by Earl J. Hess
By the end of July 17, Sherman completed his crossing of the Chattahoochee River and moved out of the bridgeheads at Roswell, Isham’s Ford–Power’s Ferry, and Pace’s Ferry. His troops made it to their first-day objective, Nancy’s Creek, and formed a relatively connected position near its banks with one bridgehead on the other side in McPherson’s sector. Accomplished with minimal fighting, it is no wonder so many Yankees assumed Atlanta would fall soon; Johnston displayed no aggressive intent. Sherman hoped Schofield could reach Decatur and McPherson, the Georgia Railroad east of that town, while Thomas headed for Buck Head on July 18.10
Johnston continued his normal mode of operations, selecting good defensive ground some distance from the immediate presence of the enemy and waiting for their approach. Peach Tree Creek seemed like a good obstacle to the Federal advance. Stories abounded as to why it received its name. One had it that a Native American village located near its junction with the Chattahoochee was the source. Called Standing Peach Tree, this Creek village may have derived its name from a tall pine tree located on a hill northeast of the union of Chattahoochee River and Peach Tree Creek. The pine had a good deal of pitch, which the natives tapped; “pitch tree” was corrupted into “peach tree.” It is also possible that a genuine peach tree once stood on that hill, although local historian Franklin Garrett has pointed out that the pine tree was indigenous to the area and the peach tree was not. Fort Peach Tree stood near the junction of river and creek for several years from 1814 on, solidifying the distinctive name that came to be attached to the creek.11
Johnston later argued that he had no choice but to await the enemy along the banks of this stream. If he had tried to deploy north of the creek, its “broad and muddy channel . . . would have separated the two parts of the army” because Johnston had to protect the south side of the Chattahoochee downstream from the creek’s mouth. By placing his men south of the creek, he could form a continuous line along both the creek and the river. Johnston instructed his engineers to select a position on high ground a short distance south of Peach Tree Creek to place the army when necessary. From here, he wrote after the war, the Army of Tennessee “might engage the enemy if he should expose himself in the passage of the stream.” The engineers selected positions for each corps and pointed them out to staff officers. Johnston also issued orders to his corps leaders on the morning of July 17 to be ready to move at a moment’s notice.12
Evening, July 17
Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the Army of Tennessee, who lost his job because of his passive handling of the Atlanta campaign. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-cwpb-06280)
Johnston was well aware of Sherman’s moves on July 17 and continued preparations to meet the enemy. He was consulting with Col. S. W. Presstman, his chief engineer, late that evening at army headquarters located at the Nelson house three miles from Atlanta on the road to Marietta. A telegram arrived at either 9 P.M. or an hour later, depending on which source one relies upon. The telegram was sent by Adj. Gen. Samuel Cooper in Richmond. It conveyed the news that Jefferson Davis had decided to relieve Johnston of his command and replace him with Hood, who was elevated to the temporary rank of full general. The reason for this change, in Cooper’s words, was that “you have failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity of Atlanta, far in the interior of Georgia, and express no confidence that you can defeat or repel him.” Like a good soldier, Johnston quickly drafted a farewell to the army, although he waited before issuing it to the troops.13
Hood also received a telegram that night at his headquarters near the Turner’s Ferry Road. Delivered at 11 P.M., it was sent by Secretary of War James A. Seddon and announced his elevation to army command. “You are charged with a great trust,” Seddon told Hood. “You will, I know, test to the upmost your capacities to discharge it. Be wary no less than bold. It may yet be practicable to cut the communication of the enemy or find or make an opportunity of equal encounter whether he moves east or west. God be with you.”14
