The Battle of Nashville: How One General’s Fury Led to Catastrophe

[@Warmaker01]

Hood suffered horrendous injuries prior to all this. At Gettysburg, July 1863, an arm was severely injured. In September 1863 for the Battle of Chickamauga, he was horrendously injured. A leg was amputed a few inches below the waist. I'd like to think that these wounds broke the man in the head. He was not the same afterwards and should have never held field command ever again, never mind command of an army.

[@robertferguson533]

Absolutely

[@bert8373]

Probably PTSD but it was known then as nostalgia

[@markminter3960]

You are correct about the man being severely injured, and he was on pain medication Lenham was the medication that the confederacy had to use. He was amputated below his waste in fact, it was below his right hip, and he even retained part of the thigh bone, the amputation you are referring too would not allow for any prosthetic,he owned many types of the period. His family was big in to the practice of medicine, he had one of the best Surgeon’s of the century, and the medical records can be absolutely abstained, General, married and fathered a score of children after the war, many have descendants to this day. The injury you have described, would not allow anyone to even sit a horse strapped on even. In fact, there was special type of “ rolling chairs” use for patients with just such an injury. Yes he was, horribly mangled, but you’ve given an impossible picture. he used the word horrendous more than once I would say you have more of a horrendous idea idea of the truth. you can look up his medical records in the archives of medical history go to Maguire Hospital. Thanks for your comment, and love for the truth keep shaking, and you will find research will help you give a better more accurate factual history.😊

[@Richard-w9r]

He was a treasonous fool. I give no honor to those who wore the grey.

[@alanaadams7440]

Hood should have retired after the amputations .

[@keithkuhn6404]

Happy Birthday Gen. Hood! We celebrate it here in the North. Hood many have had big physical problems, but he could still claim to Richmond that he should replace Joseph E. Johnston. A "good" man should know his limitations. A good President show know what men under him can do.

[@BlitzenSpeaks]

After the wound he took at Chickamauga, Hood was taking Laudnum. He was NOT in his right mind! Honestly, he should have been medically relieved at that point in the war. He had no business being in command of anything after that! As for his critics, look at his war record prior to that event. _Hood was an excellent commander!_ It was the Laudnum that wrecked his mind. _It would do the same to YOU today!_

[@alexanderv7702]

Hood wrecked the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

[@BlitzenSpeaks]

@@alexanderv7702 I know that. You're missing the point. Did you even read my entire comment? Do you know what Laudanum is? What it does to the brain? I said it plain; after Chickamauga, Hood should have been medically retired. Also, when the orders first arrived naming Hood to command, he asked Joe Johnston to ignore them, and stay in command himself. Johnston refused. He would later be reinstalled to the command after Hood removed himself from it. Of course, it was too late. Yes, it's tragic. But look at what caused it.

[@jonathanziegler8126]

Hood's injuries had him using opium daily. I imagine, for him, the Fog of War was the real deal.

[@TheBassPlayer100]

That’s a myth.

[@daviddalton9214]

@@TheBassPlayer100 I don’t know. He was obviously in pain and he mentions it in passing in some of his letters after the war. It’s a good point.

[@brucepedersen4032]

Opium is no worse than whiskey!!😮😮

[@alexius23]

Lincoln did make mistakes picking Top Generals . Jefferson Davis made worse mistakes.

[@brianholly3555]

Stupid to replace Johnston with Hood.

[@alexius23]

Back in Virginia Grant was fed up with Thomas’s seeming endless delay in attacking Hood. He sent John S. Logan to replace Thomas but before that happen Thomas had crushed Hood

[@exllbee4820]

Thomas is finally getting his due from historians. He was probably a better general than Sherman but Grant was excessively loyal to those he trusted, including Sherman. Thomas being a Virginian (which caused him to be isolated from his family) would probably not have been as ruthless as Sherman. Thomas insisted on waiting until the roads were dry enough to support his army and Grant got impatient. Fortunately, for history before he got there Thomas had blown Hood's army out of the war for good, saving his reputation and writing him down as one of the 3 top Union generals, behind Sherman and Grant.

[@bearbryant3495]

My 3X great grandfather was at Nashville, CSA 13th Kentucky Cavalry Volunteers. Somehow he made thru that meat grinder.

[@thomaslinton5765]

Hood had one arm, one leg, and a full beard.

