the nation they becameá all those years ago. as an irish person, i would like to extend my gratitude to you all for that the, and forúu!ií the privilege of speaking to you about one ofw[ o and we'd like to tell you 3dvdy about some of other american history tv programs. join us every saturday at 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern, for a special look at the civil war. we'll bring you to the battlefields. we'll let you hear from scholars and re-enactors and bring you yj the latest historical forms on the subject. again, that's programs on the civil war every saturday from 6:00 and 10 p.m. on c-span3. american history tv. new year's day on the c-span networks, here are some of our featured programs. 10:00 a.m. eastern, the

washington ideas forum. energy conservation david cray. cake love owner, warren brown and inventor, dean kamen. at 4:003m eastern, the brooklyn historical society holds a conversation on race. then at 8:00 p.m. eastern from the explorers club, apollo 7 astronaut walt cunningham on the first manned spaceflight. new year's day on c-span2, just before noon eastern, author hector tobar on the 33 men who were buried in a chilean mine. and richard norton smith. and sharyl attkisson, on her experiences reporting on the dñ obama administration. new year's day on american history tv at c-span3. at 10:00 a.m. eastern, juanita bt-p÷ abernathy on her experience with the role of women. in the civil rights movement.

at 4:00 p.m. brooklyn college professor, and benjamin clark in the link between alcohol and politician and prerevolutionary new york c*x and then at 8:00 p.m., cartoon ist cartoonist -- presidential cartoons with david mccullough discusses the presidents and some of their most memorial qualities. new year's day on the c span networks. for the complete coverage go to cspan.org. with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span2 here on cspan 3 we compliment that coverage by showing you the most relevant hearings and public affairs events. then on the weekends and then c-span is home of american history tv.;0 with programs that tell@ohá! @r(t&háhp &hc% history. >> the civil war's 150th anniversary. visiting battlefields and key events. american artifacts. touring museums and historic sites to discover what artifactsés reveal about america's past. history book shelves.

the best-known american history writers. the president looking at policies and legacies of commanders in chief. lectures in history with top college professors devilling into america's past. and new series, reel america featuring archival films from 1930s through the '70s. c-span3 created by the cable industry and funded by your local cable provider. watch us on hd. like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. a panel of authors and historians talk about the significance of late 1864 battles of franklin, spring hill and nashville. collectively the last part of campaign of the civil war in tennessee. they examine how the con fete rad commander, john bell hood whose army has been effectively destroyed has been remembered by history. they also discuss the role of the u.s. color troops during the fighting and how the campaign ;z compared to sherman's march to the sea through georgia which ÷ &ñ took place during the same period. this 90-minute event is

part of a series organized by the tennessee civil war sesquicentennial commission. >> welcome, thank you for attending this session this afternoon at the factory, featuring our themed topic of the day, the last campaign in tennessee. my name is van west, i'm a tennessee state historian and a professor at middle tennessee state university. over to join this event today. but for our expert historians, they've all come quite a way to join and be a part of this event today. and i'm very appreciative of that. the way i would like to do this, so we've got plenty of time for questions, and, you know, comments, i'm going to introduce all three speakers now. in alphabetical order. and then they all come up in

that order. of course, i know that means that wily sword will come last and he's from michigan, so i think that's okay. [ laughter ] okay. our first speaker will be the university of mississippi. i've known chris for 30 something years.l( it all goes back to his excellent work on frank cheatham's and his confederate division on the book entitled "tennessee's forgotten warriors." traing frank cheatham. it came out in 1989. he's also did his dissertation at ole miss on jacob donald cox, the ohio general who of course played a major role at franklin. he's been involved with us and has always been very generous bh in his time here for different civil war and franklin battlefield symposiums that we have worked with the community with for now over a decade. so, chris, welcome back.

