Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War Confederate General Joh

Sam hello, and thank you. You mentioned my odyssey. My wife and i moved to myrtle beach, south carolina, five days ago. And if you think it is bad when the Airlines Lose your luggage, we werent able to move into the so we arere buying living out of boxes and crates and things. It sounds strange to say i drove up from south carolina. Im used to driving down here. I have been looking forward to this for several reasons. Theis, when the theme of symposium is generals you love , i dont have to worry about what peoples expectations are. , ended a fan of John Bell Hood even though i am not as closely related as the name implies. I am a collateral descendent. I think i am a second cousin. Grandfather,s andrew hood, comes off a different branch, but i am a big ,an of general hood because like most people i am a big fan of an underdog. Fan ofm also a huge people who are not around to defend themselves, and they deserve a defense. I, for probably 20 years, have been researching general hood. And there is the old saying, we have heard it a million times, if it sounds too good to be true it usually is. Is,what we dont here usually if something sounds too bad to be true, it is usually not. There is a saying that, the more fantastic of the accusation, then the more fantastic the evidence should be. So, with John Bell Hood, there and so manymyths totally extreme things, that im assuming you have all heard, that i decided i got to start looking into these things because it just doesnt make sense. Woodworthk stephen summed it up perfectly in a book or an article a while back, and he was talking about Braxton Bragg and John Bell Hood. And he said, if you read the recent writings on these two generals, you would wonder why you wouldnt wonder why they were in command of armies, but why they werent in insane asylums. [laughter] sam and the fact is, so much of the stuff that has been written about John Bell Hood, and i am sure others, as well, just has no evidence at all. Where the evidence has perhaps taken too much literary license in their paraphrasing. I like to use this as an example. Evening, ande this we can turn on the news to see what happened in the world today. And you can turn on msnbc, for example, and they are going to tell you what happened today, and chances are it will be true. And then you will turn on fox news, and they will tell you what happened today, and it will probably be pretty much true. But the two things you are hearing are going to be totally different. So you can spin things. You can accentuate things. Errors ofare also commission and there are also whyrs of omission, which is they tell you, you dont just have to tell the truth, you have to tell the whole truth. So, in my book, it starts out with a quote from cicero. And i am not going to read it to you but it states basically, the first law of a historian is r dare after an untruth untruth andtter an never suppress something that is true. Love the ultimate in a couple of things about my book, which is of aages, or 250 pages, thingsefense of all the that have been written and said about John Bell Hood. If there is 300 pages worth of stuff to answer, that is a lot. And i am only going to touch on, obviously, i have about one hour, im only get a touch on some of them. And when i get into them here, some of the ones that i touch on intentionally, or admittedly, they are kind of silly. An example of a myth or something that is silly, but it permeates history and permeates the Civil War History community the sillier it is, the whittier it is, the cuter it is, the more it spreads, quicker. And it spreads deeper. Anyway, im going to get into a few of these. I first decided i was going to write a book defending general hood into 2011 or so. And i contracted with a vislishing company, sadness bay. Me,ted was so hard on double checking, triple checking, quadruple checking, i wanted to go to california to strangle him. I growled, and darned if i didnt find something that needed to be fixed. So he was right and i was wrong. I had a contract to write a book and the title of the book was history versus John Bell Hood. I had completed the manuscript anyi had not discovered new, primarysource information at all. I went to the, same books, the same primary sources, the official record of the Southern Historical society, the same records that these recent authors have gone to, and i just found all caps of stuff in the official records which was counter to some of the things actually provided in the book. I had completed an entire book with nothing more than what was available to the authors who have been writing the negative things about hood. Funny day, it is kind of day, is kindll one of funny. I have become acquaintances with you much all of John Bell Hoods and annabelle hoods direct descendents. And i got a call one day from hoods greatgrandson, who lives in pennsylvania. And this gentleman is probably 70, recently retired. He said my mother passed away a few years ago and he was 96. That would have been general granddaughter. And he said when we cleaned up the condo, there were a bunch of boxes, and you know the story. He says, i know youre getting ready to finish your book, and there is probably nothing in here important, but we thought, before it goes to press would you like to come up. Look at this stuff . And look atere, this stop . Stuff . Thinking, im from virginia and of a construction contractor. But im also, being a southern guy, i didnt want to be rude. So i said, ok, i will come up and look. And i was sitting there thinking, if i say no hes going to think i majored. If i say yes im going to waste a day of my life, never to be recovered. Am, i told smart i my wife and said im going for an overnight eerie i didnt even take a change of close and i thought i would go up there and go through these and it will be nothing. And i get up there, and its unbelievable. It is general hoods longlost, thoughttonotevenexist