[@travisbayles870]

Hood is a bold fighter but I'm doubtful of other qualities necessary General Robert E Lee

[@Revolver1701]

An ancestor was with Hood at Nashville. It went so well that his artillery unit lost its guns and horses and became infantry and were sent to Fort Blakeley where they were defeated and surrendered.

[@astralclub5964]

10:09 The day the Army time traveled to 1984!

[@ncander64]

Regardless, this proved tragic as the war was lost for the South at this time.

[@stuartjarman4930]

The AI generated images are hilarious - check out some of those hats! And skyscrapers in 1864 anyone?

[@LilBit4J316]

Bill Ankeny-- Really how ridiculous are these uniforms, it is so humorous.

[@davidbarker7030]

And the faces in the crowds. Just hideous. Leaves on the trees in late November, a modern city in Franklin? The pictures make me doubt the narration (that has some pretty horrible pronunciation as well.) Interesting story but please skip the AI - it is a great example of the phrase "don't add."

[@thomaslinton5765]

"Clay' burn." You routinely mangle names.

[@bobsylvester88]

The Confederate armies out west were like the Union Army of the Potomac in the east. They got used to losing. They were under-equipped, undermanned and out generaled almost continuously. Jefferson Davis replaced Sidney Johnson with John Bell Hood because he felt Johnson was not aggressive enough, whereas Hood was a hard charger. I don’t think it really mattered who was in charge of the Confederate army in the west by late 1864, although I think more Confederates would’ve survived under Johnson.

[@BlitzenSpeaks]

@@bobsylvester88 No, After Johnston died at Shiloh, Beauregard was placed in Command. Then Bragg. Then Joe Johnston, then Hood, and Joe Johnston again after Hood resigned. After the terrible wound he took at Chickamauga, Hood was drinking Laudanum for the pain. That's what caused Hood to act the way he did. Honestly, he should have been medically retired after that. He had no business being in command of anything.

[@bobsylvester88]

@@BlitzenSpeaks please tell me what I said that was worth a “no”. You didn’t address anything I wrote.

[@BlitzenSpeaks]

Hood did NOT take over from Albert Sidney Johnston. How can you not see that? Hood didn't enter the Western theater until the Fall of 1863. About a year and a half AFTER Shiloh and A.S. Johnston's death. In the meantime, the Army of Mississippi was renamed the Army of Tennessee. And had several other commanders. Does that clear it up for you?

[@bobsylvester88]

@@BlitzenSpeaks I see I got the Johnson’s mixed up. The thing that is the clearest to me is that you’re kind of a douche.

[@hvymettle]

Robert E. Lee believed that Hood was a bold fighter but lacked the other qualities necessary to lead an army.

[@williamdavis3609]

John bell hood… all lion and no fox

[@scottmason7312]

5:58 Why was there no discussion of the 6 legged horses, as displayed, impact on the battle.

[@alexanderv7702]

If only Jackson had not been killed by "friendly fire"!

[@stevemar4779]

I'm baffled seeing those uniforms.🤔

[@jameshorn270]

The Peter Principle says that men get promoted to their level of incompetence. In other words they may well have been effective at a lower level, but should have stayed there. Hood, like Custer, should never have been given an independent command. Under higher control, they were good for leading a charge, but not for coordinating larger commands. Hood was in hospital when Pickett charged at Gettysburg, but he should have learned the lesson that charges over large expanses of open ground were liable to be costly, at best, and disastrous at worst. His attempt to lure Sherman away from Atlanta by threatening his supplies was a pipe dream - Sherman had no intention of drawing his supplies from Nashville, but intended to live off the land until he got to Savannah, and Nashville itself was sell fortified, well manned, and superbly suppllied. However, there was also brilliance on the Union side. Schofield's retreat was daring and carried out with great skill and discipline. Thomas refused to move against Hood, despite orders from Grant, until after an multi-day sleet and hail storm had ended, which Hood's men endured out in the open while the Union soldiers were warm and comfortable whenever they were not on guard duty. Only when they storm was over did Thomas move, and the Confederates were almost numb with cold. Meanwhile, Sherman was less than a week out from Savannah. Hood should have regrouped after Spring Hill and headed for the Carolinas.

