Generals in Gray: Hood

John Bell Hood

serving with distinction in several important battles: Seven Pines, Seven Days, Second Manassas and Antietam. Hood was promoted to major general and fought at Fredericksburg, then led a division at Gettysburg, where he suffered a crippling wound to his arm. His first command as a general officer was at Chickamauga, leading Longstreet's corps sent from Virginia to reinforce Bragg's Army of Tennessee. There he was again severely wounded, this time in his leg (subsequently amputated). He recovered and replaced Joe Johnston, then commanding the Army of Tennessee, in the Atlanta campaign. Hood failed miserably in a series of ill-advised attacks against stronger enemy forces. After a siege he was forced to evacuate Atlanta and retreated into Tennessee. Under Hood's disastrously woeful leadership, the Army of Tennessee was crippled in a suicidal head-on assault at Franklin, then annihilated by the full force of George Thomas's Army of the Cumberland two weeks later at Nashville. Hood resigned his command and fled with the shattered remains of his army into Mississippi (two-thirds later joined up with Johnston in the Carolinas, the rest remained in the west). After the war Hood moved to New Orleans, married the daughter of a prominent citizen and fathered eleven children in eleven years. He ran an unsuccessful cotton business and later sold insurance. He devoted the rest of his life, through his memoirs, to blaming others for his disastrous Tennessee campaign. He died of yellow fever in August 1879.

Generals >

Born in Kentucky in 1831, John Bell Hood graduated from West Point in 1853 and spent his first two years of commissioned service in California; then he joined the Second Cavalry in Texas in 1855. He resigned from the army shortly after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and went to Montgomery, Alabama to accept a commission as first lieutenant of cavalry in the Confederate regular army. He reported to Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond in May 1861 and was sent to help defend Yorktown. Hood's towering physique and powerful voice radiated a sense of authority and purpose that mesmerized his men; his tactical aggressiveness and audacity impressed the right people in Richmond. By all accounts Hood was a brilliant and courageous combat leader. Quickly but deservedly he rose to major, then colonel, commanding the Fourth Texas Infantry Regiment. (In her diary, Mary Chesnut wrote of Hood's "sad Quixote face, the face of an old crusader who believed in his cause," and remarked on his "appearance of awkward strength.") Hood and the "Texas Brigade" became a key part of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia,

© 2003 David C. Hanson, HIS 269 - Civil War and Reconstruction, Virginia W. Community College

John Bell Hood
	serving with distinction in several important battles: Seven Pines, Seven Days, Second Manassas and Antietam. Hood was promoted to major general and fought at Fredericksburg, then led a division at Gettysburg, where he suffered a crippling wound to his arm. His first command as a general officer was at Chickamauga, leading Longstreet's corps sent from Virginia to reinforce Bragg's Army of Tennessee. There he was again severely wounded, this time in his leg (subsequently amputated). He recovered and replaced Joe Johnston, then commanding the Army of Tennessee, in the Atlanta campaign. Hood failed miserably in a series of ill-advised attacks against stronger enemy forces. After a siege he was forced to evacuate Atlanta and retreated into Tennessee. Under Hood's disastrously woeful leadership, the Army of Tennessee was crippled in a suicidal head-on assault at Franklin, then annihilated by the full force of George Thomas's Army of the Cumberland two weeks later at Nashville. Hood resigned his command and fled with the shattered remains of his army into Mississippi (two-thirds later joined up with Johnston in the Carolinas, the rest remained in the west). After the war Hood moved to New Orleans, married the daughter of a prominent citizen and fathered eleven children in eleven years. He ran an unsuccessful cotton business and later sold insurance. He devoted the rest of his life, through his memoirs, to blaming others for his disastrous Tennessee campaign. He died of yellow fever in August 1879. Generals >
Born in Kentucky in 1831, John Bell Hood graduated from West Point in 1853 and spent his first two years of commissioned service in California; then he joined the Second Cavalry in Texas in 1855. He resigned from the army shortly after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and went to Montgomery, Alabama to accept a commission as first lieutenant of cavalry in the Confederate regular army. He reported to Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond in May 1861 and was sent to help defend Yorktown. Hood's towering physique and powerful voice radiated a sense of authority and purpose that mesmerized his men; his tactical aggressiveness and audacity impressed the right people in Richmond. By all accounts Hood was a brilliant and courageous combat leader. Quickly but deservedly he rose to major, then colonel, commanding the Fourth Texas Infantry Regiment. (In her diary, Mary Chesnut wrote of Hood's "sad Quixote face, the face of an old crusader who believed in his cause," and remarked on his "appearance of awkward strength.") Hood and the "Texas Brigade" became a key part of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia,
© 2003 David C. Hanson, HIS 269 - Civil War and Reconstruction, Virginia W. Community College