lee mcdonough. i guess it's a sign of the times that we have all been working with each other for many years. jim is a professor emeritus of history from auburn university. but he's a native of nashville. and he's taught at david lispcum university. and those of us at tennessee know he/" u)q" in tennessee + through all of hisp studies in different#bt tennessee from the study of shiloh to from the study of shiloh, to james river to chattanooga to franklin that he co-authored with james conley. the parallel campaign. and recently in the last decade, his study of nashville and that major battle.[ our third speaker is wilie f sword. he's an award winning author and

of non-fiction books and a pulitzer prize nominee.2s2çe his book, embrace and angry win the confederacy's last hoo-rah was all about the campaign.mol and won the fletcher award in 1992 for the year's best book on the civil war. he's also understood and researched the western theater extensively. and his book on shiloh bloody april, i'd highly recommend as well. so we've got three experts who are also intimately knowledgeable about franklin and its impact, as well as the battle of nashville and its importance. an#x&qju$e things we want to make sure that we bring éçfez out this afternoon, is that @k0d these last two battles did constitute the last campaign in tennessee and it's really important for us to go explore that and understand what that

meant for the civil war, not only in the south, but for the entire civil war and its outcome. so, with that, it's just a brief introductions of very distinguished historians, i'm going to turn the mike over to chris lawson. [ applause ]loáñ >> thank you, van. i know i speak for all the panelists when i speak that it's a great honor to be here. i know today represents the work of literally dozens of organizations and individuals and for that we're profoundly grateful. it's always a great treat to come to tennessee. i live in st. louis and kansas city. the ten-hour drive, frankly was definitely worth it. according to your program, what we're supposed to do today is mef÷0jn. first offer some insights, speakz briefly on a portion of the campaign they believed to be particularly illuminating. so i'mómzcu going to do6+# two things real quickly if i can, and the

first one deals with spring hill. most of you know the campaign to know that spring hill was the day before the battle of franklin and what it represented was a lost opportunity to attack some union troops either at r2pwr spring hill itself or some at columbia would come up to franklin pike that night. essentially what happened is a profound mystery in many ways.h hood planned a flanking movement which was extremely successful. in fact there were federal troops still at columbia who were going to come up the pike that night. and then they failed to do either of two things that they could have done. they could have launched an attack on the yankees who were in spring hill. supported by are artillery. they didn't do that. there was a fight but it was not the larger fight that i think the generals had contemplated. the other thing they could have done potentially was to cut off the pipe so that as troops came up from columbia they would be met by confederate resistance. the thing that always sort of astonished me about this is that it's always deemed as a confederate failure, which it was, but there's tremendous assumptions made about what the federals would have done which

is essentially they would have inevitably been snared and destroyed. damian shiels, our irish guy today said that at spring hill, nb they had an opportunity of destroying or mangling a large part of the union h9ñ that's possibly true. but what i think they've lost in spring hill in some ways it 2 never gets the attention it is due, is that the yankees in this case appear as simply unwitting accomplices of confederates who were bent on destroying them. these were veteran federal soldiers though. these were not rile levies who had never seen a battle before. these were battle-hardened veterans of the atlanta campaign and elsewhere. the idea that they would sin encounter confederate troops and meekly hand over their weapons is to me simply preposterous. there could have been a battle.c-hiq it could have been at spring hill. it could have been somewhere between columbia and spring hill. but i think the idea that the federals would have been dispatched with ease is simply nonsense. but you can do what i did when i was a kid with my toy soldiers.

you can basically do whatever you want with your imagination. if you're a confederate partisan, you can wipe out john schofield's army to a plan. if you are a union, you can have your union an zester fight its way through and then go on to franklin and then to nashville. both sides would have suffered casualties. a night attack if that had taken place was fraught with danger. there could have been a battle november 29th. there could have been a battle fought somewhere else in franklin on november 30th. but the idea that this would have changed the course of the war in the west which some authors have made seems to be simply false. the second thing i briefly want to talk about, frankly, there's an elephant in the room here. his name is john bell hood. i went to visit hood's boyhood home. everyone properly associates him with texas but he was actually born in owensville, kentucky, in bath county. i went too at moore head state university. it adjoins bath county. i went over to see his boyhood home.

looking for inspiration. there was none. the house has been sided. there is a nice car port and really he left when he was so young i could not have imagine little toddler john bell hood with his beard. you know. in the driveway. so, alas. some of you know there's been a new book published by a fellow named stephen m. hood. hec goes colloquially by sam, i believe. it's called "the rise, fall and resurrection of a confederate general." it is a major reappraisal. essentially what mr. hood says essentially he believes historians formed an inaccurate portrayal of hood, that they have ignored positive views of him both during the war and post-war period. he believes that historians have accentuated the negative and written things that are basically false. he believes that historians have copied anecdotes and statements from other historians without going to the original source. they take citations out of of context, cherry pick in other

