Book Description

This award-winning book details the Tennessee Campaign of General John Bell Hood and his Army of Tennessee (October-December 1864). This extraordinary account details the strategy, battles, opponents, leadership and other aspects of this extraordinary campaign. After the evacuation of Atlanta, Confederate president Jefferson Davis visited General J. B. Hood’s army and proposed a move northward to cut General William Tecumseh Sherman’s communications to Chattanooga, with the possibility of moving on through Tennessee and Kentucky to “the banks of the Ohio.” In an effort to lure Sherman west, Hood marched in early October to Tuscumbia on the Tennessee River. He waited there for three weeks anticipating Sherman’s pursuit. Instead, Sherman, forewarned by a speech from Davis, sent the Army of the Ohio under General J. M. Schofield to reinforce Colonel George H. Thomas’s force at Nashville. On 15 November 1864, Sherman began his ruinous raid to the sea. Hood ignored Sherman and pushed into Tennessee to scatter the Union forces gathering at Nashville. On 29 November 1864, he failed to cut off Schofield’s retreating army near Spring Hill; the next day, Hood was repulsed with heavy losses at the Battle of Franklin. Schofield hurriedly retreated into Nashville. Hood followed, but delayed for two weeks, awaiting Thomas’s move. On 15 and 16 December 1864, Thomas attacked with precision, crushed the left of Hood’s line, and forced the Confederate army to withdraw to shorter lines. For the first time, a veteran Confederate army was driven in disorder from the field of battle. Thomas’s cavalry pursued vigorously but was unable to disperse Hood’s army, which crossed the Tennessee River and turned westward to Corinth, Mississippi. Hood soon relinquished his command to General Richard Taylor. The war in the West was over.