personal papers. Wife,and his had 11 children. They had three sets of twins. H andad 11 children, mrs. Hood got yellow fever in 1879 and she died. General hoodand got yellow fever and he died. Just 72 hours,f 10 children were orphaned, all under the age of 10. And if youre a friend of john and an end there are 10 children needing three meals a day, you are not going to be too worried about john papers. So it was always assumed that a family friend had just thrown them away or they had gotten lost. But as it turns out, they hadnt. Had been passed along. And they end up in pennsylvania, and i show up, and here they are. And i end up staying three days, and i wasnt finished looking at them, and kind of archiving them. The family had to go out of town, so i went back later on with my wife and stayed three more days. I spent six days going through all these. I very quickly went through some of the papers that i sensed might be important from a scholastic standpoint and from the controversies of wood, mostly his tenure in the west, the army of the tennessee the army of tennessee. Really much bad, to talk about what hood in the army of northern virginia. Lettersanscribe these and i picked up the phone and i called ted and i said, ted you want to believe this. I sent him some of the stuff and he called me back a few days later and said, we were going to go to press with his next month but he said, you have got to put this stuff in there. , five,ok another four six months, and redid the book by putting the material in their that i had discovered, that was likey, really important, what happened at spring hill on november 20 9, 1864, and other things like that. To changed i decided the hiatal, not history versus. N bell hood we changed it to John Bell Hood the rise, fall, and resurrection of a confederate general. Because ted and i felt it largely exonerated him from the most outrageous stuff. Some of the most outrageous stuff. So, that is my journey from being somebody that is just the Civil War History not to actually having a book published. And then, of course, after we published the first book with this information in it, ted and i discussed doing an annotated and that those papers, is the lost papers of John Bell Hood. I want to get into some of the i dont have time to get into all of these. I am going to touch base on a few quickly. These kind of controversies they are in the book. Know if this is mostly a Eastern Theater Centric Group here or how familiar i am thinking you are all total Civil War Western theater. He did not call his men cowards. He did accept responsibility for his defeat. He was not angry at franklin. He did not like just frontal assaults. You read that all the time, he only ordered one. That apparently did not matter. He did not position any of the units to take the harsh worst casualties. Did not go to nashville and sit there and do nothing. Believe it or not he actually had a recent to send people to murfreesboro as you hear all the time. They did not squabble or feud. I use this as a illustration there are basically four books that are recognized as definitive books on his Tennessee Campaign. A author ine was by the early 1920s. The another was written in 1950s. And 1970s finally in the early 90s. If you would read these four shouldnt really because i am going to write one. Like i was telling you about the tv channels and the networks. The same effect can be told differently. Yearsauthor, every 20 someone wrote a book on the same subject. It becomes more harsh on good. K starts out with thomas whoussing a Army Commander partook in a campaign and was defeated. To where it was quite more than that. I have always said, why would anybody in these towns and areas actually name landmarks after a womanizing,d, backstabbing, murderous soul. In virginia and in georgia it is not surprising that they would name something after him because of his success there. There are landmarks also in tennessee that are suburbs of nashville. Two of them and nashville itself, to an franklin. They were landmarks last time i heard they may have changed the name of the street by now but that is a entirely different subject. Adid not know that there is straight in los angeles and in florida near fort lauderdale. The only reason i found out about them is because they were going to change them. People back inld and 70s, why would they honor somebody by naming a landmark or street and their honor . If you would read the book in the 90s or any of the books after that it would be like naming a road Charles Manson lane. There are a couple of the quotes. He called him a full with a license to kill his own men. Then ben stein, for those of you who think you know he is familiar. You talk about jumping the shark. He actually wrote the article in the New York Times saturday things the faall pondering whether or not to allow people to talk on their cell phones on flights. He somehow or another creatively hoodgh that to john bell be one of the most destructive human needs of all time. I am not kidding. You are appear accusing people of exaggerating and i am not doing that. I am telling you. He called him the most instructive american of all time in a article about cell phones. [laughter] i like the guy. , iis a big civil war fan dont know if you know that. He let Civil War History. Loves Civil War History. I am going to give examples of cana author or a historian take primary sources and can change the context of a completely. I am going to talk about mr. Sword quite a bit here. I am going to be careful because he is a great friend of the site. Book is the last that has been written on the Tennessee Campaign. It was so good. From a running standpoint he is a a writing standpoint he is a incredible writer. Andt of the smaller books monographs that have been written since then they go by his interpretation and portrayal. You will see him in here several times. I was reading this part of the book from page 350 and i get down to the part where he says the army13 gained 160 recruits