General John Bell Hood, CSA

John Bell Hood (June 1[2] or June 29,[3] 1831 – August 30, 1879) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War. Hood had a reputation for bravery and aggressiveness that sometimes bordered on recklessness. Arguably one of the best brigade and division commanders in the Confederate States Army, Hood became increasingly ineffective as he was promoted to lead larger, independent commands late in the war, and his career was marred by his decisive defeats leading an army in the Atlanta Campaign and the Franklin-Nashville Campaign.

Bio
[Replace text: wikipedia] Hood was born in Owingsville, Kentucky, the son of John W. Hood, a doctor, and Theodosia French Hood. He was the cousin of future Confederate general G. W. Smith and the nephew of U.S. Representative Richard French. French obtained an appointment for Hood at the United States Military Academy, despite his father's reluctance to support a military career for his son. Hood graduated in 1853, ranked 44th in a class of 52 that originally numbered 96, after a near-expulsion in his final year for excessive demerits. Notwithstanding his modest record at West Point, in 1860 he was appointed chief instructor of cavalry at West Point, a position that he declined, citing his desire to remain with his active field regiment and to retain all of his options in light of the impending war.[4] At West Point and in later Army years, he was known to friends as "Sam".[5] His classmates included James B. McPherson and John M. Schofield; he received instruction in artillery from George H. Thomas. These three men became Union Army generals who opposed Hood in battle.

Hood was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Infantry, served in California, and later transferred to the 2nd U.S. Cavalry in Texas, where he was commanded by Col. Albert Sidney Johnston and Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee. While commanding a reconnaissance patrol from Fort Mason, Hood sustained one of the many wounds that marked his lifetime in military service—an arrow through his left hand during action against the Comanches at Devil's River, Texas.

MiIlitary Career
Brigade and Division Command | Gettysburg | Chickamauga | Commander, Army of Tennessee

1864 Middle Tennessee Campaign
[Replace this text: source: wikipedia] In the spring of 1864, the Confederate Army of Tennessee, under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, was engaged in a campaign of maneuver against William T. Sherman, who was driving from Chattanooga toward Atlanta. During the campaign, Hood, joining other Johnston subordinates Joe Wheeler, William Hardee and AP Stewart, sent the government in Richmond letters very critical of Johnston's conduct. On July 17, 1864, just before the Battle of Peachtree Creek, Jefferson Davis, who remembered all too well Johnston's preference for a strategy of withdrawals instead of offensives (such as during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862) and lack of communication (after First Bull Run), lost patience with Johnston and relieved him. Hood, commanding a corps under Johnston, was promoted to the temporary rank of full general on July 18, and given command of the army just outside the gates of Atlanta. (Hood's temporary appointment as a full general was never confirmed by the Senate. His commission as a lieutenant general resumed on January 23, 1865.[6]) At 33, Hood was the youngest man on either side to be given command of an army. Robert E. Lee gave an ambiguous reply to Jefferson Davis's request for his opinion about the promotion, calling Hood "a bold fighter, very industrious on the battlefield, careless off," but he could not say whether Hood possessed all of the qualities necessary to command an army in the field.

Hood conducted the remainder of the Atlanta Campaign with the strong aggressive actions for which he was famous. He launched four major offensives that summer in an attempt to break Sherman's siege of Atlanta, starting almost immediately with an attack along Peachtree Creek. All of the offensives failed, with significant Confederate casualties. Finally, on September 2, 1864, Hood evacuated the city of Atlanta, burning as many military supplies and installations as possible. As Sherman regrouped in Atlanta, preparing for his March to the Sea, Hood and Jefferson Davis attempted to devise a strategy to defeat him. Their plan was to attack Sherman's lines of communications between Chattanooga and Atlanta, and to move north through Alabama and into central Tennessee, assuming that Sherman would be threatened and follow. Hood's ambitious hope was that he could maneuver Sherman into a decisive battle, defeat him, recruit additional forces in Tennessee and Kentucky, and pass through the Cumberland Gap to come to the aid of Robert E. Lee, who was besieged at Petersburg. Sherman did not cooperate, however. Instead of pursuing Hood with his army, he sent Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas to take control of the Union forces in Tennessee and coordinate the defense against Hood, while the bulk of Sherman's forces prepared to march toward Savannah. Hood's Tennessee Campaign lasted from September to December 1864, comprising seven battles and hundreds of miles of marching. He attempted to trap a large part of the Union Army of the Ohio under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield at Spring Hill, Tennessee, before it could link up with Thomas in Nashville, but command failures and misunderstandings allowed Schofield's men to safely pass by Hood's army in the night. The next day at the Battle of Franklin, Hood sent his men across nearly two miles of open ground without the support of artillery in a last gasp effort to destroy Schofield's forces before they could reach the safety of Nashville, which was only a night's march from Franklin. His troops were unsuccessful in their attempt to breach the Union breastworks, suffering severe casualties in an assault that is sometimes called the "Pickett's Charge of the West". Hood later wrote that "Never did troops fight more gallantly" than at Franklin. Historian Wiley Sword, a caustic Hood critic, wrote that there is "evidence Hood expressed his displeasure over yesterday's fiasco [at Spring Hill] and may have suggested to ... his officers that he was concerned about their willingness to manfully fight on an open battlefield. ... If not outright punishment for their behavior on November 29th, the assault at Franklin would be a severe corrective lesson in what he would demand in aggressive behavior." Those officers that he deemed most responsible for the oversights at Spring Hill were assigned prominent roles in the frontal assault against the enemy fortifications.[8] However, other historians, including acclaimed Battle of Franklin expert Eric Jacobson (author of "For Cause and For Country: The Affair at Spring Hill and the Battle of Franklin") states that there is absolutely no evidence that Hood was angry after the early morning hours, or that he placed any troops in positions for reasons other than valid and legitimate tactical and strategic purposes. Hood's exhausted army was unable to interfere as the Union force withdrew into Nashville. Unwilling to abandon his original plan, Hood stumbled toward the heavily fortified capital of Tennessee, and laid siege with inferior forces, which endured the beginning of a severe winter. Two weeks later, George Thomas completely defeated Hood at the Battle of Nashville, in which most of the Army of Tennessee was devastated. It was later reorganized by General Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina to defend against Sherman's Carolinas Campaign. Near the end of the war, President Jefferson Davis ordered Hood to travel to Texas to raise another army. However, before he arrived, General Edmund Kirby Smith surrendered his Texas forces, and Hood surrendered himself in Natchez, Mississippi, where he was paroled on May 31, 1865.

Spring Hill
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Franklin
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==Critique of Hood (Hood's Blunder at Franklin) == Be the first to start adding content to this article section

John Bell Hood quotes related to Franklin
“Our loss of officers in the battle of Franklin on the 30th was excessively large in proportion to the loss of our men. The medical director reports a very large proportion of slightly wounded men.”


 * - John Bell Hood, writing two days after the battle to Confederate Secretary of War, James A. Seddon.

Links

 * Hood's Retreat