Worn by the war and upset over the aggressive assault on his reputation, Thomas suffered a fatal stroke while writing his reply. The government almost immediately went into high gear planning the funeral of one of its great commanders. Although William T. Sherman wanted Thomas buried at West Point, the Virginian’s wife, upset at the treatment her husband had received from U. S. Grant and Schofield, insisted that the general rest in her family’s private plot in a Troy, New York, cemetery. The government provided a special train to take Thomas’s body from the Pacific coast to New York and a poignant ceremony was held at the start of the general’s final journey. Thomas’s biographer Francis F. McKinney described the event:
At 6:30 a.m. on March 30 the coffin was put aboard the Oakland ferry and, as the little steamer left the San Francisco dock, the first of fifty-four minute guns [one for each year of his life] sounded from the fort on Alcatraz Island. Anchored in the stream, her hull hidden by the fog drifting through the Golden Gate, Her Britannic Majesty’s frigate Zealous answered Alcatraz gun for gun. At Oakland Point, the coffin was placed in a special car and at 8 a.m. started for Troy, New York.49
But what of Thomas’s place in history? That he had been one of the war’s most able commanders stood without doubt. Although his military abilities and personal character were praised by his subordinates, colleagues, and even the Confederates who opposed him, Thomas’s legacy—like John Bell Hood’s— would be largely defined by others.
During the 1880s and 1890s a clique of four men aspired to control northern Civil War memory: U. S. Grant, William Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and John Schofield.50 Just as the Southern Historical Society did in the former Confederacy, these prominent former Federal commanders each rose to positions of great postwar political or military power in the United States government; Grant as president, Schofield and Sherman as generals-in-chief, and Schofield as secretary of war. All worked to ensure their own high places in American history, sometimes accomplished at the expense of others and thus many Civil War historians have come to accept the view of Thomas as a solid, dependable commander, but at times could be slow and needed prodding from his more talented superiors Grant and Sherman.
Six months after Thomas’s death, another Civil War leader, Robert E. Lee, died in Lexington, Virginia, where he had been serving as president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University). Cadets from nearby Virginia Military Institute filled an important role in the funeral ceremonies, guarding the general’s body the night before. One of the young men selected for that prestigious duty, William Nalle, wrote to his mother giving details of the sad event:
All business was suspended … all over the country and town, and all duties … suspended at the institute … all the black crepe and similar black material in Lexington was used up at once, and they had to send to Lynchburg for more. Every cadet had black crepe issued to him, and an order was published … requiring us to wear it as badge of mourning for six months.51
An account of the funeral in the October 21, 1870, Lexington Gazette described the congregation as “vast and impressive … the deepest solemnity pervaded the entire multitude.” Lee’s exalted position in Southern society was acknowledged even before his deification by Lost Cause strategists. A veteran recalled Lee as “the grandest thing in all the world to us …we trusted him like a providence and obeyed him like a god.”52
Nine years later in New Orleans another of the South’s most prominent generals, in contrast, received but an obscure and abbreviated ceremony. Only a few friends accompanied John Bell Hood’s wooden casket down empty streets from Trinity Episcopal Church to Lafayette Cemetery No.1, while a hastily assembled local militia group provided a military touch.53 No matter the cause of death it seems that Hood had been chosen by fate and circumstance to fill the role as one of the scapegoats for the South’s defeat.
Hood had not been the borderline “psychotic” who associated valor with casualty figures and he certainly had not been stupid.54 His historical reputation appears to have been defined by forces beyond his control. After achieving noteworthy successes with Robert E. Lee during the war’s early years he later took command of the Confederacy’s great western army at a time when Southern fortunes were rapidly approaching their nadir and despite his best efforts, he failed.
When the war ended, Hood worked to build a new life by doing good work. He found a home, a wife, children, and community respect in New Orleans. During that time he was confronted by the Lost Cause men of Virginia who endeavored to designate his position in history. Until his death he fought against this new opponent, striving to defend himself by explaining—in his own words—his role in the war. Even after his death the revisionists of history kept at their work.
