perior officers, Albert S.
Johnston and Robert E.
Lee. Unlike many contem-
poraries, Hood showed
no hesitation about re-
signing his commission in
April 1861 and offering to
take up arms for the
South. However, when
his native state of Ken-
tucky opted for neutral-
ity, he entered the Con-
federate service from
Texas.
Hood spent the first
few months of the war as
a cavalry instructor in
Yorktown, Virginia, where
he won praise as a disci-
plinarian. In October 1861,
he became a colonel of the
Fourth Texas Infantry, and
the following February he
gained promotion to brigadier general. His
command was a newly raised formation, the
Texas Brigade, composed entirely of troops
from that state. By setting a personal example,
ruling with an iron hand, and carefully explain-
ing to his rowdy recruits the necessity for order
and discipline, he transformed them from an
armed mob into the shock troops of the Con-
federacy. In four years of combat, the Texas
Brigade became renowned for gallant con-
duct—and atrocious casualty lists.
Hood fought with distinction throughout the
1862 Peninsula campaign and acquired a well-
deserved reputation as a “fighting general.” At
Gaines Mills on June 27, he led a frontal assault
that crashed through Union lines and took sev-
eral cannons. It was a simple, brutal affair, but
Lee considered it the most courageous attack
he had ever witnessed. The Texans subse-
quently distinguished themselves at Second
Manassas in August and were successful in
holding off two Union corps at Antietam that
September, although they were nearly annihi-
lated in the process. Consequently, Hood ad-
vanced to major general in
October 1862 and was
assigned a division in
Gen. James Longstreet’s
corps. He fought well on
the second day of Gettys-
burg, July 2, 1863, but suf-
fered crippling wounds to
his left arm. After several
weeks of rehabilitation,
Hood transferred with
Longstreet to Gen. Brax-
ton Bragg’s Army of Ten-
nessee, where he led a
successful charge at
Chickamauga on Septem-
ber 20 and lost his right
leg. Thereafter, the aggres-
sive Kentuckian had to be
strapped to his saddle
while in the field, but in
February 1864 Hood ac-
quired a promotion to lieu-
tenant general and gained command of a corps
in the army of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. This
appointment, however prestigious, proved his
undoing.
Hood, a devotee of the assault, did not
work well with Johnston, a master of defen-
sive tactics. He criticized his superior for
falling back in the face of Gen. William
Tecumseh Sherman’s advance on Atlanta and
may have helped orchestrate President Jef-
ferson Davis’s dismissal of Johnston in July- Disregarding superior Union re-
sources, Hood immediately took to the of-
fensive and was heavily repulsed by Sher-
man at Peachtree Creek and Ezra Church.
This behavior induced Gen. William J.
Hardee, one of Hood’s best corps command-
ers, to seek an immediate transfer to another
theater. Deft Union maneuvering then forced
Hood to abandon Atlanta on September 1,
but instead of retreating to the coast, the
Army of Tennessee circled left and threat-
ened Union supply lines. When Sherman re-
fused to take the bait and marched to the
HOOD, JOHNBELL
John Bell Hood
Library of Congress