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

by Hood, Stephen

  Hardee ended up frontally attacking two Union corps on August 31 and was easily repulsed with the loss of approximately 2,000 men. The fate of the city of Atlanta was effectively sealed when Howard’s artillery unlimbered only 600 yards from the Jonesboro railroad depot, cutting the only remaining rail line into Atlanta.20

  It is commonly asserted, not always in a disrespectful or critical way, that Hood’s physical condition kept him from overseeing important details—most notably in the fighting around Atlanta, where historian Steven Woodworth noted that Hood’s physical incapacitation impeded him from “exercising fully effective command of a Confederate field army,” and later that November at Spring Hill, Tennessee. The battles of Ezra Church and Jonesboro are often cited as examples of defeats attributable, at least in part, to Hood’s absence. Although Hood wrote nothing of his specific reasoning, it seems clear that his motivation for not accompanying part of his army in the two battles mentioned was not due to his physical limitations but his desire to remain in the place of greatest potential peril—the fortifications of Atlanta. During those times, the city was held by only a single infantry corps and a small militia contingent, which would be heavily outnumbered if Sherman decided to launch a direct assault. No general could be in two places simultaneously.21

  Before both Ezra Church and Jonesboro, Hood received intelligence that large Federal forces were moving to the west of Atlanta. In late August at Jonesboro, with most of Wheeler’s cavalry in north Georgia and Tennessee ineffectively harassing Sherman’s supply lines, Hood’s ability to gather accurate and reliable intelligence was limited. According to historian Stephen Newton, Wheeler was conducting “a foolhardy raid that left John B. Hood’s outnumbered army blind when Sherman started to maneuver south of Atlanta.” Had he known that Sherman’s maneuvers were not diversions, Hood—always a hands-on combat field commander throughout his career—undoubtedly would have accompanied his forces to Ezra Church and Jonesboro.22

  Byway of comparison, Robert E. Lee’s reputation has not suffered because of the mistakes made that triggered the battle at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. Rather, most of the blame has been placed upon his cavalry commander Jeb Stuart, whose tardiness deprived Lee of precious intelligence that would have helped his commander determine the location of the various segments of the Federal Army of the Potomac. Historians have gone out of their way to exonerate Lee for sending Stuart away from the army at the beginning of the campaign. Yet, very little has been written about how Hood faced the same situation during the Atlanta Campaign, and how adequate intelligence (Wheeler’s presence) might have enabled him to adopt different tactics. It is reasonable to conclude that if Hood’s cavalry had provided him with accurate and timely information about Sherman’s movements to Ezra Church and Jonesboro, Hood would not have remained in the city while others fought those battles.

  Hood evacuated Atlanta during the evening of September 1 and early morning of September 2. His tenacious but failed defensive effort to save the city incurred about 12,000 casualties, or roughly one-quarter of his army. Stanley Horn, not known for his generous compliments of Hood, wrote that “although Sherman and his generals have shown an inclination to belittle Hood as a mere headlong, impetuous fighter of no particular skill, his rapid hammer blows had served to slow down their aggressiveness.” Horn continued, “In one of his dispatches Sherman grumbled that he could not get his men to move a hundred yards without entrenching—proof enough of wholesome respect for their bellicose antagonist.”23

  Offensive efforts to break sieges are always bloody affairs. Hood’s attacks against Sherman around Atlanta are often portrayed as a foolish waste of life in an attempt to achieve the impossible. In a comparable situation in front of Richmond and Petersburg, however, Robert E. Lee’s offensive on March 25, 1865, against Fort Stedman is rarely judged in a similar manner. Francis Miller and Robert Lanier described the circumstances surrounding the Fort Stedman effort:

  In an interview with General Gordon, Lee laid before him his reports, which showed how completely he understood the situation. Of his own 50,000 men but 35,000 were fit for duty. Lee’s estimate of the forces of Grant was between 140,000 and 150,000. Coming up from Knoxville was Schofield with as estimated force of 30,000 superb troops. From the valley Grant was bringing up nearly 20,000 more, against whom, as Lee expressed it, he “could oppose scarcely a vidette.” Sherman was approaching from North Carolina, and his force when united with Schofield’s would reach 80,000. It was impossible, and yet it was after this, that Gordon made his charge.24