John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General attempts to correct historical wrongs done to both Hood the man and the soldier, overturn the labels, and reveal how dominant individuals and groups have influenced history. George Thomas had faith that one day history would do him justice and his wish has been largely fulfilled in recent years. As an illustration, in the mid-2000s, the Civil War magazine North & South featured an article titled “Top Ten Generals,” in which a panel of experts ranked Thomas fourth among all commanders, blue and gray. One of the panel’s historians even placed Thomas ahead of William Sherman.55
A similar feature that appeared on the popular internet site Civilwarinteractive.com in 2005 illustrated the enigma of Hood’s career as perceived by the modern Civil War history community. In a poll of the ten best and ten worst Civil War generals, only one—John Bell Hood—appeared on both lists. “John Bell Hood, 1862-63” was listed as a “best” general while “John Bell Hood, 1864” appeared on the “worst” list.
For Hood things are improving, but at a slow pace. Brian Miller’s recent book John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory examines the historical treatment of the general, revealing many inaccuracies and biases against Hood. Likewise author Eric Jacobson courageously ignored myth and orthodoxy in his recent book For Cause and For Country: A Study of the Spring Hill Affair and the Battle of Franklin, providing Civil War scholarship an unfiltered and unbiased presentation of those events, which have come to define Hood’s enigmatic career.
Much remains to be done. The Southern Historical Society Papers is a gold mine of information for historians when it comes to men like Hood and Longstreet whose stories—one hundred and fifty years later—remain largely untold.
The battle for historical objectivity won’t be won without a struggle. Leopold von Ranke, one of the founders of modern source-based history, urged us to strive to write history wie es eigentlich gewesen ist (“how it essentially was”).56 In practical terms, this is probably impossible as too many barriers stand between past events and the present. Historians, however, should try to get as close as they can. After all, it is this effort that separates us from writers of fiction. History, like a well-tended garden, requires some regular maintenance—weeds must be removed so that flowers can be seen at their best advantage.
Put another way, as Civil War historian Bruce Catton once observed, there are times when history needs upgrading.57
Thomas J. Brown
A previously unpublished postwar photograph of John Bell Hood.
John Bell Hood Personal Papers
1The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (Washington, DC, 1880-1901), Series 1, vol. 38, pt. 3, 636, hereafter cited as OR. All references are to Series 1 unless otherwise noted.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Brian C. Miller, John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2010), 203.
5 Ibid., 178-179.
6 Ibid., 203.
7 Ibid., 201.
8 Thomas Connelly and Barbara Bellows, God and General Longstreet: The Lost Cause and the Southern Mind (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 39.
&nb
sp; 9 Ibid., 41,199-200.
10 Miller, John Bell Hood, 178-179.
11 Connelly and Bellows, God and General Longstreet, 23-25.
12 Ibid., 21; Gaines Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause and the Emergence of the New South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 6; Thomas Connelly, The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and his Image in American Society (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), 68.
13 David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory(Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2001), 267.
14 OR 45, pt. 3, 659, 665; Miller, John Bell Hood, 204.
15 Miller, John Bell Hood, 205.
16 Ibid.
17 John Bell Hood, Advance and Retreat (Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Gray Press, 1985), 304.
18 Ibid., 316.
19 Miller, John Bell Hood, 208.
20 Richard McMurry, Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 98-99.
21 Ibid., 96.
22 Ibid.
23 Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations Directed During the Civil War, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1990), 356-357.
24 Miller, John Bell Hood, 220.
25 Ibid., 225.
26 Ibid., 222.
27 Ibid., 222.
28 Ibid., 223.
29 Ibid., 223-224.
30 Ibid., 212.
31 Ibid., 212.
32 Ibid., 212-213.
33 Stephen Davis essay “A Reappraisal of the Generalship of John Bell Hood in the Battles for Atlanta,” in Theodore P. Savas and David A. Woodbury, eds., The Campaign For Atlanta and Sherman’s March to the Sea (Campbell, CA: Savas Woodbury Publishers, 1992), 82.
