Rhea Cole
Major
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2019
- Location
- Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Why did Hood's memoir get such bad reviews?
In a thread on this forum 'Hood's Atlanta Campaign Report' his memoir has become a topic of discussion. While I am well versed in what Hood said about the Tennessee Campaign, I haven't had any reason to look into the genesis of the animas with with Hood's memoir is regarded. It is appropriate to see where it came from.
Hood died of yellow fever in 1879. Unfortunately, Advance & Retreat was in what amounted to first draft form. What Hood had intended to be a history of his experiences in the Civil War was run off the rails by the publishing of Joseph Johnston's memoir. In typical Johnston style, he sought to blame Hood & others for loosing battles that should have been won because of Joe Johnston's military brilliance. In a sixty page rebuttal that any competent editor would have red penciled on sight, Hood went after Johnston. Unfortunately for Hood, General Beauregard took it upon himself to publish Advance & Retreat.
Beauregard's involvement was unfortunate, because it placed Hood's memoir directly into the crosshairs of the Southern Historical Society. In the 1870's the Society led by Jubal Early was busy rewriting the history of the Civil War to suit what they called The Lost Cause. Hood's contribution to the loss at Gettysburg dominated Southern Historical Society writing on the subject for the next twenty years.
General C.M. Wilcox maintained that Hood's three "inquires about a change of attack delayed the entire advance of the Confederate force." Which allowed Chamberlin's 2nd Main time to get into position. In his article in Southern Historical Society Papers in 1878, Wilcox's analysis laid a great deal of the blame for the loss at Gettysburg directly at Hood's feet.
The Gettysburg loss paled into insignificance compared with the Society's attack on Hood's Atlanta & Tennessee Campaigns. Hood & Hood alone was responsible for the great disaster. The Society insisted "the movement of General Hood, ill-advised & pregnant with disaster, left the state of Georgia fairly open to a Federal advance." Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 6 (1887), 104 & 114-115.
At the same time they were vilifying Hood, the Southern Historical Society was raising Forrest to the status of a Southern demigod. Another fair haired child of the Southern Historical Society was Joe Johnston. One of the ways they glorified Johnston at Hood's expense was to publish remarks from the Confederate Congressional Record by Tennessee Congressman Henry Foote who lamented that since, "the Army of Tennessee had been rudely deprived of its noble & gallant leader, General Johnston (by Hood) there had been nothing in that quarter but an avalanche of misfortune." This kind of thing was published by the Southern Historical Society as late as 1959.
It is curious that while the Lost Cause driven thrashing of Hood's reputation was ongoing well into the 20th Century, some Northern critiques of Hood at the same time were far more generous. It was admitted that given the state of Confederate arms in the West, Napoleon & Julius Caesar together couldn't have saved the day.
It was the zero sum thinking of the Lost Cause / Southern Historical Society's deification of Lee & Joseph Johnston that required a scapegoat. That scapegoat was John Bell Hood. Somebody had to take the blame for failures that might tarnish the highly polished gods they had erected. It is only in recent decades that Hood's military actions have been examined objectively. His Atlanta-Nashville Campaign was a disaster, but there was plenty of blame to go around & Hood's part in it was more nuanced than the Lost Cause writers would have us believe.
A friend who has read this post made a good point that I am going to include here. The reason that almost everyone who will read this post doesn't know about the claim that Hood's three requests to go around Meade's flank being a major contributor to the Gettysburg defeat is that modern scholars debunked the Southern Historical Society's narrative fifty years ago.
Note
I personally have found amusing when folks responding to my posts about General Hood's problems with telling the truth have dismissed them because I "don't like Hood." Of course, I neither like or dislike the man, he has been dead for a long time. It was the writers of the Southern Historical Society who made up stories about Hood's men calling him "Old Woodenhead" or having "a lion's heart& a wooden head." Historians who were crafting the Lost Cause wanted Hood to deflect the blame for the loss at Gettysburg from Lee & to vindicate Joe Johnston's generalship in Georgia. It was important for the Jubal Early Lost Cause writers to accuse Hood of being stupid, as well. It is not me that set out to paint Hood as an incompetent fool, it was the Lost Cause, Southern Historical Society set. My only beef with him is that he lied so much that it is impossible to rationally understand what he was thinking when he made his decisions on the battlefield.
