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

by Hood, Stephen

  After recovering and returning to duty in November 1862, Johnston was given another important command by Davis, who admitted, “Though my confidence in him had been much shaken, it had not yet been destroyed.” Having failed in the immediate command of an army in the field, the senior commander was assigned by Davis “to a different class of duties”—a departmental command of an area encompassing several armies, each with its own commander. The department included the forces commanded by Braxton Bragg in Tennessee, Franklin Gardner at Port Hudson, Louisiana, John Pemberton at Vicksburg, and John Forney in Alabama. Davis noted that proof of his confidence in Johnston was illustrated by the fact that this new command would “embrace within its limits my own home and those of my nearest relatives and friends.” Indeed, “few were exposed to a more total loss of property than myself in the event of his disastrous failure in this new command.”41

  Johnston proved as ineffective during his second command tenure as he had during his first in northern Virginia. Johnston failed to promptly perceive General Grant’s movement on Vicksburg, and he did not personally move to “that vital point” until he was ordered to do so by the Confederate War Department. When he arrived too late to join Pemberton’s trapped army in Vicksburg, Johnston established his headquarters in Jackson and Canton, where he remained essentially inactive despite Richmond’s pleas that he attack Grant. According to Davis, Johnston “was thereupon pressed to attack the forces of Banks at Port Hudson and rescue the army of General Gardner, but declined on the ground that he feared Grant would seize the occasion to advance upon Jackson, which place he considered too important to be exposed.”42

  A thoroughly exasperated Davis wrote that Grant seized both Vicksburg and Port Hudson “without one blow on his (Johnston’s) part to relieve either,” and then moved on Jackson, where Johnston “remained within his lines and permitted Grant again to concentrate a large force.” Then, according to Davis, “No sooner had the enemy commenced investing Jackson than General Johnston pronounced it untenable.” Despite commanding an army of some 25,000, Johnston evacuated Jackson and withdrew to eastern Mississippi. As a result, the Confederacy suffered “one of the most serious and irreparable sacrifices of property that has occurred during the war.” Davis recalled that Johnston’s actions had cost the South “a very large number of locomotives, said to be about ninety, and several hundred cars,” and that the Confederate cause “never recovered from the injury to the transportation service occasioned by this failure on his part.”43

  “My confidence in General Johnston’s fitness for separate command was now destroyed,” confessed the Confederate president, who went on to add in no uncertain terms that one of his top generals was “deficient in enterprise, tardy in movement, defective in preparation, and singularly neglectful” of his duties.44

  In a preview of what would become a major issue in the Atlanta Campaign of 1864, President Davis also took note of Johnston’s tight-lipped demeanor. “Neither in this nor in his previous command had it been possible for me to obtain from General Johnston any communications of his plans or purposes beyond vague statements of an intention to counteract the enemy as their plans might be developed,” complained the Southern president. “I came to the conclusion that it would be imprudent to entrust General Johnston with another independent command for active operations in the field.”45

  Several months later, with few viable options remaining, Davis “yielded my convictions, and gave him a third trial.” Unfortunately, Johnston’s performance in north Georgia in 1864 proved to be identical in substance, style, and result to his first two commands.46

  Davis recalled that after General Bragg’s resignation following the disastrous battle of Missionary Ridge, the Army of Tennessee’s senior subordinate, Gen. William J. Hardee “distrusting his own ability, earnestly requested the selection of another commander for the army.” Of the three Confederate field generals holding sufficient rank, only Johnston was available because neither Robert E. Lee (commanding the Army of Northern Virginia) nor Pierre G. T. Beauregard (commanding Charleston and the coastal defenses in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida) “could properly be withdrawn from the position occupied by them.” (The Confederate Congress had not yet adopted the law authorizing the appointment of general officers to temporary rank.) President Davis went on to lament that although “there seemed to be scarcely a choice left,” some members of his cabinet and other advisors “represented that it might well be the case that his assignment with the disasters apprehended from it would be less calamitous than the injury arising from an apparent indifference to the wishes and opinions of the officers of the State governments, of many members of Congress, and of other prominent citizens.” Davis forever regretted the decision he finally made and clearly admitted as much. “I committed the error of yielding to these suggestions against my own deliberate convictions,” he later explained, “and General Johnston entered upon his third important command, that of the army designed to recover the State of Tennessee from the enemy.”47