34 Miller, John Bell Hood, 213.
35 Ibid., 213.
36 Ibid., 176.
37 Harold B. Simpson, Hood’s Texas Brigade, vol. 2 (Fort Worth, TX: Landmark Publishing, 1999), 126.
38 Ibid.
39 Richard McMurry, John Bell Hood and the War for Southern Independence (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), see Introduction.
40 Owen Letters, March 15, 1862, in Simpson, Hood’s Texas Brigade, vol. 3, 91.
41 Ibid., Simpson, Hood’s Texas Brigade, vol. 2, 158.
42 Ibid., 160.
43 Ibid., 161.
44 Ibid., 161-162.
45 Ibid., 169.
46 Russell Bonds War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta, (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2009), 77. According to Bonds, he was unable to find any contemporary records that describe or even suggest that Hood was nicknamed “Old Woodenhead” by his troops.
47 Ibid.
48 Robert P. Broadwater, General George H. Thomas: A Biography of the Union’s Rock of Chickamauga (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2009), 230.
49 Francis F. McKinney, Education in Violence: The Life of General George H. Thomas and the History of the Army of the Cumberland (Chicago: Americana House, 1991), 471-472.
50 Benson Bobrick, Master of War: The Life of General George H. Thomas (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), 334.
51 www.vmi.edu/archiv. Virginia Military Institute Archives, “The Funeral of General Robert E. Lee,” 1-2; William Nalle letter, “The Funeral of General Robert E. Lee,” March 4, 2011.
52 Ibid.
53 McMurry, John Bell Hood, 203; Richard O’Connor, Hood: Cavalier General (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1949), 278.
54 Connelly, The Army of Tennessee, 431.
55 North & South magazine, vol. 6, number 4.
56 Bjanepr.Wordpress.com.
57 Bruce Catton review of McKinney’s Education in Violence, www.home.earthlink.net/~oneplez/majorgeneralgeorgehthomasblogsite/id35.html.
“God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.”
— Ambrose Bierce
Introduction
It’s a shame a book like this even has to be written. Some reviewers might call it a hagiography of General Hood and say that it lacks balance. In fact, this book does not require balance because it represents the balance that is missing from most modern books and articles that have been published about Hood and his tenure as commander of the Army of Tennessee.
Most new readers of Civil War history will likely reach for one or more of the widely read and influential books about Hood as their introduction to the man and his generalship. My wish is that they read this book in conjunction with others, for these pages intentionally present only the quotes, comments, and excerpts I have accumulated in more than ten years of study and research that support Hood and his decisions with the Army of Tennessee. And therein rests the “balance” mentioned earlier, because the words and comments of Hood’s critics are well-chronicled in the works of authors such as Thomas Connelly, James McDonough, Wiley Sword, and many others whose books and articles are largely cleansed of interpretations and references to historical records that shine a positive light on Hood’s reputation.
This may strike some as difficult to believe. I assure you, the chapters awaiting you will disabuse you of this belief. Those who have read some of these authors who have written on Hood and the Tennessee Campaign will wonder whether they are reading about the same general. During the early decades of the twentieth century, when good Civil War scholarship relied on the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion in conjunction with letters, diaries, and memoirs, authors often disregarded the Lost Cause version of Hood the Butcher and typically portrayed him for what he had been: a highly successful young brigade and division commander who impressed his men and superiors alike and excited the general public. A warrior promoted to corps command in 1864 and then to lead an army; an idealistic leader who sacrificed half his body attempting (but ultimately failing) to do what was nearly impossible.
In appreciation for the maimed Confederate hero, the Andrew Female Academy in Cuthbert, Georgia, was converted in 1864 to a military hospital and named Hood Hospital in honor of the Army of Tennessee’s commander who led the attempt to defend Atlanta. After the war, Hood was appointed president of the Southern Hospital Association for Disabled Soldiers and was frequently honored with landmarks, places, and children named for him. In addition to Fort Hood, the U.S. Army base in Texas, there is a Hood County, Texas, and a John B. Hood Middle School in Dallas. Manassas, Virginia, has a Hood Road. In Cohutta, Georgia, near Dalton, there is a John Bell Hood Drive, and a Hood Avenue in Atlanta, and General Hood Road in Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia. Even in Nashville—the epicenter of the modern anti-Hood universe—landmarks abound, including General Hood Trail and Hood’s Hill Road in Nashville, Hood Place in Oak Hill, and Hood Drive in Brentwood, near Franklin. A former governor of Alabama was named Forrest Hood “Fob” James, Jr. It is highly unlikely that anything or anyone would have been named after John Bell Hood had today’s version of his reputation existed during the decades immediately following the war.
