Originally aired on July 31, 1998 - In part 205 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson explains how one of the best combat leaders in the Confederate Army became an army commander and thus fulfilled the Peter Principle.
#205 – John Bell Hood
One of the best combat leaders in the Civil War unfortunately became an army commander. In doing so, General John Bell Hood proved the validity of the Peter Principle whereby some people rise in life to the ultimate level of incompetence. Certainly in Hood’s case he was pushed by ambition and circumstances into a position beyond his capacities.
The son of a Kentucky physician Hood was an 1853 graduate of West Point. He served in the famed 2nd U. S. Cavalry under Sidney Johnston and Robert E. Lee. His rise in Confederate service was dazzling. A lieutenant when he left the regular army in 1861, Hood gained the colonelcy of a Texas regiment and by the following summer was a major general. He led one of the world’s most famous combat units, the Texas Brigade in Lee’s army. So aggressive a battle leader was Hood that Lee often used his men as shock troops in combat.
The “gallant Hood” Confederate soldiers called him. One observer thought Hood, “a splendid looking dignified man possessing the melodious and powerful voice and the look of a dashing soldier”. Hood wore a long pointy beard, sad drowsy eyes and an uncanny way of lighting up when he rode into battle. A South Carolina officer added that, “Hood’s men were devoted to him. They believed in him absolutely.”
His finest day may have come with an attack at Antietam. One of the units that Hood’s onslaught struck was the 6th Wisconsin whose colonel declared, “a long and steady line of Rebel gray comes sweeping down through the woods around the Dunker Church. They raise the rebel yell and fired. It is like a scythe running through our line. It is a race for life as each man runs for cover through the cornfield.” The Wisconsin regiment took three hundred and fourteen men into action that day. Hood’s Texans killed or wounded one hundred and fifty-two of them.
General “Stonewall” Jackson never given to high praise always referred to Hood in complimentary terms. On one occasion in an unnatural burst of emotion Jackson said of Hood, “oh he is a soldier”. That was the highest accolade Old Jack could pay.
By the age of thirty-two, however, John Hood was a physical wreck. One arm had been permanently disabled by wounds at Gettysburg. He had lost a leg two months later at Chickamauga. Hood clunked about on crutches and when he rode he had to be strapped to the saddle. The stump of his leg gave him constant pain. Despite the impairments President Davis named Hood in July, 1864 to succeed General Joseph Johnston as commander of the Army of Tennessee.
Lee opposed the appointment. “Hood is a good fighter,” Lee acknowledged, “very industrious on the battlefield, but careless off the field.” Lee was wise. Hood was a superb division leader, but once placed in higher command he failed consistently.
Hood took over the Army at Atlanta and launched not one but three disastrous attacks on the enemy. Forced to abandon the city in September, Hood led his forces on what one historian classified as, “the most poorly planned and executed major campaign of the war”. Stunning defeats at Franklin and Nashville all but destroyed the Confederate Army. The general was relieved from command at his own request.
Most historians dismiss Hood as an ambitious troublemaker. A simple man, tactless and crude. Failure tends to emphasize a man’s weaknesses in history. Hood’s brilliance as a fighter is too often forgotten by his clumsiness as an army commander. Even his end was tragic. In August, 1879, Hood, his wife and a daughter died in New Orleans of yellow fever. Left behind were heavy debts and ten orphaned children.