Hood's West Point nickname was "The Sergeant" because of his loud carrying voice."Old Pegleg" was an Army of Tennessee moniker. War Like A Thunderbolt, p 77
In a thread on this forum 'Hood's Atlanta Campaign Report' his memoir has become a topic of discussion. While I am well versed in what Hood said about the Tennessee Campaign, I haven't had any reason to look into the genesis of the animas with with Hood's memoir is regarded. It is appropriate to see where it came from.
Hood died of yellow fever in 1879. Unfortunately, Advance & Retreat was in what amounted to first draft form. What Hood had intended to be a history of his experiences in the Civil War was run off the rails by the publishing of Joseph Johnston's memoir. In typical Johnston style, he sought to blame Hood & others for loosing battles that should have been won because of Joe Johnston's military brilliance. In a sixty page rebuttal that any competent editor would have red penciled on sight, Hood went after Johnston. Unfortunately for Hood, General Beauregard took it upon himself to publish Advance & Retreat.
Beauregard's involvement was unfortunate, because it placed Hood's memoir directly into the crosshairs of the Southern Historical Society. In the 1870's the Society led by Jubal Early was busy rewriting the history of the Civil War to suit what they called The Lost Cause. Hood's contribution to the loss at Gettysburg dominated Southern Historical Society writing on the subject for the next twenty years.
General C.M. Wilcox maintained that Hood's three "inquires about a change of attack delayed the entire advance of the Confederate force." Which allowed Chamberlin's 2nd Main time to get into position. In his article in Southern Historical Society Papers in 1878, Wilcox's analysis laid a great deal of the blame for the loss at Gettysburg directly at Hood's feet.
The Gettysburg loss paled into insignificance compared with the Society's attack on Hood's Atlanta & Tennessee Campaigns. Hood & Hood alone was responsible for the great disaster. The Society insisted "the movement of General Hood, ill-advised & pregnant with disaster, left the state of Georgia fairly open to a Federal advance." Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 6 (1887), 104 & 114-115.
At the same time they were vilifying Hood, the Southern Historical Society was raising Forrest to the status of a Southern demigod. Another fair haired child of the Southern Historical Society was Joe Johnston. One of the ways they glorified Johnston at Hood's expense was to publish remarks from the Confederate Congressional Record by Tennessee Congressman Henry Foote who lamented that since, "the Army of Tennessee had been rudely deprived of its noble & gallant leader, General Johnston (by Hood) there had been nothing in that quarter but an avalanche of misfortune." This kind of thing was published by the Southern Historical Society as late as 1959.
It is curious that while the Lost Cause driven thrashing of Hood's reputation was ongoing well into the 20th Century, some Northern critiques of Hood at the same time were far more generous. It was admitted that given the state of Confederate arms in the West, Napoleon & Julius Caesar together couldn't have saved the day.
It was the zero sum thinking of the Lost Cause / Southern Historical Society's deification of Lee & Joseph Johnston that required a scapegoat. That scapegoat was John Bell Hood. Somebody had to take the blame for failures that might tarnish the highly polished gods they had erected. It is only in recent decades that Hood's military actions have been examined objectively. His Atlanta-Nashville Campaign was a disaster, but there was plenty of blame to go around & Hood's part in it was more nuanced than the Lost Cause writers would have us believe.
A friend who has read this post made a good point that I am going to include here. The reason that almost everyone who will read this post doesn't know about the claim that Hood's three requests to go around Meade's flank being a major contributor to the Gettysburg defeat is that modern scholars debunked the Southern Historical Society's narrative fifty years ago.
Note
I personally have found amusing when folks responding to my posts about General Hood's problems with telling the truth have dismissed them because I "don't like Hood." Of course, I neither like or dislike the man, he has been dead for a long time. It was the writers of the Southern Historical Society who made up stories about Hood's men calling him "Old Woodenhead" or having "a lion's heart& a wooden head." Historians who were crafting the Lost Cause wanted Hood to deflect the blame for the loss at Gettysburg from Lee & to vindicate Joe Johnston's generalship in Georgia. It was important for the Jubal Early Lost Cause writers to accuse Hood of being stupid, as well. It is not me that set out to paint Hood as an incompetent fool, it was the Lost Cause, Southern Historical Society set. My only beef with him is that he lied so much that it is impossible to rationally understand what he was thinking when he made his decisions on the battlefield.
Hood's West Point nickname was "The Sergeant" because of his loud carrying voice."Old Pegleg" was an Army of Tennessee moniker. War Like A Thunderbolt, p 77
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