  Johnston assumed command of the Army of Tennessee in February of 1864 with instructions to advance into Tennessee as soon as reinforcements of both men and materials arrived. Davis explained that the winter was dry and mild, and that Hardee reported the army to be sufficiently rested and supplied after the defeat at Missionary Ridge three months earlier. “The government spared nothing of men and materials” in reinforcing Johnston, including “batteries made for General Lee’s army” diverted to Johnston, Polk’s Army of Mississippi “placed at his disposal,” and cavalry “returned from East Tennessee to assist him.”48

  Johnston’s indecisive tendencies, consistently demonstrated during the first three years of the war, persisted. “General Johnston made no attempt to advance,” pointed out Davis. “As soon as he assumed command he suggested deficiencies and difficulties to be encountered in an offensive movement, which he declared himself unable to overcome. The enemy commenced advancing in May, and General Johnston began retreating.” Abandoning vast regions of northern Georgia “abounding in supplies” and whose mountains and rivers provided “admirable facilities for defense,” Johnston, according to Davis, “so disheartened and demoralized the army that he himself announced by telegram large losses from straggling and desertion,” until the army “was finally brought to the suburbs of Atlanta.”49

  Johnston’s persistent secretiveness also continued. “No information was sent to me,” Davis recounted, “that tended to dispel the apprehension then generally expressed that Atlanta also was to be abandoned when seriously threatened.” According to the Southern president, by this time public sentiment about Johnson had changed. Davis revealed that “some of those who had most earnestly urged General Johnston’s assignment to the command of the army when it was at Dalton now with equal earnestness pressed his prompt removal.”50

  Davis continued his desperate and relentless attempts to learn of Johnston’s intentions, writing that he “preferred, by direct inquiry of General Johnston, to obtain that which had been too long withheld, his plan for future operations.” The commander’s reply suggested “that he intended leaving the entrenchments of Atlanta under the guard of the Georgia militia, and moving out with his army into the field.” This was confirmed by Georgia militia commander G. W. Smith, who wrote to Hood in 1879, “I wonder if Old Joe did intend to leave my little band in charge of Atlanta whilst the three corps and the cavalry were hunting for Sherman’s right of left flank … Wouldn’t that have been a kettle of fish?” According to Davis, “This was regarded as conclusive that Atlanta was also to be given up without a battle, and I could perceive no ground for hoping that General Johnston, who had failed to check the enemy’s march from Dalton to Atlanta, through a country abounding in strong positions for defense, would be able to prevent the further advance through a level country to Macon.” Davis concluded, “He was therefore relieved. If I had been slow to consent to his assignment to that command, I was at least equally slow to agree to his removal.�
�51

  In further justifying his action, Davis cited that although Sherman’s army outnumbered Johnston’s, the disparity was relatively small, and that during the entire war no other Confederate army in any department “has been so nearly equal in numbers with the enemy as in this last campaign of General Johnston.” Davis also noted that, according to Johnston’s own reports to Richmond, nearly 25,000 casualties had been incurred in the loss of most of north Georgia, which imperiled the South’s second most important city.52

  “It was not the want of men or means which caused the disastrous failure of his campaign,” concluded Davis. “My opinion of General Johnston’s unfitness for command has ripened slowly and against my inclinations into a conviction so settled that it would be impossible for me again to feel confidence in him as the commander of an army in the field.”53

  There was little doubt that Johnston was going to abandon Atlanta. Prior to the fall of the city, Capt. Samuel Foster of Hiram Granbury’s brigade recorded in his diary that holding Atlanta was a futile task that “Joe Johnston said could not be done.” An infantry captain was aware of Johnston’s intentions (or believed he knew them) to surrender the city, yet Richmond was kept in the dark.54 Johnston’s dismissal from command of the Army of Tennessee was the fault of Joseph Johnston, not of John Bell Hood, nor of any other individual.

