John Bell Hood

John Bell Hood assumed command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee on July 18, 1864, with a direct order from Jefferson Davis to attack. In five months, he sacrificed that army in a series of frontal assaults. The battles of Atlanta, Franklin, and Nashville cost him over 50,000 casualties and eliminated the Confederacy's second-largest field force as an effective entity. Hood had previously led a division under Lee, where his aggressive tactics at Gaines' Mill broke the Union line. His physical sacrifices—a paralyzed left arm at Gettysburg and an amputated right leg at Chickamauga—cemented his reputation for brutal courage but did not confer strategic wisdom. At Franklin on November 30, 1864, he ordered 18,000 men in a frontal charge against entrenched positions; six Confederate generals died. The subsequent rout at Nashville in December dissolved his force. Hood's tenure demonstrated the catastrophic cost of applying tactical aggression as a substitute for strategy. His actions guaranteed Union control of the Deep South for the remainder of the war.