It is interesting to note that in 1885, John Bell Hood’s brother William moved to—of all places—Nashville, Tennessee, where in 1897 he married a Nashville woman named Mary Jane Brewer. (William’s first wife had died in 1888.) They remained in Middle Tennessee for the rest of their lives. William died in Warren County, Tennessee, in 1906 and is buried near the town of McMinnville. It is fair to say that John Bell Hood’s brother would never have moved from his ancestral home in central Kentucky to Nashville and married a local woman if the disdain for the general asserted by today’s authors existed in the immediate postwar era.1
John Bell Hood’s wife, Anna Marie Hennen, of New Orleans was the great-granddaughter of James Robertson, the “Father of Tennessee” and founder of the city of Nashville in 1784. Would Anna’s family of society-conscious New Orleans lawyers have approved the courtship and marriage of their daughter in 1868 to a man as despicable as the John Bell Hood of the late twentieth century? These few examples (and the many more to follow) demonstrate that John Bell Hood had a very different reputation during and immediately after the Ci
vil War than what modern Civil War literature has led so many to believe.
Unfortunately, by the middle of the twentieth century, the second and third generation of Civil War books came to rely more and more on the opinions and facts (often biased and erroneous) of earlier authors rather than simply the historical record written by the men and women who lived it. For example, a 128-page book about Confederate Texas troops in the Tennessee Campaign published in 2002 contains some 325 endnotes, of which only 16 are based upon the Official Records. The same book cites John Bell Hood detractor Wiley Sword’s Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah 35 times.2 Although some letters, memoirs, and diaries are cited, nearly 2/3s of the author’s sources are simply earlier books, many of which are highly biased and themselves weakly grounded in contemporary historical data on many key issues. Thousands of Civil War books have been published by professional and amateur writers alike. Sadly, many of them incestuously recycle the findings and perspectives—often filtered and inaccurately paraphrased—of previous writers. “History repeats itself,” wrote English historian Philip Guedalla in 1920. “Historians repeat each other.”3
It is much easier to write a monograph or article based largely on the contents of secondary sources (i.e., previously published material written by non-participants). No complete and accurate history can be written without grounding it in primary sources. Before something in an earlier book or article can be cited, it is the writer’s responsibility and duty to use every reasonable means possible to confirm its sources. This is especially true when the assertions are essential to an important issue or allegation. Unfortunately, too many authors routinely cite other writers whose own words are frequently inaccurate or erroneous. Worse yet, some authors even assert the opinions of earlier authors as “facts.” Do this often enough, book after book, and the general reading public will come to view these opinions as historical truth.
Although John Bell Hood became a target of the Lost Cause architects in the late nineteenth century, the destruction of his reputation parallels his increasingly negative portrayal in four major books about the Army of Tennessee and Hood’s Tennessee Campaign published between 1929 and 1992: Thomas Hay’s Hood’s Tennessee Campaign (1929), Stanley Horn’s The Army of Tennessee (1941), Thomas Connelly’s Autumn of Glory (1971), and Wiley Sword’s Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah (1992). It is difficult to find a book or article about the Civil War in the Western Theater published after 1992 in which these publications do not appear extensively in the source notes. These books, then, will appear extensively in the pages that follow. On the other hand, critical references to the generally accurate and objective three major Hood biographies—Richard O’Connor’s Hood: Cavalier General (1949), John Dyer’s The Gallant Hood (1950), and Richard McMurry’s John Bell Hood and the War for Southern Independence (1982)—are largely absent from this study.
John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General Page 3