[@fredwilliams7551]

Btw you left how grant ordered and demanded that thomas attack immediately thomas ignored grants orders to the point where grant hopped on his horse to grab a train to Nashville to relieve thomas his aides stopped him, and he sent Thomases replacement to relieve him...the next day Thomas attacked read Grants autobiography you'll lean something

[@ryanm5361]

Sadly, Hood got so many of his men killed with bad decisions. A lot of these men were close to home. And it was near the end of the war.

[@alexius23]

More strange hats….

[@jamesharms748]

Yeah bad computer generated images.

[@pop401k]

Nice commentary, but I was continually distracted by the horrible AI images...

[@unbreakable7633]

Hood, the man who wrecked the Army of Tennessee. The war had two hard luck armies. The North's was the Army of the Potomac. The South's was the Army of Tennessee. The Army of Tennessee campaigned over a huge area from Tennessee to Georgia, down to Mississippi and into the Carolinas, while the Army of Northern Virginia operated in a very limited area, not going much more than about a 100 miles from its base. Whatever chance Hood had to take Nashville was irreparably lost at Franklin. If memory serves, it was Gen. Otho Strall who said to his men at Franklin, "Boys, this will be short but deadly." it was.

[@fredwilliams7551]

Clayborn, according to Hoods memoir, had volunteered to leave the charge at Franklin a little research would have provided a better video and more accurate btw the generals were one thing but they lost more valuable 56 regimental commanders

[@oldgeezerproductions]

Your CGI images with uniforms, arms, accoutrements and headgear needs some serious correction because they completely lack authenticity. Anybody showing up at a reenactment outfitted as such would be turned out as being "far too farby to look authentic." Those crazy looking top hats are especially dumb. Otherwise a well done audio presentation, if you turn off the cringe-worthy images.

[@georgejasper8794]

Came here to say the same. This is like imaginary cowboy imaging.

[@jeffstromberg7880]

One of the horses has six legs.

[@Brileyrl]

Yeah something about these images is unsettling to me. The faces are distorted or blurred. There was one of an apparent civil war army formed up outside of a modern city. So many things about the pictures are just wrong or "off". It looks like they are trying to represent the images as historical photos that have been colorized or something but they are just weird.

[@carpecanem611]

5 legged horse at 17:25.

[@Redbaron_sites]

I have read Hood was asleep as the escape from spring Hill took place, having taken laudanum for pain and had not issued correct orders. I'm old but wasn't there, I'll leave it to historians.

[@archibaldmccutcheon5884]

Great Corps commander not suited for Command of an Army.

[@jessgatt2306]

Hood was of the Napoleon theory, attack, attack, attack, yeah, he could be depended upon to destroy his own armies by attack instead of defense.

[@thomaslinton5765]

Union infantry uniformed in "stove pipe" hats?

[@wcg19891]

The idea that Hood essentially sacrificed his army in a suicidal attack because he was angry his generals failed to trap the Union army earlier is absolutely disgusting and marks Hood as a class A jerk b who had no business commanding an Army

[@jeffersonstowers5321]

Lee said the same, although more delicately, when Jefferson Davis asked his opinion on replacing Johnston with Hood.

[@curious968]

Well, the video barely mentions it, but the real plan start to end was to compel _Sherman_ to come north and abandon Georgia. That's why Joe Johnston was relieved to start with. The southern leadership was tired of the slow surrender strategy (even though that was actually the best thing they had by 1863). Sherman coolly calculated that Hood would get destroyed by Thomas. He didn't follow and Hood did indeed get wiped out by Thomas. Sherman's non-action here is amazing and still one of the most under-appreciated decisions of the war. Not coincidentally, Lee stopped being Lee and started being Joe Johnston right about the same time. The south's ability to go on sustained offence actually ended at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and the _earlier_ campaign in Tennessee.

[@wcg19891]

@@curious968what I never understood was why didn’t the Union use its amphibious capabilities earlier in the war in South and North Carolina to trap Lee in Virginia from both the North and South. They waited until Sherman came from the west from Georgia very late in the war

[@curious968]

@@wcg19891 An excellent point. I have never seen an analysis of this. Some historian is missing a bet. Certainly, the navy was well-used elsewhere (e.g. New Orleans, Vicksburg). McClelland did use the navy in his Peninsula campaign, but moving farther south is a very interesting idea.