  It is commonly believed that virtually all of the soldiers of the Army of Tennessee criticized the appointment of Hood to army command. Of Hood’s ascension to command of the Army of Tennessee, historian Thomas Connelly concluded that “Hood’s appointment … wreaked bitterness among the private soldiers of the army.” It is certain that some soldiers did not like Hood, but records suggest it was the removal of Johnston that most disappointed the disgruntled soldiers of the Army of Tennessee, not the appointment of Hood.55

  Many authors cite Pvt. Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee Infantry in support of their assertions that the soldiers disliked Hood. At one point in his memoir Company Aytch, Watkins wrote the following: “The most terrible and disastrous blow the South ever received was when Hon. Jefferson Davis placed General Hood in command of the Army of Tennessee.” Although Watkins’s oft recited quote seems straightforward, it is rather enigmatic and contradicts several other comments he made in praise of Hood. Elsewhere in his book, for example, Watkins wrote of his and his comrades’ affection and respect for him: “[Hood] was a noble, brave and good man, and we loved him for his many virtues and goodness of heart,” and “General John B. Hood did all that he could. The die had been cast. Our cause had been lost before he took command… . [He] fought with the ferociousness of the wounded tiger and the everlasting grip of the bulldog.” So was Hood’s assignment to command the army the terrible and disastrous blow, or was it Johnston’s removal?56

  According to many soldiers, the army wanted nobody besides Joe Johnston. “The removal of General Johnston, and the appointment of Hood to succeed him in command of the Army of Tennessee,” wrote S. A. Cunningham of the 41st Tennessee, “was an astounding event. So devoted to Johnston were his men that the presence and immediate command of General [Robert E.] Lee would not have been accepted without complaint.” Dr. Samuel Thompson, also of the 41st Tennessee, echoed these sentiments when he wrote, “Having been under Johnston’s command, it would be hard for any other commander to have pleased us.” Captain F. H. Wigfall wrote of Johnston’s removal, “A universal gloom seemed cast over the army, for they were entirely devoted to him. Gen. Hood, however, has all the qualities to attach men to him, and it was not a comparison between the two, but love for and confidence in Gen. Johnston” that disappointed the army.57

  Judge Frank Smith echoed the army’s general sentiments when he wrote in his History of the Twenty-Fourth Tennessee that the removal of Johnston “was one of the most unpopular acts of President Davis’s whole administration, especially with the rank and file of the western army.” But Smith did not claim that the soldiers disliked Hood, adding, “The soldiers had the greatest respect for Hood’s fighting qualities, which had never been doubted, and for his personal gallantry in action.”58

  Captain Samuel Foster commented extensively on Hood’s replacement of Johnston. After learning of Johnston’s removal, Foster recorded in his diary, “Johnston has so endeared himself to his soldiers, that no man can take his place.” The Texan continued, “All over camp (not only among Texas troops) can be seen this demoralization—and at all hours in the afternoon can be heard Hurrah for Joe Johnston and God D - - n Jeff Davis. For the first time, we hear men openly talk about going home, by tens and by fifties. They refuse to stand guard, or do any other camp duty, and talk open rebellion against all Military authority. The noise and confusion was kept up all night.” The outraged Foster added, “If Jeff Davis had made his appearance in this army during the excitement he would not have lived an hour.” Foster mentioned nothing of anyone’s disdain for Hood; it was Davis’s removal of Johnston that had upset the soldiers.59

  Colonel Virgil S. Murphey of the 17th Alabama viewed Hood’s replacement of Johnston differently than did Foster. “Our government had placed Hood in command,” wrote the colonel, “and as such I yielded to him my confidence and cordial cooperation.” Colonel J. N. Wyatt of the 12th Tennessee, who called Johnston “the idol of the army,” wrote that “When the order relieving him of command was read, the spectacle was touching to see; men who have borne the heat and burden of this war shed tears. But they are determined to do their duty by their country, no matter who commands.”60

  Federal General James H. Wilson, who would later command Gen. George Thomas’s cavalry against Hood in the Tennessee Campaign, supposed that the attitude of many in the Army of Tennessee might have had an impact on Hood’s results as an army commander. After the war Wilson wrote the following:

  It will be recalled that Hood succeeded Joseph E. Johnston in command of that army by the orders of Jefferson Davis, as a result of Johnston’s failure to stay Sherman’s progress toward Atlanta, and that Hood up to that time held an inferior command. Although a soldier of great personal courage and prowess, there is no doubt that he was looked upon by his contemporaries as possessing but limited ability and lacking the necessary experience for the great responsibilities thus imposed upon him. It was customary in both the Confederate and Federal armies after his advancement to decry his abilities, and this may account in some degree for the failure of his bold undertakings, but it has always seemed to me that they were ably planned and needed nothing but heavier battalions, greater resources, and better subordinates to make them successful.61

  Hood’s career is commonly described as an example of the so-called Peter Principle, and that he became “increasingly ineffective as he was promoted to lead larger, independent commands late in the war.” Although such descriptions of Hood are often neither disrespectful nor technically inaccurate, they are not necessarily fair or instructive. Hood was spectacularly successful as a brigade and division commander in 1862 and 1863. He experienced only nominal success as a corps commander during Johnston’s retreats in 1864, and as an army commander that summer failed to hold Atlanta before being soundly defeated in Tennessee. Aside from Confederate victories in 1864 in secondary theaters like Louisiana (the Red River Campaign), Shenandoah Valley, and below Richmond in the fighting in the Bermuda Hundred affair, how many Confederate army commanders could boast of major battlefield success during the final nine months of the war, when Southern resolve waned and resources became scarce? Did Robert E. Lee enjoy any decisive victories after his defeat at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863? Did Braxton Bragg win a battle after Chickamauga in September 1863? Could Joseph Johnston claim any major victories in Georgia or North Carolina in the war’s final eighteen months that turned around the flow of Sherman’s efforts? Did Richard Taylor or William Hardee succeed in defending their departments in late 1864 and 1865?62

  Stephen D. Lee summed it up best when he wrote to Hood after the war, “I do not believe any other general could have done m
ore with your army, when our cause had virtually already been lost before you took command.”63

  Like all other senior Confederate commanders, Hood enjoyed most of his successes in the first half of the war, and suffered consistent stalemates or defeats in 1864 and 1865.

  1 Hay, Hood’s Tennessee Campaign, 21.

  2 The War of the Rebellion: A Compellation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (Washington, DC, 1880-1901), Series 1, vol. 32, pt. 3, 606. Hereafter cited as OR. All references are to Series 1 unless otherwise noted; Hood letter to Louis T. Wigfall, April 5, 1864, in John Bell Hood Personal Papers; Stanley Horn, The Army of Tennessee: A Military History (Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1941), 318.

  3 Thomas Connelly, Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee 1862-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971), 322-323, 430, 417.

  4 Castel, Decision in the West, 356.

  5 Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 26,29; Wiley Sword, Courage Under Fire: Profiles in Bravery from the Battlefields of the Civil War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), 196.

  6 Webb GarrisonJr., Strange Battles of the Civil War (New York: Bristol Park Books, 2009), 269.

  7 William C. Davis, Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (New York: The Free Press, 2003), 319; Eric. A. Jacobson, For Cause and For Country: A Study of the Affair at Spring Hill and the Battle of Franklin (Franklin, TN: O’More Publishing, 2006), 19, 21.

  8 Connelly, Autumn of Glory, 323; Braxton Bragg Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH.

  9 Connelly, Autumn of Glory, 407-414.

  10 Ibid., 407; McMurry, John Bell Hood and the War for Southern Independence, 98; Joseph Wheeler Papers, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Braxton Bragg Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH; Stephen Davis, Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston and the Yankee Heavy Battalions (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2001), 105; Jefferson Davis Papers, Emory University, Atlanta, GA. Although it cannot be conclusively stated that Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk complained directly to Richmond, he was certainly perturbed by Johnston’s refusal to attack Sherman. In a letter to his wife on May 21, 1864, the general wrote, “We have been falling back from point to point to find ground” where Johnston was willing to fight. Polk stated that the army was “strong enough to do all that ought to be asked of us,” and added, “When General Johnston will offer battle I do not know.” Letter, Polk to his Wife, May 21, 1864, in Leonidas Polk Papers, University of the South, Sewanee, TN.