words that defame hood and ignore larger context which would make him look better. frankly, there is a long line of historians he assails, including me.4tz2z- mr. hood conveniently tells me that in prewar -- in 1950s that in prewar -- in 1850s america, $2,500 would have been the %akióf8bír#ú[ equivalent of $68,000 today. he's right. if i use the anecdote, i should have couched it in terms of something to the effect like -- "he was viewed as aggressive," and this anecdote, even though it is preposterous, illustrates it. but there are other people that he takes on more. there's the tennjp#÷ connection. starts with thomas r. hay who cñdqáq&atively better than stanley horn, thomas connelly. and at least james lee mcdonough. then wiley sword is his particular target. i really do have the impression that sam hood would like to get all of us historians in a big room and just beat the hell out

of all of us. [ laughter ] i will tell you that sam hood has lots of supporters. i went on amazon right before i came. there were 60-some odd comments and 44 gave him either a five-star or four-star rating. so ivkçeñ do think that there are people who have felt thatxñ hood has been maligned unfairly. that he deserves better and that if it was a failed campaign -- which sam hood acknowledges that,.

as we cep5=iqá sesquicentennial of the civil tennessee campaign of 1864. ;j it is good, it is an honor to be on the program with these distinguished gentlemen who have been studying the civil war for many years. and, certainly, as chris said, we all are appreciative of your presence here today. thank you very much. the events leading to the confederate march into centra< óá tennessee began with the conclusion of the atlanta campaign. in september 1864, united states military forces led by william wj sherman triumphantly entered atlanta which had become a major southern city, railroad center, and symbol of confederate

resistance. the victory climaxed a four-month long 1quy strategic offensive. the confederate army pulled out of the city just before being trapped by the federals. the atlanta news electrified theí@ nation. dramatically and undeniably y:+ demonstrating that the united states war effort was at last succeeding. the grand achievement also w!+iç contributed significantly, possibly decisively, to president lincoln's campaign for re-election. the success of which virtually assured the ultimate doom of the confederacy. desperate to somehow minimize k the united states victory, john bell hood led the southern army northward in late september, disrupting the western and x3éz atlantic railroad between chattanooga and atlanta.2ñ

which served as sherman's supply route. although sherman initially pursued hood with a portion of his forces, the union commander had no intention of relinquishing the military initiative to the enemy who soon moved into north alabama.?jy sherman had all together anothermpaign campaign in mind. with 60,000 veteran troops he vete determined to march across georgia from atlanta to charleston or savannah, living õ4÷ o off the land, breaking up roads, br destroying all manner of war jvqcx resources, leaving a trail he ts remarked that will be recognizable 50 years hence.ír[ 7;21 the impact on southern resources th and morale, he believed, would be be more devastating than the li be more devastatingeing than the

if hood continued to move west 6 z hood and north into middle tennessee rather than following sherman, then george h. thomasl>hrw nashville who was amassing thomas widely separated troops, and massin also reinforced by thousands of sherman's veterans from the ok/÷ atlanta campaign, would defend e rebe against the rebel offensive. in mid-november, sherman began #t the march for which he will ever be remembered, while hood and the army of tennessee, instead see, of pursuing sherman, prepared to cross the tennessee river and drive northward toward nashville.ard the resulting campaign in f&b0,a÷p central tennessee highlighted by events at spring hill, franklin, and nashville, and characterized by mystery and misery, anger and46ahu turmoil, suffering, slaughter

and tragedy, soon became, and ever after it has remained, a subject of endless controversy. the spring hill affair was an intriguing, enigmatic episode, k and has been the focus of much epcus o attention.f the bloody, tragic clash at ody, franklin has attracted even morein has attention.tw but the two-day battle of e nashville has a highly significant feature which neither spring hill nor franklin whic can claim.) i refer to the participation of african-americans. several thousand strong, in a combat row for the union army, l nq lack regiments had come to be officially known as united states colored troops. usct.