[@wcg19891]

@@curious968 Thanks. I guess my idea is somewhat similar to the one Cornwallis had years before although that ended in spectacular failure. The other thing I don’t quite understand is the extreme importance given to Vicksburg. I understand it split the Confederacy but by 1863 how important really was Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas to the overall war effort?. It seems like the center of gravity was with the eastern seaboard and then as a secondary, Tennessee. I would think that the “west CSA “ which was underpopulated could have been relegated to the back burner and dealt with later after the east was beaten.

[@Revolver1701]

“chaotic comedy of errors” is a dreadful phrase to be in your story.

[@frankohrt3347]

Whether at Gaine's Mill, Chickamauga, or Franklin, Hood only knew full frontal assault. He got lucky at Chickamauga, hitting a temporarily empty spot in the Union line, and concluded that he would always succeed by brute force. The slaughter at Franklin didn't enlighten him. I seriously doubt he was so deranged that he ordered a suicide charge simply to punish his subordinates. It was the only way he knew.

[@frankohrt3347]

And, no, the Confederacy was already burnt toast by then.

[@Pasthistoryunveiled]

Correct.

[@jollyjohnthepirate3168]

Hood was using frontal assults to punish his troops. He's a monster.

[@CorDekker-j3d]

Those hats, are they really authentic?

[@mikeb46]

I find it hard to believe Texas named a fort after this maniacal general. Located near Killeen Fort Hood held its name for many years. Only recently was the name changed to avoid honoring generals from the civil war. It is now referred to as Fort Cavazos in reference to General Richard, Edward Cavazos a veteran of Korea and Vietnam. Hood was beaten from the start, his troops were tired and hungry, the union troops were well equipped, well fed and rested. Had the troops of Hood stopped the union troops on the road they would have been cut to pieces right there.

[@benshreve9683]

At that point he had no chance to win either way he new gotta roll the dice

[@curious968]

This argument is great for armchair generals. The truth is, soldiers are a resource and not to be wasted willy-nilly. Whether it is Hood here or Picket's charge, I hear a lot of "must" when it was simply a bad choice and one which should not have been made. Let's not excuse southern mistakes. The north sure made plenty we don't excuse. Hood blew up his own army _exactly_ as Sherman expected him to. His failings were actually _planned for_ by better generals. You can argue that Picket was not Lee's normal generalship. You really can't say that about Hood. He was so predictable, Sherman actually predicted it and left him to Thomas.

[@mikemilne]

Hood was not a Texan.

[@tatata1543]

Sounds as if Hood went full untergang on their ass.

[@DamonNomad82]

As many others have already noted, good narration, terrible AI-generated artwork. Civil War troops (especially Southern ones) wouldn't have been wearing Abe Lincoln style "stove pipe" hats...

[@MrBarelytone]

Why all the weird hats on both sides? Found this very distracting

[@edwiser3547]

Please add maps

[@lindacorwin9066]

Maps?

[@billlawrence1899]

There's also evidence that Hood was suffering from pzzy fever. While convalescing in Richmond, the poor old fool fell heaad over heals for the most sought after belle of the south, Sally Buchanan, known to friends as "Buck". She was nice to him because he was a wounded confederate officer, which he mistook for something more.=. She had been engaged to several officers before, but each got himself killed. He got the crazy idea that if he won a major victory, she would swoon and marry him. The idiot didn't have brains enough to realize she worked her charm on every man and had no particular interest in him.

[@clockmonkey]

I think that could have been shorter and more interesting.

[@sorgbicks5076]

AI generated illustrations are awful! Your interesting content is ruined by the stupid pictures connected to it

[@exllbee4820]

All so neatly dressed. The Confederates were in rags and shoeless by this time.

[@rogerhuner6566]

AI narrator cannot deal with pronounciation

[@SSArcher11]

pronunciation matters

[@argybargy2225]

I'll give this narrative a B, sounds like AI, the names are fumbled and there are editing contradictions. Like most Civil War narratives it glorifies the Southern Army and down plays the Union Army. My God repose the souls of the fallen on both sides.

[@Edward-kk4dl]

❤❤❤yup. Us grant was sitting. Their in both citys❤❤❤ yep edward knows. The angle ohio😊

[@mikeater3571]

You said nothing about the battle of Decatur,Alabama where 2 companies stopped hood hac to march 30 miles to cross the river.