Minutes. Thank you all for coming. Will beny mentioned, i able to vote down here if i keep showing up. [laughter] in West Virginia, you could. Mention a couple people who were here. My beloved cousin, barbara hopkins, and her husband mark are here. They are from huntington and moved to atlanta about 10 years ago. And general hoods greatgranddaughter, mary hood perlman, and her husband skip from asheville, North Carolina are here. I will embarrass her and make her raise her hand. [applause] her grandfather was oswald could hoodod, one of the 11 children who we will talk about later. As anthony mentioned, i wrote a was on hood, and it originally to be titled history vs. John bell hood. what i did, and i will be talking about this in a few minutes, i was a little bit distressed at a lot of things that have been written about hood, especially around the 1970s on. I decided to write a book that would really expose a lot of the myth and legends about him that you read about, and actually use primary Source Information to let the reader know exactly what that is about, what the legend or the myth is about. So i finished the book. It was with no newly discovered information. It was with information that is readily available. Official records of the Southern Historical society, and universities. I got a call from one of general hoods greatgrandchildren. , we have some boxes of old letters that had been passed down through generations, and you might want to look at these to see if there is any important scholastic information in there before you send your book to the publisher. So i did. I went and looked at them, and it was a treasure trove. It was the papers of John Bell Hood that every scholar, every endl war scholar since the of the war or his death in 1879 his wife died within 72 hours of each other of yellow fever and left 11 orphans, all under the age of 10. Yes. 11, and 10. They have three sets of twins. So when hood died unexpectedly, mouths tos, he had 11 feed three times a day. Scholars always felt his papers were just discarded in the housecleaning that happened after his death. Papers andor the transcribed them as quickly as i could. Incredibleome just new information. Publisher, and i said, what should i do with this new information . He said, go ahead and reread the chapters and put it in. And i did, very quickly. I sent him the new manuscript and he said, wow, this is big. He said it was persuasive before and is even more persuasive now. He said, we will change the title of the book from history to johnn bell hood bell hood, the rise, fall, and resurrection of a confederate general. i thought that was presumptuous, perhaps, but the response to the book has just been incredible. So that is how the papers came to be. They were excerpts, excerpts from them were inserted into my manuscript. And the loss papers of John Bell Hood, which as anthony mentioned, he and i and everybody else thought would be available midmay, has been delayed. So what i will do will be kind of a hybrid presentation, if you will. I want to take a little time to go over some controversies of hood, and i assume everyone here is a bit of a civil war enthusiasts to some degree. A lot of these things you will be familiar with. I will show you some information that will probably, hopefully, make you change your opinion of you historic truth that always thought you knew. Then what i will do, i will do a bat turn and toward the end i l notgo through, it wil have anything to do with controversies, just some of the fascinating letters that were found. That will be the transcripts which will be in the book. It will be an annotated volume. Say, thebegin, let me owners of the papers asked me what my opinion was, what they should do with them. I said, keep them. The family has done such a great job of keeping them over the last 140 years. Why not . Andthey have been scanned, a digital archive of these letters will be at Memorial Hall easy am in new orleans. Museum in new orleans. That is tentatively, but it has pretty much been chosen where the scans of these letters will be. So lets start. Thisfor starters, photograph. In these records, in the boxes of papers, were not just letters. There were photographs. Justles, ephemera, everything. And one of them was a photograph of John Bell Hood that i had never seen, that nobody to this day, i have not come across anybody who had ever seen it. Apparently the only one in existence was in the possession of the descendents. This is a photograph of him, obviously taken in the winter of 1864. Hisad recovered from his left arm was wounded at gettysburg. His right leg was shot and abdicated at the hip at chickamauga. He recovered in richmond and returned to duty in dalyton at the beginning of the atlanta campaign. This is obviously a photograph of him taken in richmond, after he had recovered and probably just before he boarded the train and headed south as a Lieutenant General to command a corps under joseph johnson. Johnston. That was in the newly discovered papers. Things that i would love to stand up here for however long they will give me, and i would like to go over all this stuff i have seen. But im going to read these things, and im making these assertions, and by golly i can back them up, even though im not going to tonight because you came here to see other things. Hood did not call his men cowards. He did accept responsibility for his defeats. He wasnt angry at franklin and decided to slaughter his own army because he was mad. He didnt like frontal assaults. The only one he ever ordered was at franklin. If he had a problem, it was being too ready, too committed to franklin flanking movements. He did not position any of his brigades or divisions at franklin so they would be shot up the most because he was mad. If you have not read some of the books on the battles of the tennessee campaign, you would think i am making this stuff up, but it is pretty wellentrenched in certain areas of civil war history. He did not just go to nashville and it and wait to be destroyed. There was a good reason to send the force to murphysboro. He and beauregard did not squabble before the campaign. So on. Forth and another thing, he was not a drug addict. As a matter of fact, there is not a shred of evidence, not a single piece of paper that he took anything, ever. Then again, its hard in a short amount of time to back all these things up. I go into all these things in great detail in my book, which is out. Reputationods 1970, when thomas conleys book came out, followed by a book by wiley seward . What was his reputation . In the national banner, the 100th anniversary of the civil war in nashville, there was a big insert in the paper. It ended at the end of a 36page insert, this poem. And end, i, was, the onelegged man, i your only hope. This is what the perception was of John Bell Hood in middle tennessee. 