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

by Hood, Stephen

  In describing Hood’s postwar life in New Orleans near the end of The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, Wiley Sword made the most notorious of his many derogatory comments: “As if to refute any inference that he might be a ‘lame’ lover due to his crippled body, Hood fathered eleven children.” This callous and crude statement attempts to reduce John Bell and Anna Marie Hood’s many descendants to mere products of a man who sired children only to demonstrate his virility, while discounting the likelihood that Hood—by all contemporary accounts a devoted husband and loving father—wanted the typically large family of that era.

  It would be difficult to find anything so insensitive written about another Civil War participant.28

  1 Sword, Courage Under Fire, 193; McMurry, John Bell Hood and the War for Southern Independence, 2-3; Jacobson, For Cause and For Country, 35; Miller, John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory, 2.

  2 Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 6; Sword, Courage Under Fire, 194; Dyer, The Gallant Hood, 23.

  3 Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 7;Miller, John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory, 36.

  4 Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 7;Miller, John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory, 20; (The author, a graduate of a military academy, Kentucky Military Institute, can personally attest to how difficult it is for a cadet to go five months without receiving a single demerit.)

  5 Miller, John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory, 20.

  6 Ibid., 40.

  7 Association of Graduates, U.S.M.A., Register of Graduates and Former Cadets 1802-1988 (West Point, New York, 1988).

  8 Ibid.

  9 James S. Robbins, Last in Their Class: Custer, Pickett and the Goats of West Point (New York: Encounter Books, 2006), xii; Association of Graduates, U. S. M. A., Register of Graduates and Former Cadets 1802-1988.

  10 Ibid., x.

  11 Ibid.

  12 Miller, John Bell Hood, xix.

  13 Thomas Connelly, Autumn of Glory, 430, 429.

  14 Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 6; John C. Haskell, The Haskell Memoirs: The Personal Narrative of a Confederate Officer, Gilbert E. Govan and James W. Livingood, eds. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1966), 16.

  15 Philip D. Stephenson, The Civil War Diary of Philip Daingerfield Stephenson, D.D., Nathaniel C. Hughes, Jr., ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 209; Wright, A Southern Girl in ‘61, 231; Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 244.

  16 Sword, Courage Under Fire, 193, 195; Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 7-9.

  17 Ibid., 9; Ratchford, Memoirs of a Confederate Staff Officer, 19.

  18 Davis, Chaplain Davis and Hood’s Texas Brigade, 91.

  19 Sword, Courage Under Fire, 196.

  20 Ibid., 195; Dyer, The Gallant Hood, 144; Hood, Advance and Retreat, 65-66. The original letters of recommendation for promotion from Generals Thomas Jackson and James Longstreet are in the John Bell Hood Personal Papers.

  21 Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 9; OR 25, pt. 2, 810.

  22 Hood, Advance and Retreat, 52-53; R. E. Lee letter to John Bell Hood, May 21, 1863, John Bell Hood Personal Papers.

  23 Sword, Courage Under Fire, 196.

  24 Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer, The State of Jones: The Small Southern County that Seceded from the Confederacy (New York: Anchor Books, 2010), 221; Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 263; Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. 2, 488-489.

  25 Wiley Sword, narrative to the painting, The Darkest of All Decembers by Rick Reaves, Collector Historical Prints, Tampa, Florida, 1992.

  26 Sword, Courage Under Fire, 200.

  27 Connelly, Autumn of Glory, 322; Wright, A Southern Girl in ‘61, 231.

  28 Sword, The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, 439.

  Chapter 18

  “Too many so-called historians are really “hysterians”; their thinking is more visceral than cerebral.”

  — Thomas A. Bailey

  Words of Praise for John Bell Hood

  Modern books on the Army of Tennessee and Hood’s Tennessee Campaign are largely compendiums of criticisms and condemnations targeting John Bell Hood. The intentional suppression of contemporary expressions of respect, sympathy, concurrence, and support for Hood is perplexing.