they fought both days of the engagement, and this is a major ng as reason why the battle of nashville deserves to be commemorated. certainly not the only one, but i a major one.e the experience of serving n"r! member of the united states colored troops, a black soldier in a blue uniform, was not easy, as you well might expect.xop.x mig when the civil war began, ') president lincoln rejected any idea of abolishing slavery or seeking black military tary assistance for the war effort. he feared that such action wouldí alienate the border slave states which had remained loyal to the l union, arouse the racial prejudice of northern whites, p[áñ and further harden confederate and resistance.vúiñ norther by the late summer of 1862, d

however -- the president had come to believe that undermining slavery would significantly u#tu8uy weaken the confederacy and any n should become a major priority overriding any negative factors.eg thus "áqsp'cipation j,ñ prom clam proclamation was issued, january 1, the union army with lincoln's full support launched a drive to recruit african-american soldiers.ldiers by the war's end, nearly 180,000 blacks would serve in the usct“i÷ more more thav from the confederate states, and most of those former slaves. the great majority of officers the for those black troops were white men.cf÷ this was in order to provide the inexperienced african-american

soldiers with leadership by combat veterans.vete it also certainly reflected, in part, considerable part, a bow to racial prejudice because it 0xpa was believed that few white te union soldiers would take orders from a black officer.rçdgs the black soldiers had to deal with discriú@/iq%=9jeráq+eral hite ways. their pay was $10 per month, while a white private received xgxo thou $13 per month. many union generals thought the usct should be used only as laborers or garrison troops having no faith in their r get fighting potential. go when black troops did get into combat, they sometimes carried medic inferior weapons, and if they they we got sick, they well might 7-ñk%ve inferior medical care. if they were captured, they often were mistreated or even

murdered.harbor at the battle of nashville, ts about general george h. thomas, like many of his peers, harbored pro doubts about the combat prowess of african-americans.e but with but with black troops available, thomas decided to use them. on both days of the battle, the united states colored troops made a diversionary attack against the confederate right flank.f the african-american infantry were serving in a division >'h-o a commanded by james b. steedman. it was composed of two black regiments and one white regiment, and numbered a numbered approximately 7,500 men. through no fault of the blacks, approximately 7,500 men. through no fault of the blacks, &/;p as the fortunes of war dealt

with them harshly, the diversionary attack on december 15 resulted in heavy casualties.n the situation was even worse on december 16 when corps commander thomas j. wood decided, instead of a demonstration, to launch an assault in hope of carrying the formidable rebel right flank. on georgia hill. it was a blunder, a hastily has conceived affair that cost thelit union troops dearly, both white and black. in fact, the attack exacted crheting approximately one-third of the total union casualties for the two days fighting at nashvill and suffering the greatest loss ÷[bñd in of any regiment was the 13th en.

usct, a regiment raised in nashville, which lost approximately 40% of its men.mmyú once more, as so often in the x xys civil war, glory-hungry t4qy commanders in frontal assaults /;@hñ against strong defensive positions proved a lethal combination. there were numerous accolades for the fighting prowess of the be black troops, and some of them from southerners. james t. holtzclaw commanding the brigade whose firing devastate the 13th usct was deeply impressed by their e th furious and desperate assault. he reported how the blacks gallantly -- that was his rwfpu term -- "gallantly" assaulted. into again and again they charged, he said, right into the abity. but, "they came only to die."(!8-n!&>

holtzclaw continued -- i have seen most of the battlefields of the west but never saw dead men the thicker than in front of my two right(tle of the magnificent effort of the black troops seemed to deserve a better fate, but the battle of nashville did prove that african-americans would fight, ively would fight offensively and ag aggressively, even when assaulting a heavily defended defen and naturally strong enemyde haç positionna."op [ applause ](hán >> thank you, jim and chris. i guess i am the counterpoint to stephen sam hood's book on the v#qñ

resurrection of john bell hood.$máon of and i will say in preface here áóq that my aim certainly is not to =ñs get john bell hood, but in a tragedy tragedy such as the battle of franklin represents, resx overlooked even in a modern sense in terms of our generation.evv6w just please bear with me. s in examining the many specificpe points of controversy about the abo events at spring hill and c#]ú franklin, as ordered by general

major aspects of the crucial events, often we have heard of his alleged use of an opium derivative taken for pain, but which during the civil war era was regarded more of an re of aspirin-like medicine than a mind-altering drug. theoretically, from a modern jch>lkdáy perspective, if hood was on an opium substance, he would not be reasoning with a normal lucidness. thus, his decisions would not necessarily be wise or proper. yet laudo)bg really should be a non-issue hood with john bell hood and the spring hill and franklin series of events. ayé why?