since tennessee. Result to angrily and bring into the army by conscription all men liable to military duty. Writes if recruits his standardsk to he intended to bring the men at the point of a bayonet. That does not sound right. I did what a lot of us dont do enough. I go to the footnotes. All, i know about you hate interrupting my reading. By going to the back of the book am finding it and then finally it tells you that it is a file from a library in tennessee. Like you will go there and find it. I did. Quite a bit. Cited a, the footnote letter that was written. I read it. Here is what hood wrote. I do not have the date of the letter. This is all he says about recruits. Have not had time to address any kind of conscription but hope soon to do so and bring into the army all men liable to do so. With this . At balance he reacted angrily. Was there any anger and that letter . Going to find am out if you are eligible to be drafted you will be drafted. I know in 1971 i was at the marine corps boot camp at the point of a bayonet. I probably would have preferred that. That is just a example of how you can really try and spice and he gives the wrong perceptive perception of the reader. This next one that i give. I know i met a gentleman from youngstown who has heard my civil war roundtable panel. You only are given 20 or 30 minutes. The next one i am getting ready to give. It takes too long. You guys, you cannot escape. Escape and in this next couple of minutes to me it is really incredible. Now, i will set it up. Again, i dont know how familiar people are with the Tennessee Campaign. The battle of franklin, the horrible what he battle of franklin. That was november 30 1864. There were six generals killed lost 4500 casualties. Nashvilleved on to and he built fortifications. He basically kind of laid siege to nashville. Later George Thomas one of my favorite union army andattacked his over a twoday battle at nashville on december 15 and s6th of 1864 they defeat hood army and chased them back to alabama and mississippi. So, hood a couple of days after the battle of franklin, i think it was the next day. He said they dispatch said they dispatch to general cory gardner and richmond. Saying we lost six generals at them andand he named we lament the loss of 4500 men. That he had taken some very heavy casualties of franklin. Nashville and he isacked at nashville attacked at nashville. On the second day of the retreat he sends a dispatch saying we have just been defeated and we are in full retreat once i safely cross the Tennessee River i will get back to you with more details. Five or six days later after hood safely crosses the Tennessee River he sends another message saying we have completed thankfully and we have not lost much more sense the battle in front of nashville. Gardner rmed cory and they are in full retreat. Hornis from stanley the army of tennessee. 3 itote on january received his first direct word telegraphed from corinth. Aat must go down in masterpiece of understatement. The army has recrossed the Tennessee River since the battle of franklin. He goes on to say that she did not say anything about the shocking loss at franklin and the disaster at nashville. Sword writes the same thing. It is the confederacys last hurrah. Hood basically lied to his affairs by sin we have not lost any more since the battle of franklin. That is totally untrue because they lost 50 cannons and 4500 more casualties at nashville. Here is what happened. If you actually go to the footnotes in the official mr. Swordere is what cited. It is to general cooper. Beaureguard that they suffered no material losses since the battle of franklin. You see that little asterisk . It says turn to page 757. Here is what he said. The army has crossed without material losses from the battle of nashville. And it sayserisk here is what happened. Od sends a dispatch he simply dispatch sends a dispatch saying we have not lost anything since the battle of nashville. His staff screws it up. Richmond that he is not lost anyone since the battle of franklin. In the official record they decided to give them both. Its a total screw up with asterisks and they decided to give them both. This is what hood told beauregard, but this is what beauregard told richmond. Well, mr. Horn missed that. Tt and by the way, ive been on toursdi of the battle of frankl and nashville and ive heard some very distinguished tour guides talk about how hood highed to richmond. Didnt tell him anything about what happened at nashville, but any way, the problem i have is you know, anybody can make a mistake and mr. Horn made a ea mistake. But mr. Sword, if he made a mistake, hehe must have missed this. This is the correct one. Mr. Sword in two other places in his book on two different suggests, use a source on page 436 of his book, sourced the entry and official record one inch away from the correct, the correct entry. These are the kind of things that have not helped John Bell Hoods reputation. That hes totally innocent of. Some poor staff officer probably just made a mistake. Th another thing you hear about hood. Is that he was callous. And cold and cruel. And he actually complained when there was not enough blood spilled and used to pleasure success by how many casualties. Now youma u all think im makin this up. You pick up a few books and read them on the Tennessee Campaign John Bell Hood or army of tennessee and youll read this. One example, the its in every book. Prz one example they give is hood is writing about the battle of jones borrow. There were four battles around atlanta. When you hear the battle of atlanta, there were actually four battles around atlanta. And the battle of i call decatur or bald hill is actually they call it a battle of atlanta, but it was only one of four. The last battle for atlanta was jonesboro and whens jonesboro fell, that was the last lifeline for tennessee. The scene in gone with the wind, right . Everything blowing up and burning and all that. Jonesboro had fallen and the army was evacuat