  Some of the harshest words ever written about any Civil War commander were penned by Capt. Samuel Foster, a member of Granbury’s Texas brigade. Foster set down his vitriol in his diary immediately after the battle of Franklin: “And the wails and the cries of widows and orphans made at Franklin, Tennessee on Nov. 30, 1864 will heat up the fires of the bottomless pit to burn the soul of Gen. J. B. Hood for murdering their husbands and fathers at that place that day. It couldn’t be called anything else but cold blooded murder.” Foster added, “He sacrificed those men to make the name of Hood famous.” A committed devotee of Joseph Johnston, Foster also condemned Hood’s attempt to hold Atlanta—a task Foster himself declared impossible. Foster was an eyewitness, and it is appropriate for historians to record what he wrote— regardless of how angry or malicious his words might be. Indeed, it is difficult to find a study on the Tennessee Campaign that does not include Foster’s observations. Context, however, is everything.1

  Anyone who reads most or all of Foster’s diary will discover that he was excessively belligerent by nature, and sometimes insubordinate. The replacement of Johnston with Hood in mid-July 1864 infuriated the captain. He declared his disgust with Johnston’s removal by writing, “[I]f Jeff Davis had made his appearance in this army during the excitement he would not have lived an hour.” It is not known whether Foster is stating that he personally would have attempted to assassinate Davis or if others were threatening to do so, but he seemed undisturbed by the impropriety of such talk.2

  After Hood’s first three failed attempts to defeat Sherman and drive him away from Atlanta, Foster condemned Hood for attempting to hold the city— the very mission he was assigned by the Confederate government. Foster went on to grossly exaggerate Hood’s casualties, writing, “He [Hood] is in a bad fix. And more he has virtually murdered near 10,000 men around Atlanta trying to do what Joe Johnston said could not be done.” His willingness to essentially declare Hood a mass murderer for trying to hold one of the South’s most important cities is a good illustration of his blind hatred for the commander, while his observation about Johnston’s claim suggests the former leader of the Army of Tennessee believed Atlanta could not be held—even though he refused to inform Richmond of his intent to abandon the vitally important city.3

  Another entry in Foster’s diary dated September 27, 1864, demonstrated conduct clearly unbecoming of an officer. According to Foster, Hood ordered that two men from Granbury’s brigade return to Atlanta and destroy some equipment that mistakenly had been left intact. One of the men selected for the assignment was Pvt. Jake Eastman, a member of Foster’s company. “I told him to not go one foot,” declared Foster, “and if Gen. Hood has come out of Atlanta and left two Steam Mills running there, then let him go and burn them himself if he wants it done, and Jake didn’t go a step.” Foster, the soldier’s company commander and thus his immediate superior, instructed an enlisted man to disobey a direct order from his regimental commander that had originated at army headquarters. The mills were left for the benefit of Sherman’s occupying army.4

  During the pre-Tennessee invasion maneuvers, Foster—who had complained of Hood’s aggressiveness at Atlanta and would again at Franklin— found fault in Hood’s decision to bypass the Federals at Decatur, Alabama, on October 30. Foster complained that Hood bypassed Decatur without attacking the outnumbered but defiant defenders, who “left the U. S. flag flying in full view of us.” As discussed earlier, the garrison was strongly defended and Hood saw no reason to shed blood for an inconsequential position.5

  Context is important. Authors who included Hood-damning cherry-picked sentences penned by Foster without revealing the captain’s strong pro-Johnston position, gene
rally belligerent nature, and willingness to defy Hood’s orders either did so with a purpose or failed in their effort to fully inform readers. In either case, readers will believe (incorrectly) that most of Hood’s troops hated him. The record demonstrates otherwise. S. A. Cunningham of the 41st Tennessee described the army’s soaring confidence during the flanking movement to Spring Hill, and as earlier noted, their faith in Hood was “unbounded,” so sure were they that a victory would be achieved “that would give us Nashville.”6

  After the war, Dr. Samuel Thompson of Cunningham’s 41st Tennessee offered a calm, detached, and balanced view of Hood the military leader:

  We regarded him as a brave and daring soldier, and an able division or corps commander, but lacking in ability and experience as an army commander. Many we know, will disagree with us, but we think to calmly and impartially view General Hood’s course we will be forced to accord him the highest order and a military commander with but few superiors… . What became of General Hood for the remainder of the war we do not know, but if he was removed for failure in Tennessee, he was treated very unjustly. That he did so we believe was no fault of his. He failed simply because he had not the men and supplies to contend with the immense force that was against him.7

  Army of Tennessee Chaplain Dr. Charles T. Quintard agreed: “General Hood deserves well of the country for his bravery, his devotion, his energy and enterprise and he should be honored in all coming time for what he has done. Nor should one word of censure fall upon him for what he has failed to do.”8

  “Still no soldiers’ heart but warms when talking of Hood,” R. M. Gray of the 3rd Georgia Infantry wrote after the war about his former commander. “[Men] loved the man and officer while condemning his system of tactics. Hold in your heart my son a warm place for the noble, generous and brave Hood whatever verdict the future shall pass upon him.”9

  “Alas for Hood!” wrote Federal cavalry commander Gen. James Wilson in his memoirs. “He passed out [of Tennessee] broken-hearted at last by the weight of his misfortunes. His courage and undoubted ability as a leader and a general deserved better luck.”10

  One of the Civil War’s best-known commentators is Pvt. Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee Infantry, whose popular memoir Company Aytch appears in the bibliography of virtually every book written on the Army of Tennessee and the Western Theater of the Civil War. Watkins was a keen observer and excellent writer, and he had much to say about Hood—some positive, some negative. Rarely, however, do his words of admiration and respect for Hood appear in contemporary books. As previously stated, Watkins elaborated on the affection and respect the army had for Hood’s personal character and integrity. Watkins offered a poignant testimony of his admiration for his former commander when he penned the following epitaph in 1884, five years after Hood’s tragic death from yellow fever:

  But the half of brave Hood’s body molders here:

  The rest was lost in honor’s bold career.

  Both limbs and fame he scattered all around,

  Yet still, though mangled, was with honor crowned;

  For ever ready with his blood to part,

  War left him nothing whole—except his heart.11

  B. W. Holcombe of Stovall’s Georgia brigade recalled Hood’s wit during the retreat from Nashville. Holcombe and his comrades had a fire going by the side of the road. As Holcombe recalled, “Gen. Hood and escort rode up and asked permission to warm, which was granted, he at the same time making the remark that he had only one foot to get cold.”12

  Private Henry A. Morehead of the 11th Mississippi Infantry, who served under Hood in the Army of Northern Virginia, recalled, “Gen. Hood was a brave man, and while he never won the affections of his men as some other commanders did, we may say ‘Peace to his ashes,’ for he was a good soldier and a true Southern man.”13

  Lieutenant William W. Fergusson, a former member of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry and an engineer with the Army of Tennessee, praised Hood in a postwar letter: “Whose fortunes I shared, whose conduct I applaud, and whose association from the time of taking charge of part of the line of works at Atlanta, to Tupelo, after the ineffectual attempt to redeem Tennessee and revive the lost spirit of the Army of Tennessee.”14

  Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall, whom Hood succeeded as commander of the Texas brigade in Lee’s Virginia army, was one of Jefferson Davis’s bitter rivals and thus claimed by many historians, by association, to have disliked Hood. Authors often reproduce Wigfall’s well-known slur that Hood “had a fine career before him until Davis undertook to make of him what the good Lord had not done—to make a great general of him.” What students of the war rarely read is Wigfall’s daughter Louise Wigfall Wright’s opinion of the general. She clearly disagreed with her father, and wrote at length about her admiration for Hood the man and the general. It is worth repeating at length:

  A braver man, a purer patriot, a more gallant soldier never breathed than General Hood. Aggressive, bold and eager, the “Fabian” Policy of General Johnston was opposed to all the natural impulses of his nature.

  He reveled in “a fight,” and firmly believed he could lead his troops to a victorious conclusion in the active operations he inaugurated on taking command of the Army of Tennessee. Though, as stated, he remonstrated on General Johnston’s being removed from command, yet I have no doubt his soldier’s heart beat with eager hope, as he was called to take his place, and he saw in fancy his brave army marching to victory.