because there are much better (m explanations for the key events at spring hill and franklin as army h orchestrated by general john the bell hood. first, at spring hill, the 5í confederate army had the majority of the opposing union army trapped in the vicinity of úaó columbia, tennessee, during the late afternoon of nd,jer 29thwithou but let them march past the deployed grey ranks that eveninged and night without a major fight. this has been debated and analyzed extensively with and various explanations and blame apportioned to certainìáhp &hc% confederate commanders. the truly critical aspect which had generally been overlooked byians w some modern generationas ú wd

historians was that john bell comm hood abdicated his command responsibility by turning over op control of active operations on the the afternoon of november 29th, !h 1864, to major general frank b!ww cheatham.élñu

moment in the spring hill series of events likely relates to his physical fatigue at that point. ad b hood had been in the saddle si since 3:00 a.m. that morning, everely and with a missing leg and a woul formerly severely injured arm, he would logically have experienced fatigue and weariness.98 as general steven d. lee later crk.hác wrote, john bell hood was so l1h"ñ physically incapacitated while acting in the role of an in-field commander that he nevere should have been selected as the army's commander. of hood's lack of endurance and vulnerability to fatigue makes bn[[&gga far more sense in explaining whyn he wasn't on the front lines at spring hill to make critical e

decisions when needed.[-09ñ a succession of generals and th f curriers had to make their way back and forth from the hood headquarters at the thompson vey house to convey data and get 51h,iuq%=9m9ñí ondoggle this was the real boondoggle for the confederates at spring hill. and while hood could give authority to frank cheatham for nxl8i these operations, he could not delegate the responsibility. hood was thus directly to blame for what happened despite the ;qbap r(t&háhp &hc% confwp+

controversy. why hood determined to make a masked assault on the entrenched on union army at franklin on november 30th.3fqv it seems that the real reason wa was hood's anger and distress mf" with the events of the previous evening. schofield's troops having ield's escaped from the spring hill trap without difficulty.&[xwñl this matter is crucial to the entire story.r&yxça) hood was described by an observer as "as angry as a rattlesnake," striking out at anyone and anything on the ng " morning of november 30th when he found out the extent of the union army's escape from under ry the very muzzles of the b1r confederates' guns.nc his reported ire and discussions

with other generals that morning th only confirmed that hood was wa bitter and very highly upset. then while on the road to -yfxñwhe road to franklin, he saw the debris and debri even the stragglers from schofield's army strewn all overrlc.tk the landscape in obvious x.t disarray.tu9 logically, he would have concluded that tfoqt-uááiu(áh distressed and perhaps é-f5 demoralized in their reb.x9ñ then, from winstead hill overlooking the vast two-mile d hill panoply over franklin, john hood saw the presumed flimsy fortifications and supposed thatan the enemyxoñed=ras attempting to further escape. intelligence from forest 0uyáo t

cavalrymen and other sources added to this conviction.hi thus, his spur of the moment )úk decision to make a grand attack he belie at franklin was rooted in what was he believed was strong evidence yanke that the yankees could not s resist a resist an overwhelming spirited masked assault.2 it was not laudanum that #óqy:xvsff induced this rationale. it was likely his smoldering anger over spring hill and the ci?q circumstances involved that thisttack command decision was to be one i of the very of the war.ing with it was evident before the attack began. being without nearly all of his were artillery, there were only two batteries present with hood's wos%:6! igps&ñ army then since the rest had

been left behind at columbia íq0rycádz with general steven d. lee.uaing and hood had, thus, very little ma cannon fire covering his attack. further, nearly one-third of his8 steven d. army was missing with lee, they 2a spring hill that spring hill, and were then marching toward franklin at a very leisurely pace. steven d. lee, on reaching u ç spring hill that morning, had been told by hood not to hurry ady his troops forward because the enemy had already seemingly escaped. of course, this is further prime evidence of hood's !i"w'5aquñ.q spur of the moment decision to attack at franklin.ast amazingly, he ignored the vast at open terrain at franklin about about two miles of which across his miles columns must cross to reach the union fortified lines of é

headlong entrenchments, some headlog entrenchments, some were fashioned with tang lle lled briers of osage orange. osag as such, it was a further indictment of his hasty decision making. essentially, it is a commander's responsibility to use his men comp wisely and not compel deaths andvb wounds uá$p air prospect f of success. and throughout his career, john bell hood never seemed to learn the evolving lessons of the m; the e battlefield. even in a farewell message to his army, in 1865, he said he hoped the men might be supplied e with more bayonets because "it which gave the soldier confidence in himself zdb

