18th July 1864 General J E Johnston handed over command of the Army of Tennessee to one of his Corps commanders, the over aggressive Kentucky born Texan, Lt Gen John Bell Hood. He had been a former US Cavalry Lieutenant and was only 33 years of age. His President, the Southern Jeff Davis had had enough of Johnston’s retreating in the face of the Northern General Sherman’s clever advances.
The next five months would see this splendid Confederate army wrecked beyond recognition, culminating, after the loss of Atlanta, in the twin disastrous battles of franklin, Tn and Nashville.
Hood had been a great Brigade (1,4, 5 Texas Regiments and 18Ga, later 3Ark regiment) and Division commander in the East, under General Lee. He wasn’t a bad Corps commander, albeit a one legged, morphine addict. He was an awfully inept Army one.
I still love him.
General Johnston was asked to lead what was left of The Army of Tennessee in the closing months of the war and he surrendered them in North Carolina. He was Hood’s opposite in character, cautious and deliberate, but a fine engineer.
He attended General Sherman’s funeral and is supposed to have died of a cold caught standing in the rain that day.