1964, the 100th anniversary, the centennial of the civil war. And its a lot different now. Another couple things. Hospital ind cuthbert, georgia. I have to admit, i do not know where cuthbert is. School in therls civil war era, and they transformed it into a hospital and in honor of John Bell Hood named it hood hospital. There is hood avenue in atlanta. There is, and then there are numerous sites in texas, manassas. Fort over thorpe fort oglethorpe, which you might expect. But believe it or not, there are streets and roads named for John Bell Hood in brentwood, in nashville there are two of them. And in franklin, tennessee of all places, there are two streets named after John Bell Hood. Goodt know what hood Real Estate Developer would spend millions of dollars developing a subdivision and naming streets in honor of drugaddicted army commanders, but something obviously happened s the last 40 years with hood reputation. So one of the problems, wiley seward, a very influential and successful civil war historian. Full withhood was a a license to kill his own men. In an article in the wall street journal, John Bell Hood was the most destructive american of all time. This was in an article on whether the faa was going to allow cell phone use in flight. Somehow, John Bell Hood got brought into that one. It is pretty outrageous. As a matter of fact, even woo dworth, an author, very well respected, he wrote one time, and he was talking about John Bell Hood and Braxton Bragg. He wrote, recent accounts of these hapless generals leave readers to wonder not why they commanded an army, but rather why they were not in an insane asylum. Orth was wondering what has happened with this sensationalism of John Bell Hood and other civil war characters . Here is an example of how an author can take literary license, if you will, artistic license, where they can take something and paraphrase it. Then footnote it to a source. Wrote ofs book, he hood after he got to nashville, the army had gained only 164 troops since entering tennessee. Hood reacted angrily and resolved to bring into the army by conscription all men liable to military duty. If recruits would not flock to his standards voluntarily, he intended to bring them in at the point of a bayonet. I read that and thought, i want to go to the footnote and he what it says. Here is what hood said in a letter i have not had time to adopt a general system of conscription, but hope soon to do so and bring into the army all men liable for military duty. Reacted angrily and will bring them in at the point of a bayonet. That is an example. Heres another example. This one might have been just an honest mistake, but i have a problem with that. This is max or from stanley an excerpt from stanley horns book. Stanley is a legendary, very renowned historian. He was alluding to a telegram hood has sent to richmond after the defeat in tennessee and the retreat into mississippi. He received his first direct word from hood. In history asdown a masterpiece of understatement. And he quotes hood. The army had crossed the river without material losses since the battle of franklin. He writes, he wrote nothing of the shocking losses at franklin, nothing of the shocking losses at nashville. Hoodsward wrote, claim his army had safely crossed the Tennessee River without material loss. His report was highly misleading. Well, i went to the report and discovered something very interesting. This is out of the official records. This is what is recorded in the official records. General hood reports that the army of tennessee has recross the Tennessee River without material loss and the battle of franklin, but there is an asterisk. It says, see dispatch as sent by hood. This was sent to cooper by hood s superior, beauregard. What hood actually wrote, the army has recross the tennessee without material loss and the battle of nashville. Nons atst 50 can nashville. When he sent the dispatch, he said, he had reportedly lost of 50 cannons in nashville. Hes had, we have not lost he said, we have not lost anymore since nashville. Someone made a mistake in the official record wrangling and put franklin instead of nashville. They left an asterisk. So stanley horn made a mistake. He did not go here. He used the information in the other dispatch, which would make hood a liar. He did not lie. Beauregards staff made a mistake. So the problem i have is that he basically repeated the same thing, but the problem i have with mr. Seward is that on the same official records page immediately above is in other dispatch on something else. Page twice onhat totally other subjects, so i find it hard to believe he did not see the correct dispatch. Now, another thing hood is criticized for is being callous. Because hislaining men didnt fight hard enough, and there were not enough of them wounded and killed. What is cited most often is afterhood did write, the battle of jonesboro, the vigor of the attack may be in some sort of imagined. Only 1400 were killed and wounded out of the corps engaged. If that was all i read, i would think, how would you like to be one of the 1400 . The problem hood