  The all-but forlorn attack failed miserably and cost Lee an estimated 2,700 casualties—a sizeable portion of what was left of his depleted Army of Northern Virginia. Yet, Lee evades historical censure for continuing to fight when the fate of Richmond, Petersburg, and even the Confederacy itself appeared to be already decided. Hood’s attacks at Atlanta and his later actions at Franklin and Nashville, however, are often considered a useless squandering of Southern lives. Men leading armies under the best of circumstances are tasked with making extremely difficult decisions under unimaginable duress. Commanders in desperate situations, such as Lee at Fort Stedman and Joe Johnston at Bentonville, had little choice but to attempt what later appear to have been hopeless attacks.

  For his part, the man who appointed Hood to command the Army of Tennessee did not view his offensive efforts as useless or meaningless. “No one was more anxious than myself to prevent the fall of Atlanta,” wrote Jefferson Davis to Georgia Senator Herschel V. Johnson. “I was not among those who deemed that result inevitable as soon as the enemy had crossed the Chattahoochie, and I was not willing that it should be yielded before manly blows should be struck for its preservation.”25

  Although Hood is frequently condemned for blaming his subordinates for the Army of Tennessee’s defeats, he was not alone. One of the Western armies’ most talented brigadiers, Francis M. Cockrell, agreed: “Many attribute the fall [of Atlanta] to the failure of Lee’s Corps to fight as was expected of them.” James H. Wilson, a prominent Federal cavalry general, seemed of like mind when he wrote in his memoirs that Hood’s campaigns were “ably planned,” but needed more resources and “better subordinates” to succeed.

  Another Federal commander, Gen. Francis Blair, largely excused Hood for the defeats at Atlanta. The attack on Sherman’s exposed left flank outside Atlanta on July 22, predicted Blair, “would be rated, among military men, as probably the most brilliant of the war, and that the escape of the Union army from ruin was owing more to supineness in some Southern officers than from any skill in the Federal generals.” The problem confronting Johnston and Hood, continued Blair, was that “they had not men enough to contend with Sherman’s army. It was natural enough, after the failure of General Johnston to check our advance, other tactics should be employed, and no man could have been found who could have executed this policy with greater skill, ability and vigor than General Hood.” Montgomery Blair, a member of Lincoln’s cabinet and Francis Blair’s brother, agreed: “If half the enterprise exhibited by Hood had been shown by his subordinates, the ranks of the Federals, weakened by the men sent to oppose the victorious onset of the Confederate-in-chief would have been broken through and Sherman put to flight, or collapsed into surrender.” Colonel Irving Buck, Patrick Cleburne’s adjutant, wrote of the battle of Atlanta, “General Hood had conceived a move worthy of Stonewall Jackson, in attempting to strike and crush Sherman’s left wing in a flanking movement.”26

  The poor scholarship endemic of Hood’s role with the Army of Tennessee is on full display at the Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum. The very impressive cyclorama—perhaps the largest painting in the world at 42 feet tall and 358 feet long—offers a sweeping 360-degree, three-dimensional panoramic portrayal of the July 22 Atlanta battle. Some 80,000 people visit the cyclorama each year. The wall of the main gallery includes portraits of the commanding generals of the Federal and Confederate armies. Curiously, Joe Johnston appears as the commander of the Army o
f Tennessee, with his portrait opposite Federal army commander William T. Sherman. The only problem is that Johnston was not there during the fighting on July 22. In fact, he was in Macon, Georgia, because he had been removed from command and replaced by Hood five days prior to the battle depicted on the cyclorama. Johnston had nothing to do with either the conception or execution of the July 22 engagement.27

  In his 1993 book The Campaign for Atlanta, local historian William Scaife provided his version of an often-repeated and widely known incident following the Confederate defeat west of Atlanta at Ezra Church on November 28, 1864. His source is a memoir penned by Federal officer Gen. Jacob Cox. “General Jacob D. Cox later related a frequently repeated story which seemed to reflect the futility of Hood’s impetuous tactics,” explained Scaife. “After the fighting ceased, one of Logan’s pickets called out across the lines at twilight: ‘Well, Johnny, how many of you are left?’ A despondent Confederate replied, still maintaining a semblance of the sense of humor so essential to a soldier: ‘Oh, about enough for another killing.’” General Cox places the story in late July without providing any more specific information. As it turns out, Cox was wrong.28

