Hood and Nashville

[James_Longstreet]

[corydon]

[James_Longstreet]

or Gore Vidal's Lincoln?

Come ON, Chris - you probably could have picked another 1,000 books to point to (incl. the in-Famous Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg).

At least you didn't say 'fairy tale' - God only knows much hullabaloo's been made out of THAT remark as of late

P.S. At the same - I am curious why? Did Tom DeLorenzo "concealed all the positive things said about Hood while writing a NON-FICTION book."?
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Time sets all things right. Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal.
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[RickAllen]

For one brief serious moment, I'd just like to say how nice it's been to read this thread.

I've seen Mr Hood, met him and witnessed his presentation. I would term none of those experiences anything less than first class. I found his passion to be contagious, and though I dont always come to the same conclusions, the event was fantastic and he is an engaging and well informed speaker.

As I recall, he did it without notes. It had a certain honesty.

I'm not a fan of Hood in much more than Divisional Command, and to say that's an easy argument is certainly true. It should also be said that I am not what I would term "Anti-Hood" either, but in all honesty, I dont find much of his decision making very wise and in some cases, I find it downright tragic.

I think he was a dismal failure in Army Command, but having met his descendant, I in no way think him a dishonest or unchivalric fellow.

I'm personally honored to have met Mr Hood and he was one helluva nice guy.

I never met his ancestor, but I think I may have liked him too.

Regards.

Rick
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[James_Longstreet]

Lt -
Whatever you do, Sir, DO NOT get into any (ahem) discussions about Hood when sitting by the camp fire at, say, 0100 hours
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Time sets all things right. Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal.
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[corydon]

[James_Longstreet]

Fair enough.
The only thing I would want to add is that if a person is biased enough as to fail to present a proper well-balanced view of the topic by deliberately witholding a substantial chunk of information - then the work itself is distorted and conceivably leads to misrepresentation with intent to deceipt. That, IMHO, is not so far from "outright lies".

To an extend - the much talked about 'VA History' which so permeated the Southern View of the Conflict is one of the good examples.
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Time sets all things right. Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal.
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[corydon]

http://www.tunnelhillheritagecenter.com/clisbyaustinhouse.htm

Didn't realize this until now, but evidently Hood's leg is buried here.

I wonder if there's a marker just like the one for Stonewall's arm.

Here's a photo I took, which may include the Springhouse mentioned on the website.


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[grognard]

Sam,

I agree his attack at Franklin wasn't a tantrum, I never claimed it was.
but his leadership is definitely basically flawed since he had no viable options and he did not object to the campaign nor come up with any even attempted solutions after Franklin.

[Samhood]

Guys:

Several replies...

Grognard...this has all been covered earlier in this thread, but to summarize, Hood thought he had caught Schofield's army exhausted and ill-prepared, with their backs to a wall (swollen river) and without time for the AOT to attempt another flank as he did at Spring Hill, Hood ordered a charge. The Federals won...they weren't destroyed...and succeeded in escaping to Nashville. Hood lost. Many good men died. It was tragic, as were many battles. No disagreement there.

For what it's worth, here is what L.A. Simmons wrote of Hood at the Battle of Franklin in his 1866 book, The History of the 84th Regiment Illinois Volunteers, "...Yet this we have considered a most brilliant design, and the brightest record of his (Hood's) generalship, that will be preserved in history. He was playing a stupendous game, for enormous stakes. Could he have succeeded in breaking the center, our whole army was at his mercy. In our rear was a deep and rapid river, swollen by recent rains -- only fordable by infantry at one or two places -- and to retreat across it an utter impossibility. To break the center was to defeat our army; and defeat inevitably involved a surrender. If this army surrendered to him, Nashville, with all its fortifications, all its vast accumulation of army stores, was at his mercy, and could be taken in a day. Hence, with heavy odds -- a vastly superior force -- in his hands, he made the impetuous attack upon our center, and lost in the momentous game. His army well understood that they were fighting for the possession of Nashville. Ours knew they were fighting to preserve that valuable city, and to avoid annihilation." Simmons added that the Federals quickly withdrew to Nashville after the battle as Franklin was "untenable." He also stated that with Schofield's corps absent from Nashville, the city was "scantily protected."

Corydon...legend has it that Hood's leg is buried on the hillside above the Clisby-Austin house at Tunnel Hill, and a few locals have even shown me where it is supposedly buried. However, there is a member of the Texas Brigade whose name escapes me right now who claimed to have escorted Hood's leg back to Texas for burial. Records indeed indicate this private was absent (with permission) from his regiment for several weeks after the Battle of Chickamauga. Choose your legend:-)

Corydon...Sword's book is pure rubbish when it comes to just about everything he wrote about Hood. Seriously. The rest of the book is chock full of great narratives...there's no way to read it without being genuinely touched by the horror and tragedy of Franklin. Sword is an incredibly gifted writer, but he should write novels. There are several factual errors, and those errors are very important.

Just one example...when describing Hood's refusal to agree to Forrest's request to attempt a flank, Sword wrote, "Of specific use to Forrest was Hollow Tree Gap, a defile in the range of hills through which the Nashville Pike passed, only about four and a half miles distant from Hood's present position. Here the Yankees might be cut off from Nashville, urged Forrest, since Hood's army was as close to this gap as was Schofield's at Franklin."

