John Bell Hood

John Bell Hood was a Confederate general in the American Civil War known for personal bravery and aggressive battlefield tactics. He served under Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet, suffering a badly damaged arm at Gettysburg and losing a leg after being wounded at Chickamauga.

In 1864 Hood was given command of the Army of Tennessee and tried to halt William T. Sherman’s advance on Atlanta. His later invasion of Tennessee ended in devastating defeats at Franklin and Nashville, effectively destroying the army as a major fighting force.

In Gordon Corrigan’s The Battle of Atlanta, Confederate forces under John Bell Hood launched aggressive attacks in an effort to stop the advance, but the campaign ended with Atlanta abandoned and occupied by Union troops. In Robert Hicks’ A Separate Country, in postwar New Orleans, former Confederate general John Bell Hood is physically disabled, publicly controversial and determined to establish a life beyond his military defeat. In Robert Hicks’ The Widow of the South, Franklin, Tennessee, 30 November 1864. Carrie McGavock’s home at Carnton is taken over as a Confederate field hospital when John Bell Hood sends the Army of Tennessee against entrenched Union troops. Rooms, galleries and grounds fill with wounded men, and Carrie finds purpose in organising care amid the destruction.