  The original source for the story is John W. Clemson, who told the tale in an article entitled “Surprised the Johnnies” in the September 1897 issue of the National Tribune. According to Clemson, the 46th Ohio Infantry was entrenched before the Confederate lines and came up with a trick: “a fake charge” with bugles blowing and soldiers yelling. When the startled Rebels raised their heads above their parapet, they would be shot in “a galling fire from well-aimed Spencer rifles.” Afterward, a taunting Yankee called out, “Say, Johnny, how many of you are there over there?” A Confederate replied, “Well I guess there’s enough for another killin.” The incident, routinely presented by authors to illustrate the discouragement of the Army of Tennessee and their disdain for their new commander’s tactics, didn’t have anything to do with Ezra Church in late July, as Cox wrote, or even any of the fighting around Atlanta. In fact, it happened at Dallas, Georgia, on May 30 during Joseph Johnston’s tenure—a full six weeks before Hood even took command.29

  Other versions of the same story permeate Civil War literature. Even iconic writer Shelby Foote and the National Park Service got it wrong. Writing of the battle of Ezra Church in his acclaimed three-volume narrative The Civil War, Foote included the incident this way: “‘Say Johnny,’ one of Logan’s soldiers called across the breastworks, into the outer darkness. ‘How many of you are there left?’ ‘Oh about enough for another killin,’ a butternut replied.” The National Park Service’s e-library conveys its own version of the story (without a source) as set at Ezra Church two months after the actual event transpired.30

  Such is the state of Civil War literature, where too many authors simply repeat earlier writers or, in the case of primary sources, often neglect to confirm their accuracy or credibility. Jacob Cox, the primary source authors use to convey this Ezra Church fable, penned his memoirs 24 years after the war and almost certainly confused the Dallas incident with a similarly worded—though quite different—occurrence at Ezra Church. In a letter to his wife on July 29, Federal officer Maj. Thomas T. Taylor wrote about a Rebel officer captured at Ezra Church being asked how many troops Hood had with him. According to Taylor, the captive officer replied, “Enough to make two more killings,” which is often interpreted as meaning the despondent prisoner was grimly telling his captors that after two more defeats Hood would be out of men. In fact, a careful reading suggests just the opposite meaning. The Rebel officer’s choice of words—“enough to make two more killings”—suggests instead that in this particular instance, the Southern officer was defiantly warning his captors that Hood’s army was ready, willing, and able to inflict more killings upon them.

  Taylor wrote another letter to his wife the following week that supports this interpretation. Although by all accounts a loyal and dedicated Federal officer, Taylor had grown disenchanted with the war and was a harsh critic of Abraham Lincoln. On August 10, he wrote:

  Now however I can say to a certainty that I am a “conscript,” held to service against my will. How long I shall be so held I know not, but can assure you that I shall retire from the service as quickly as it is possible to do so. Our government is [illegible]—our rulers are despots—the administration the most despotic of any in the world, at the present age is reckless and corrupt. As an executive officer Lincoln has proved a miserable failure. His vacillating policy besides prolonging this war and [illegible] it from its original course and design has cost the nation thousands of lives and millions of treasure. His hypocritical treatment and unwarranted course of action has alienated thousands and hundreds of the best population of the Union from the support of the Government. If Lincoln were the Government, the embodiment of American freedom, I would curse it, damn the whole institution and shaking the dirt from my feet emigrate to Brazil or some other empire where an intelligent and just man governs.31

  Although the Confederate defeat at Ezra Church was certainly demoralizing to many in Hood’s army, scholars should refrain from illustrating the discouragement with the common “oh, about enough for another killin’” quote from Jacob Cox’s memoirs. Perhaps a more suitable summation is McMurry’s conclusion, as noted earlier, about the “surprisingly large number of Hood’s men writing that they are confident of their ability to defeat Sherman,” and who looked upon the three major battles as “Southern victories” that kept Sherman out of Atlanta.