  He was a man of singular simplicity of character and charm of manner—boyish in his enthusiasm—superbly handsome, with beautiful blue eyes, golden hair and flowing beard—broad shouldered, tall and erect—a noble man of undaunted courage and blameless life.

  We made the journey with him homeward when the war was over. I can see him now—we were in a baggage car, seated on boxes and trunks in all the misery and discomfort of the time. He sat opposite, and with calm, sad eyes looked out on the passing scenes, apparently noting nothing.

  The cause he loved was lost—he was overwhelmed with humiliation at the utter failure of his leadership—his pride was wounded to the quick by his removal from command and Johnston’s reinstatement in his place; he was maimed by the loss of a leg in battle. In the face of his misery, which was greater than our own, we sat silent—there seemed no comfort anywhere. And the ending of his life, years after, was even more somber— dying by the side of his wife with yellow fever and leaving a family of little children to mourn a father, who, though unsuccessful in the glorious ambition of his young manhood, left to them the precious heritage of a stainless name, linked ever with the highest courage and purest patriotism.15

  Context and balance paints a different picture of people and events we once thought we so fully understood.

  1 Foster, One of Cleburne’s Command, 151.

  2 Ibid., 107.

  3 Ibid., 129.

  4 Ibid., 133-134.

  5 Ibid., 142.

  6 Cunningham, “The Battle of Franklin,” Confederate Veteran, 101-102.

  7 Cunningham, Reminiscences of the 41st Tennessee, 117-118.

  8 Elliott, Doctor Quintard, 220.

  9 Miller, John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory, 139.

  10 Wilson, Under the Old Flag, 157.

  11 Sam Watkins, Southern Bivouac, 2 (May 1884), 399-400. A marble scroll engraved with Watkins’s epitaph sits in front of Hood’s tomb at Lakelawn/Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.

  12 Yeary, Reminiscences of the Boys in Gray, 293-294.

  13 Yeary, Reminiscences of the Boys in Gray, 539.

  14 William W. Fergusson letter to John Bell Hood, February 14, 1867, John Bell Hood Personal Papers.

  15 Wilber Jones, Generals in Blue and Gray: Davis’s Generals, 2 vols. (Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 2006), vol. 2, 227; Wright, A Southern Girl in ‘61, 230, 231.

  Chapter 19

  “Cut-and-paste historians collect all the extant testimony about a certain limited group of events and hope in vain that something wil
l come of it.”

  — R. G. Collingwood

  John Bell Hood: Laudanum, Legends, and Lore

  Folklore and legends are powerful forces. Stories handed down from generation to generation help keep the past alive. Whether or not they are true is often of little concern to the storytellers. The stories themselves—fabricated, factual, or a mixture thereof—keep us connected to our past. They take on a life of their own with each retelling. As the years pass, certain details are omitted, others added, and “new” evidence surfaces to revitalize an old story. Some well-established and oft-repeated stories about John Bell Hood are so completely devoid of supporting evidence, indeed they are so ridiculous, that it is often difficult to make a persuasive intelligent case against them.

  One colorful and entertaining myth concerns the famously pugnacious Nathan Bedford Forrest threatening to “whip” General Hood. Although various versions of the story exist, the most prominent alleges that during a meeting of subordinate commanders at the Harrison house prior to the battle of Franklin, Forrest urged Hood to allow him to attempt a flanking movement around the Federals. When Hood rejected the request, the angry cavalryman left the meeting growling that he would whip Hood “if he wasn’t half a man.” Not a single written record of this meeting exists, and there is no written evidence that Forrest ever made any such a comment about Hood. The entertainment value of the story, however, ensures its immortality.

  The rumor regarding Hood’s use of the painkilling opiate laudanum after his recovery from his grievous Chickamauga wound is one of the most “entrenched” stories to come out of the Civil War. Indeed, it is difficult to find a modern Hood-related book or article, or attend a lecture or tour, where his alleged drug use isn’t a subject of discussion. And as with so many stories about Hood, it is completely devoid of substantiating evidence, or indeed, any evidence at all.1