Not long after that, Johnston sent a note of congratulation to Hood. In replying to it at 1 A.M. of July 18, Hood frankly told his commander that he was surprised by the order and wanted to consult with him early in the morning. In his memoirs, published nearly twenty years later, Hood was more explicit about his feelings at this crucial moment in his life. “This totally unexpected order so astounded me, and overwhelmed me with a sense of the responsibility thereto attached, that I remained in deep thought throughout the night.” Historians have often assumed Hood had angled for the command, but there is more than enough convincing evidence that the appointment truly was unexpected and even unwanted. F. Halsey Wigfall, a member of Hood’s corps staff, confirmed it in a letter to his mother. “The first time I saw him that day, I shook hands with him and congratulated him. He spoke very sadly and said he hardly knew if it were a subject of congratulation.”15
Further confirmation that Hood did not want the command lies in his efforts to postpone or derail the appointment. He started for Johnston’s headquarters before dawn of July 18 and met Alexander P. Stewart on the way. The two engaged in earnest conversation about the change of commanders as they continued their ride to army headquarters. Arriving just after dawn, Hood asked Johnston the reason for the change. Johnston replied that he was not entirely certain, other than that Davis insisted on it. Hood then urged Johnston to pocket the order and continue to lead the army at least until Sherman’s current movements had run their course. Stewart apparently was the one who initially suggested this to Hood before the pair reached army headquarters. Johnston correctly pointed out that such an action was impossible unless the president’s order was rescinded, so Hood wrote a telegram to Davis requesting the order be set aside. “I deem it dangerous to change the commanders of this army at this particular time, and to be to the interest of the service that no change should be made until the fate of Atlanta is decided.” Stewart and Hardee signed the telegram as well.16
John Bell Hood, who succeeded Johnston in command of the Army of Tennessee on July 18 and launched a quick strike against the Federals two days later at Peach Tree Creek. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-cwpb-07468)
The generals sent this round-robin telegram at 9 A.M., but it would take several hours to receive a reply. Meanwhile, Hood prevailed on Johnston to retain command until they heard from their president. The deposed commander took time during the day to pen a telegram to Richmond defending his course of action during the campaign. He argued that Sherman outnumbered his army by a greater degree than Grant outnumbered Lee, yet Sherman’s pace was slow compared to Grant’s. “Confident language by a military commander is not usually regarded as evidence of competency,” he lectured Cooper.17
Johnston tried to ease Hood’s transition to army command on July 18 while the pair waited for Davis’s reply to the corps commanders’ telegram. “I explained my plans to him: First, to attack the Federal army while crossing Peach Tree Creek. If we were successful great results might be hoped for, as the enemy would have both the creek and the river to intercept their retreat. Second, if unsuccessful, to keep back the enemy by intrenching, to give time for the assemblying of the State troops promised by Governor Brown; to garrison Atlanta with those troops, and when the Federal army approached the town attack it on its most exposed flank with all the Confederate troops.” At least this is how Johnston explained it in his report dated October 20, 1864. Ironically, if he had been as explicit in his telegram to the Confederate president on July 16, Davis might have hesitated to relieve him of command. Johnston consistently told this story in subsequent narratives of the events that day, as well as a letter written in late August 1864, leading historians such as Thomas Robson Hay to assume he had fully informed Hood of plans to attack the Army of the Cumberland at Peach Tree Creek.18
But Hood never indicated that Johnston told him this information on July 18. Hay assumes the young general was overwhelmed by the appointment and did not pay close attention to everything that was said. The fact that
Johnston is the only source of information concerning his plans to attack at Peach Tree Creek (and he never wrote anything to that effect before being relieved) has led other historians to doubt if he had any real intention of attacking at all. Howell Cobb, who commanded the post at Macon eighty miles south of Atlanta, was convinced Johnston meant to fight. Writing to his wife on July 14, Cobb asserted, “From all I can learn I am satisfied he intends to make a decided stand at Atlanta, and I believe it will be a successful one.”19