  1 Steven Woodworth, Civil War Gazette interview, December 27, 2006; Albert Castel, Decision in the West. The Atlanta Campaign of1864 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 562.

  2 Stephen Davis, Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston, and the Yankee Heavy Battalions (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2001), 131.

  3 Felix G. De Fontaine, “Severe Fighting Around Atlanta,” Mobile Advertiser and Register, July 31, 1864.

  4 Thomas Livermore, Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-1865 (Houghton, Mifflin and Company: Boston and New York, 1900), 122; McMurry, Atlanta 1864, 153.

  5 Castel, Decision in the West, 383; Woodworth, Civil War Gazette.

  6 See Chapter 11 for a detailed discussion of Hood’s losses at Peachtree Creek.

  7 Richard McMurry, Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 154.

  8 See Chapter 11 for a detailed discussion of Hood’s casualties in the July 22 battle of Atlanta.

  9 McMurry, Atlanta 1864, 157; Castel, Decision in the West, 435.

  10 Woodworth, Civil War Gazette.

  11 Augusta Constitutionalist, August 10, 1864.

  12 Henry Clayton Papers, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; Braxton Bragg Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH.

  13 M. C. Butler letter to John Bell Hood, July 18, 1874, John Bell Hood Personal Papers.

  14 McMurry, “Confederate Morale in the Atlanta Campaign of 1864,” 235.

  15 OR 47, pt. 2, 1,303-1,311.

  16 Gilder Lehrman Collection, New York City.

  17 Hiram H. Hardesty, The Military History of Ohio: Its Border Annals, Its Part in the Indian Wars, in the Warof1812, in the Mexican War, and in the War of the Rebellion (New York, NY: H. H. Hardesty, 1889), 229.

  18 Davis, Atlanta Will Fall, 155.

  19 Castel, Decision in the West, 391.

  20 After the loss of Atlanta, Hardee requested a transfer and was sent to command the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Hardee—who had been defeated in the battles of Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, and Jonesboro, and who would go on to lose the coastal cities of Savannah and Charleston—has retained a relatively good reputation in Civil War history.

  21 Woodworth, Civil War Gazette.

  22 Stephen Newton, “Overrated Generals,” North and South (December 2009), 15.

  23 As detailed in Chapter 11 of this book, Confederate casualties for the battles of Peachtree Creek, Atlanta
(Decatur), and Ezra Church were 9,800, plus 2,200 casualties for Jonesboro. Davis, Atlanta Will Fall, 185. The total casualties for Hood’s four attacks around Atlanta were approximately 24 percent of the total troop strength of the Army of Tennessee of 50,414 on July 10, 1864, one week before Hood took command. See also, Horn, The Army of Tennessee, 368.

  24 John S. Salmon, Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide (Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books 2001), 450; Francis T. Miller, The Photographic History of the Civil War: The Decisive Battles (Springfield, MA: Patriot Publishing, 1911), 287.

  25 Hudson Strode, Jefferson Davis: American Patriot, 1808-1861 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955), 89.

  26 Francis M. Cockrell letter, Letters Sent and Received by the Confederate Secretary of War/Letters Sent and Received by the Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General, National Archives, 1727-H-1864; Wilson, Under the Old Flag, 44-45; New Orleans Times Picayune, September 8, 1879; Mrs. C. M. Winkler, Life and Character of General John B. Hood (Austin, TX: Draughon and Lambert, 1885), 37. Blair quote from New Orleans Times Picayune, September 8, 1879; Irving A. Buck, Cleburne and His Command(Jackson, TN: McCowat-Mercer Press, 1959), 234.

  27 Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations Directed During the Civil War (New York, NY: Da Capo, 1990), 369.

  28 William R. Scaife, The Campaign for Atlanta (Atlanta: W. R. Scaife, 1993), 108; Jacob D. Cox, Atlanta (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1882), 186.

  29 John W. Clemson, “Surprised the Johnnies,” National Tribune, September 30, 1897, 150.

  30 Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, 3 vols. (New York: Random House, 1974), vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox, 490; See also http://www.nps.gov/history/online_books/civil_war_series/7/sec10.htm.