had, he was not a jonesboro. Hood sent two corps to jonesboro, and put hardy in command while hood remained in atlanta with one corps just in case the jonesboro movement was a divergent. So he stayed here with what would have been the heavily outnumbered corps. After the battle of jonesboro, hardy got mad and resigned. Hardy went to savannah. Hardy did not submit to hood and official report. Hardy did not submit an official report until march of 1865. All hood had for the battle of jonesboro was a report from stephen lee. What did lee say in his official report to hood . The attack was a feeble one, and a failure, with a loss of 1300 men killed and wounded. Notays, and assault was made anyway. Lee tells hood it was a feeble attack and we only lost 1300 men. Hood basically repeats that in his official record. In most books you will read, hood is really criticized for complaining there were not enough casualties at jonesboro. He was basically does reporting all he knew, because that is what lee reported to him. Heres another on. One. This is a portion of a much longer article that came out in nineew orleans newspaper days after John Bell Hood died. It was published by the army of tennessee association, which were all of the veterans. It is typically eloquent, the way people wrote and spoke back then. It talks about what a great guy menas, brave, loved by his and somesuch. In the middle, they wrote, as expressed in his own forceful language when last with us, five months since, they charged me with making franklin a slaughter pen. I understand it, war means fight and fight means kill. They go on to talk about what a great guy he was. 1970, hes book, in was ultimately a tragic failure, a sad, pathetic older whose ambitions totally outstripped his abilities. He was an anachronism and advocate of outmoded concepts, unable to adapt to new methods or technology. Always prone to blame others and unable to admit his mistakes. To the bitter end, hood never admitted his failings. They charge me with making henklin a slaughter pen, admonished a group of aging veterans, but as i understand it, war means fight and fight means kill. He took that out of a tribute to him and said that hood was at monitoring admonishing aging veterans. This one i will go through quick. Many atlantans who study civil war history, this is another of the fun stories everyone tells. Supposedly, this is in all the books, after the battle of as church,rch, ezra a horrible defeat for the veterans confederates, a yankee yelled out, how many are there left of you . The confederate said, i guess there is enough for another killing. That is always presented as evidence the confederates were so fed up with hood, all these attacks were they were being killed, and it was a criticism of hood. I did not figure this out, but another historian did. He sent it to me. Ks it turns out, he went bac and researched this. This story happened according to a diary, but happen that New Hope Church a month before John Bell Hood took command of the army of tennessee. So it happened when Joseph Johnston was commander, not hood. But somebody put it in a book, it was thought hood was in command, and gets repeated over and over. Of fun. One thats kind so many different versions of it in the book. Supposedly, the army of tennessee defeated after nashville, all ragged and traipsing through the mud, hungry and defeated. And somebody decided to take the lyrics to the yellow rose of texas and sang, supposedly, when they talk about your dearest maid and sing of rosalie, but the gallant hood of texas played hell in tennessee. I wonder what the source was for that. As it turns out, most of the wileys famous book the life of johnny reb. Though he does not source it. Silly going felt over the words, but i searched and searched, and found the i suppose what is the primary source. It was in 1904, one confederate soldier said he heard one of his fellow soldiers say this as hood rose by. Rode by. And it shows up everywhere now. They add on to it to where fellow wrote a few book a book a few years ago on the texas brigade. The brigade was marching across the pontoons back into alabama, they all sang this song. They keep building on this stuff, and it changes the perception drastically. So here it is. It. s the, where i found oldier in 1906, one s from the 39th North Carolina or something. It has turned into brigades and divisions. Here is another interesting one. Hood had a girlfriend, sally buck preston, and he courted her. Boththe war was over, they ended up marrying other people. But in some later books written on hood, they claimed that every move hood made, every decision he made, everything he did, he was trying to impress his girlfriend. And i thought, lets look into this. At thomas hay, who were the first book in the 1920s on the tennessee campaign. How many times did he mention sally press and preston . Zero. Stanley horn wrote the army of tennessee Sally Preston, z ero. Thomas connolly mentioned her once. Sword, 13 pages. Leton is mentioned on nine pages. I thought, how often, to use sword for example, these are four of the six generals killed at the battle of franklin. They are mentioned seven times, five, five, and three in the index. Ofs, it is kind overdramatizeing things. Another one, hood has almost always it has almost always been said that robert e lee said was that John Bell Hood all lion, no fox. I researched that. It never happened. The first time that John Bell Hood and fox or lien or whatever lion or whatever was written was in 1928. It was mentioned not as criticism, but as praise. Now i will get in trouble. This is on the wall of stairs, upstairs, and it says that John Bell Hood succeeded joe johnston as commander of the army of tennessee. And the men all called him wooden head. It never happened. There is no record anyone ever called John Bell Hood old wooden head at the time. I will make a pledge to the cyclorama. If they can find a letter or diary or anything where a sold ier called Joh