If we look at Johnston’s past record, it is true he launched a major attack on the Army of the Potomac when it came close to Richmond during the Peninsula campaign. That attack at Seven Pines on May 31 and June 1, 1862, failed to turn the enemy back. Johnston never attacked Sherman’s command during the Jackson campaign of July 1863, giving up the city without even a small offensive battle. Historian Thomas L. Connelly sees no “solid evidence” that Johnston planned to take the offensive, only “a general idea of attacking Sherman.” But given his strong assertion of intent to assault at Peach Tree Creek, even if that assertion postdated the event, one tends to credit Johnston at least with some degree of aggressive spirit on July 17 and 18.20
Johnston indicated that Hood had urgently asked him to continue giving orders until Davis’s telegram settled the issue of command, and he consented to do so. There was real need for someone to be in charge who knew where each corps lay and who was informed about the exact location of the line recently selected by the army’s engineers south of Peach Tree Creek. Hood was ignorant of all those details. Johnston busied himself with issuing orders for the troops to move and assume their places in this line; the Army of Tennessee obeyed these orders without knowing what truly was going on at army headquarters.21
Davis’s telegram arrived at 2 P.M., and it contained predictable news. He sent a copy to each of the three corps leaders and was frank in explaining why he decided to replace Johnston. Davis also revealed a keen awareness of the import of this move and admitted that he had hesitated perhaps too long to make it. The decision boiled down to a choice between continuing a policy that seemed disastrously ineffective and making a change for a different style of leadership. Davis pleaded with each of the corps leaders to set aside personal opinions, accept the decision, and try hard to make it work. “The order has been executed,” he concluded, “and I cannot suspend it without making the case worse than it was before the order was issued.”22
Even with such a firm statement as this in his pocket, Hood still tried to avert the responsibility of command. He once again pleaded with Johnston to ignore Davis and continue managing affairs, and Johnston understandably refused. Then Hood frankly told the older man that he was woefully uninformed about everything necessary to make decisions that day and asked him to at least stay with the army for a few days so he could offer counsel. According to Hood, Johnston was so moved by this plea that he could see tears in the older man’s eyes. Johnston agreed to stay, but he wanted to ride into Atlanta that evening and attend to some matters before coming back to help him.23
We probably will never know for sure whether Johnston agreed to counsel Hood; we do know that he stayed the night of July 18 in Atlanta with his wife. F. Halsey Wigfall also rode to Atlanta that evening and spoke with Johnston, who displayed no evidence of concern or bitterness at the turn of events. “Indeed he seemed in rather better spirits than usual though it must have been at the cost of much exertion.” Johnston also told Wigfall that he intended to go to Columbia the next day. He changed his mind on July 19, taking passage on a freight train for Macon at 6:30 P.M. Howell Cobb persuaded the couple to stay at his house. Mrs. Johnston had a headache, and her husband was now feeling the full emotional impact of events. “Still he indulges in no spirit of complaint, speaks kindly of his successor and very hopefully of the prospect of holding Atlanta,” Cobb reported to his wife.24
Hood remained bitter for the rest of his life about the manner in which Johnston left him in command. “He deserted me in violation of his promise to remain and afford me the advantage of his counsel, whilst I shouldered all responsibility of the contest.” Historians have generally doubted that Johnston promised to remain and offer his advice, even though some of them think Johnston should have been willing to do this on his own. Hood was compelled to issue orders assuming command of the army on the afternoon of July 18. “I feel the weight of the responsibility so suddenly and unexpectedly devolved upon me,” Hood wrote in an address to the troops. “I look with confidence to your patriotism to stand by me.”25
Attention was now focused on him as it had never been before. A newspaper correspondent described Hood in a dispatch dated July 19. He appeared “a tall bony man, with light blue eyes, and brown hair, a heavy suit of beard of the same color falling upon his bosom and an expression of imperturbable benevolence all over his open face. He sto[o]ps a little from the use of his crutch, but moves about with ease.”26
