken as the only hope of improving & increasing the army. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia & the Carolinas had no men at the ready that could be sent to my aid, I decided to push forward into Tennessee, attempt the capture of Nashville, move into Kentucky and open communications with Genl. Lee.

  This accomplished I thought would compel Genl. Sherman to abandon the swamps of Georgia and accept battle between the waters of the Cumberland & Ohio.

  The capture of Nashville and regaining so much lost territory, I was quite certain would give new life to our people, recruit our thinned ranks, and give that tone to the army I had been so long accustomed in Virginia, [and] would ensure victory to our arms, and finally secure our freedom.

  “Accidents, however, perhaps beyond human control,” concluded Hood, “caused the campaign to fail at a time the fruits of victory were seemingly within our grasp.”12

  In an address to Confederate veterans delivered in 1872, Hood explained the importance of aggressiveness when he said that “twenty-five thousand soldiers, made veterans by offensive war, were equal to fifty thousand kept constantly on the defensive.” Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Hood explained, “appreciated the supreme necessity of maintaining splendent and spotless the morale of an army. They knew that to remain in trenches, even for a short time, was to dampen the ardor of the bravest. Lee and Jackson,” he added, “knew not how to retreat day after day in the face of the enemy, losing more in stragglers than in killed and wounded, nor how to demoralize their armies by throwing up breastworks by day, to be given up in the stillness of night, and thus unfit their men for battle save within well-fortified lines.”13