Hood

moval until the impending battle for Atlanta was
over, but when Davis refused and Johnston left
army headquarters, Hood struck promptly against
Sherman on July 20 and 22. Failing to drive
back his adversary, he had to submit to a siege in
Atlanta, whence he was forced to retire on Sept.
i, after a battle at Jonesboro made it clear that
Sherman would soon envelop him. Knowing
that he could not successfully resist Sherman
with inferior forces on the plains of Georgia,
Hood waited only long enough to insure the safe
removal of the 34,000 Federal prisoners at An-
dersonville. Then he turned toward Sherman's
extended line of communications in the hope that
he might cause his opponent to divide his army
and to dispatch a force into the mountains where
Hood hoped he could attack to advantage. Sher-
man, however, was strong enough to detach
Thomas and Schofield, with a larger force than
Hood possessed, while the remainder of the Fed-
eral army was being rested preparatory to the
march to the sea, which Hood did not anticipate.
Rains, the slow arrival of supplies, and the im-
paired morale of his army kept Hood from strik-
ing as early as he had planned. After Oct. 16,
when his corps commanders told him the army
was in no condition to fight, Hood moved into
Tennessee, abandoned the campaign against
Sherman, and, amid the misgivings of Davis and
of Beauregard, who had been given general su-
pervision of his operations, launched operations
against Thomas and Schofield, in the belief that
he could defeat them, recruit his army, and move
to reinforce Lee in Virginia. The successive
heavy defeats at Franklin, on Nov. 30, and at
Nashville, Dec. 15-16, ended this dream. As-
suming full responsibility for the failure of his
plan, Hood asked to be relieved and on Jan. 23,
1865, said farewell to his troops. He was on his
way to the Trans-Mississippi department, with
orders to collect troops for the reenforcement of
Lee, when the capitulation of the last Confederate
army led him to ride into Natchez, Miss., and
surrender on May 31, 1865. Going into Texas,
which he had regarded as his adopted state
even before he had command of Texas troops, he
was able to make good business connections and
soon set himself up as a factor and commission
merchant in New Orleans. In 1868 he married
Anna Marie Hennen and seemed in a fair way
to a fortune, but unwise ventures soon reduced
him to poverty. On Aug. 24, 1879, his wife died,
presumably of yellow fever. Hood and several
of his family were stricken shortly afterwards,
and he and his eldest daughter died on Aug. 30,
1879. He left ten children, among them twins,
three weeks old. He was buried in New Orleans.

Hood

In physique, Hood was commanding and digni-
fied, with ample ability to inspire soldiers. As a
commander, he undoubtedly deserved the repu-
tation he won in Virginia as a "fighting general,"
an admirable leader of a brigade or a division in
action; but if he possessed the higher military
qualities, they were marred by an irrepressible
rashness. "Hood is a bold fighter/' Lee wrote
Davis when the president asked his opinion on
the substitution of Hood for Johnston, "I am
doubtful as to other qualities necessary/*

[Hood's memoirs, written in 1878-79, were posthu-
mously published for the benefit of his orphans, under
the title, Advance and Retreat: Personal Experiences
in the United States and Confederate States Armies
(1880). The sternest criticism of him appears in Joseph
E. Johnston's Narrative of Military Operations (1874).
T. R. Hay's Hood's Tennessee Campaign (1929) is
a modern study. Lee's opinion of Hood, quoted in the
text, appears on p. 282 of Lee's Dispatches (1915), ed.
by D. S. Freeman. Hood's reports on his principal
operations will be found in War of the Rebellion: Of-
ficial Records (Army\ i ser. XI (pt. 2), s68ff.; XII
(pt. 2), 6o4ff.; XIX (pt. i), 922ff.; XXXVIII (pt. 3),
628ff., 76off.; XXXIX (pt. i), Soiff.; XLV (pt. i),
6$2ff, Apparently Hood, because of wounds, filed no
reports on Gettysburg or on Chickamauga. See also G.
W. Cullum, Biog. Reg., Officers and Grads. U. S. Mil.
Acad. (3rd ed., 1891) ; Memoirs of Gen. Wm. T. Sher-
man (2 vols., 1875) ,* M. J. Wright, Gen. Officers of the
Confed. Army (1911); manuscript records of U. S.
Mil. Acad.; Mary B. Chesnut, A Diary From Dixie
(1905); Confed. Mil Hist. (1899), vol. I; D. W. San-
ders, "Hood's Tennessee Campaign," Southern Bivouac,
Nov. i884-Sept 1885 ; Southern Hist. Soc. Papers, vol.
IX (1881) ; Mrs. C. M. Winkler, Life and Character
of Gen. John B. Hood (1885) ; Ida R. Hood, "In Mem-
ory of Gen. J. B. Hood," Daily Picayune (New Or-
leans), Sept. 4, 1904; Eleventh Ann. Report Asso.
Grads. U. S. Mil. Acad. (1880) ; New Orleans Times,
Aug. 31, 1879- Genealogical data have been supplied by
Miss Marcella Chiles, deputy clerk of Montgomery
County, Ky., and by Mrs. Leah Hood Reese of Mt.
Sterling, Ky.] D.S.F.

HOOD, WASHINGTON (Feb. 2, i8o8-July
17, 1840), topographical engineer, was born in
Philadelphia, the first of a family of twelve chil-
dren. His father was John McClellan Hood,
who came to America from County Tyrone, Ire-
land, about 1799, married Eliza Forebaugh, a
descendant of early German pioneers, and settled
in Philadelphia as a wholesale grocer. Washing-
ton Hood was appointed to the United States
Military Academy and graduated in 1827. Com-
missioned second lieutenant in the 4th Infantry,
he was assigned to Jefferson Barracks, Mo. Two
years later he entered on engineer duty and from
1831 to 1836 served on topographical duty, being
promoted first lieutenant in 1835, He resigned
his commission in 1836 but after a year as a
civil engineer in Cuba reentered the army as
captain of Topographical Engineers.

In the line of duty Hood surveyed and made
maps for the United States government. With
Robert E. Lee, in 1835, he determined the bound-
ary line between the state of Ohio and Michigan

194