If Hood seemed imperturbable on July 19, his own account of his work on the afternoon of July 18 would contradict such an air of calm. According to his memoirs, Hood was frantic, working hard to locate the other two corps in the Army of Tennessee, opening up lines of communication with them and with the far-flung locations of the army’s cavalry units. But it is strange that Hood never mentioned the Army of Tennessee staff in this regard. They would have been as well informed of these matters as Johnston, and most of them stayed at army headquarters to serve under Hood. The new commander also did not know the exact location of Sherman’s units as of late on July 18. Hood later assumed that Wheeler must have kept Johnston informed of this vital intelligence, but Johnston failed to pass it on to him. Only when reading Sherman’s memoirs after the war did Hood realize the Federals hit the Georgia Railroad by 2 P.M. of July 18. Johnston did not leave the army for Atlanta until 4 P.M. that day. “I reiterate,” Hood asserted in his memoirs, “that it is difficult to imagine a commander placed at the head of an Army under more embarrassing circumstances than those against which I was left to contend.”27
Hood also complained in his postcampaign report that Johnston had left him with only 48,000 men (Johnston claimed the number totaled 51,000). Hood argued that the troops were “enfeebled in . . . spirit by long retreat and by severe and apparently fruitless losses.” In his memoirs, Hood went further and argued that the rank and file of the Army of Tennessee were “wedded to the ‘timid defensive’ policy, and naturally regarded with distrust a commander likely to initiate offensive operations.” Moreover, the army was “unfitted for united action in pitched battle” because of its experience thus far in the campaign.28
Many of the army’s highest-ranking officers were dissatisfied with Hood’s accession to command. Hardee had never gotten along well with the young newcomer and felt aggrieved at his elevation. Maj. Gen. Samuel G. French, who had served under Johnston in Mississippi, visited Hood and told him he was sorry to see Johnston go. French told Hood that he and Johnston had had long conversations about the most effective strategy to win the war; preserving the main field armies and holding out until the North exhausted itself in money and spirit. But French assured Hood that he would serve “faithfully and cheerfully” under him. “Although he took my hand and thanked me, I was ever afterwards impressed with the belief that he never forgave me for what I said.”29
The feelings of the common soldier in the Army of Tennessee about Johnston and Hood have been the subject of much study. The tendency has been to view them as overwhelmingly pro-Johnston, dejected and even demoralized by his removal, and at best noncommittal toward Hood when the news of the change in commanders became widely known on July 18. Richard McMurry has injected a needed corrective by pointing out that a careful search through contemporary letters and diaries indicates a minority of soldiers had become dissatisfied with Johnston’s retreats by mid-July.30
Those men who deplored the removal of their hero commonly used terms such as “shocked” and “astounded” at the news that Johnston had been replaced by Hood.
“I am afraid it may do harm at this moment,” commented Taylor Beatty, “because the army still has confidence in Johnston & does not know Hood.” Most men had no idea why the change was made, but others acquired very accurate intelligence on that score. Col. John C. Carter, a brigade commander in Hardee’s Corps, spread the word to Andrew Jackson Neal and others in the army. “They have made ole J. Johnston quit us because he falls back,” moaned a man in the 29th Georgia, “I am sorrow of it.”31
One of Hood’s greatest problems lay in the fact that his accession to command created a large wellspring of resentment among the rank and file at the loss of a beloved leader. “I never have seen or heard of an army so wrapped up in a commander as this army proved itself to be,” asserted Lieut. Hamilton Branch of the 54th Georgia. Branch told his mother that the men acted “as if they had lost their best friend and the general remark was, well this army is lost, and everyone seemed to be whipped.” Lieut. Emmett Ross of the 20th Louisiana expressed the opinion of many when he wrote home on July 19 that the men retained full confidence in Johnston despite his long retreat. The source of this confidence lay more in the way he treated the army than in his combat record. Johnston played the role of a benevolent father, feeding the army well, sparing men’s lives on the battlefield, and very much acting like a competent commander. He seemed to be a marked contrast to Braxton Bragg, a breath of fresh air in an army that had suffered far too long under the weight of bitter feuds among its generals and one failed campaign after another.32