Hollow Tree Gap ("Holly Tree Gap" on modern maps) was indeed 4.5 miles from the Federal lines at the Carter House, but was 7 miles from Hood's pre-battle position near the Harrison House on the Columbia Pike south of Franklin. However, Forrest and his requested division of infantry would have had to travel approximately 12 to 15 miles by circuitous march east and north to Hollow Tree Gap. This is not an unimportant error! Readers (erroneously) think that Hood was as close to the intercept point as were the Federals, so his refusal to flank had to be for another reason. And what was the reason? Sword accuses Hood of ordering the frontal assault to teach his soldiers a lesson, and Sword even accuses Hood of positioning certain brigades to take the heaviest casualties. Sword's lie (or error?) about the closeness of Hood's forces to the intercept point and his refusal to flank is a clear attempt by Sword to convince the reader that Hood wanted to have his own troops slaughtered in a frontal assault.

When I asked Sword about this he claimed that Hood probably had some scouts across the river to the east of his lines, so, Sword said, he was "technically correct" when he wrote that Hood had "forces" as near to Hollow Tree Gap as Schofields. Guys, that is a factual error, yet Sword uses some mumbo-jumbo psychobabble to justify writing that. To me, at best it is an important error, and at worst, a lie.

Sword also drastically inflates Confederate casualties for the campaign. He counted the 6,500 Confederate casualties at Franklin, and then counted the wounded Confederates who were left to recuperate at Franklin and who were captured by the Federals while pursuing Hood during the Nashville retreat! So the many Confederates wounded at Franklin and then captured 2 weeks later were counted twice as a "casualty."

But most of Sword's errors are errors of omission, and errors in as much as he intentionally causes his readers to draw inaccurate inferences. For anyone interested, I have a lengthy review of his book at http://johnbellhood.org/sword.htm that details many of Sword's errors, omissions, misrepresentations, and mischaracterizations.

Rick...What can I say other than to thank you for the kind words. In my presentations I try to deal as much as possible in historical facts, and as little as possible in my personal opinions and analysis, although it is impossible not to opine from time to time.

I know I have said this many times in this thread, but for the benefit of latecomers who haven't gone back and read the lengthy exchanges, my primary intent is to inform people of many, many facts and testimony that 99% of readers have never been told by authors like Sword. I am not necessarily trying to defend Hood in every instance, but to inform people of the additional historical evidence that has been intentionally concealed. I agree with many of Hood's decisions, and disagree with some, but I feel passionately that folks deserve to know more than what Wiley Sword wanted them to know.

[grognard]

One union writer saying that Hood's attack at Franklin was inspired generalship does not make it so--oner of Streight's men claimed they were beating Forrest and that writer could not fathom why Streight surrendered!
Somehow the commanders had a different view!

And I've read and reread the thread, the defense of Hood's lack of actions between Franklin and Nashville makes as much sense as Hill's defense of his Bristoe Station attack--that is, none at all.

[James_Longstreet]

So... should we disregard the primary sources because... they don't know what they are writing about?

And, I respectfully disagree that "commanders had a different view" or more to the point - that commanders' view was a more 'correct one'. This statement was made in a 'general kind of a tone' and there are plenty of times when those men who are the one that carry the battle on their shoulders see some thing much clearer that people above them.
Pickett's Charge is a case in point - Lee has 'full confidence' that it will succeed, George is ESTATIC, cause THIS will finally give him his long-awaited glory... and the grunts are slinking over to the edge of the ridge and saying stuff like 'Tis a desperate thing to attempt' and 'Run ole hare'.

Yeah - actually I guess you're right: the commanders indeed had a 'different view'!

WAIT! Wouldn't that apply to Hood as well???
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Time sets all things right. Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal.
A Great Civilization is not Conquered from Without until It has Destroyed Itself from Within

[Samhood]

Grognard:

I agree with you sir. No single opinion by a participant should define the feasibility or wisdom of the event. Absolutely. On the other hand, as Gen. Longstreet says, the common soldier saw things from much closer-up than a general, and had a different perspective.

I have never said that what Hood did or didn't do at Franklin and Nashville was right. What I do say however is that the consensus against Hood's decisions was far from unanimous, but reading modern books and articles you would think it was unanimous. This is godawful scholarship...actually it's not scholarship, it's outright deception. And when the deception is stated eloquently, it is embraced by the masses, and repeated over and over again until the deception becomes accepted as historical fact.

I read an article on the Battle of Franklin in North and South magazine last year by some high-roller in the Chicago CWRT (whose name I will not mention.) It was nothing more than another Cliff Notes version of Sword's book. I did some research on the guy's sources, and get this: of his 23 endnotes, 22 of them appeared in Sword's book! So Sword strikes again...indirectly. The same thing happened in the acclaimed DVD documentary "The Battle of Franklin: Five Hours in the Valley of Death", by Rob Hodge's company, Wide Awake Films. It is a video presentation of Sword's book...almost verbatim.

Concealing historical evidence and testimony...be it from privates or generals...is downright deplorable, and has some real and lasting effects.

I was once talking to Ed Bearss about this and he smiled and quipped, "We should all pray that we'll have friendly biographers."

[grognard]

Sam,

We seem to be a lot closer in thought than I, at least, realized. I agree that the truth should be out there. I never worried about Sword's lack of Davis/Beaury( I just hate writing long names) quotes because I know that Hood didn't just go off because he wanted to, but that he did have the approval of his superiors.

However, your crusade for the truth has made me change my opinion of Sword's book--and not for the better.
Thanks,

Mark

[The General]

Sam,

What you're saying here only bolsters something I've said repeatedly, which is that the Battle of Franklin needs a new detailed tactical interpretation. Eric Jacobson's book was a good start, but it has issues, too, not the least of which are far too few maps.

If Dave Fraley ever tackles the subject, that will, I think, be the definitive statement on the battle.

Eric
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