and enabled him to strike terror into the enemy."wmjñ unmortared in tactical concepts, and unwilling to admit his x7a!qis mistakes, hood was duly recognized for his failures by a5kítig by a grieving confederate officer n when he wrote that after butchering 10,000 men around atlanta, and as many in d ha tennessee, hood had betrayed the whole army. ev "he might command a brigade, andí even a division, but to command the army, he is not the man," said the officer. him to call him a general is a disgrace to those generals who 8x are worthy to be so called. q[@ 0ú even the veteran enemy soldiers who knew the wisdom of the

battlefield were amazed at the lack of common sense which the confederates now used in making quból m so many head-long frontal so man assaults against prepared defensive positibb8úlodbyf[x kil "we kill a great many reds in union corporal following the ba corporal following the battle ofn eve atlanta.#peqt "more so than ever because they come out from their works and ess charge our men which is useless 4x2;ññq for them.c!ec1cjksl where they do not do any good, 2brl÷ only get their men slaughtered."the in all the decision to attack at franklin was a disaster in the kv making of one man, and this despite the arguments of other asñ commanders who pointed out the ers who danger, loss of life and likely q!w failure involved, buknd6rurk)f ip@53tack, avail.and so

we will make the attack, fumed i hood, and so it was. as he confided in his memoir, "advance and retreat," this e ñ decision was made, so he wrote, ing on the following -- "the ffsme discovery that the army, after a forward masfk+rjl still seemingly unwilling to accept battle unless under the protection of breastworks caused to me to experience grave concern. in my innermost heart, i question whether or not i would lnermost heart, i question whether i would succeed at eradicating this evil. it seemed that i had exhausted every means and the power of one man to remove this it seemed that i had exhausted licñ every means and the power of one man to remove this stumbling u block to the argoin

amazingly, this indictment came gly, from the intensely aggressive çu7ñ commander who at atlanta had orchestrated major head-long frontal attacks from peachtree hea creek to the battle of atlanta jce and beyond to ezra church.achtree yet in his memoirs, hood had theta-d÷ 6 %qe"uráutttáu hat the nd b valiant army of tennessee e wouldn't fight unless behind ç?xy breastworks.ñs this apparently was a veiled reference to the lack of a majorevious confederate attack at spring ioy hill by cheatham's corps the ólíq!0iauf previous day, which again, reflects upon hood's state of e reasoning. some have attempted over the years to soften the consequences of hood's attack orders over theere years. but really, there is no valid 6hy exculpating evidence.ifice and the wasteful sacrifice of

about 7,000 men of his army was the consequence.@se further, as evidence of hood's recklessness as a combat army commander, we have his directive to attack, en masse again, on the morning of december 1st, cjá=v which was prior to his learning s of the union army's withdrawal a4:zñ from franklin on the night of íent of disaster would the 30th. schofield's troops remained. the extent of disaster would certainly have been compounded not enough fox. now despite hood's legacy of too much lion 6ag and not enough fox. most now despite these enormous ww:;ó@çt poignan cont5em% ei franklin, the story is one of xaw6 the most dramatic and poignant

of the civil war.dered thus, my biggest concern is that the controversies engendered by a few will perhaps tend to take =ah away from the essential facts and story itself.3!$ ÷ the real unimpeachable focus of these battles should be that theh[úb valor and grit of both the unionf05and and confederate soldiers who , and fought at franklin and nashville. and indeed, their valor and f0]uine character will stand forever as ion a fine representation of the inherent spirit and commitment b

>> okay. now, folks, we want to open up for questions. i know we have mics out in the passageway. this is being taped so that's why we want you to use the mi mics. if you could sort of line up if y behind those and start that d process, i'll do the moderator'sywm< sort of privilege of asking the first question as everyone gets set. and this one, gentlemen, i would just like to throw out for your consideration and i would y to hear your assessment of confed another figure that's not really been talked about much today. ab we've talked about the confederate command.t let's we've talked about john schofield. a but let's talk some about george thomas and your assessment of his strategy for and his

effectiveness at the battle of nashville.yi-tle+":yxç0nx bit >> well, i'll start out because i've done quite a bit of research on george thomas in terms of his military career, his character and so forth. 2 and many of you probably know the circumstances involving thomas at nashville, which was that thomas was very, very closet$b to being removed from command by general ulysses grant in the east because, in grant's in

estimation, he wasn't moving to[nhr fast enough, he wasn't doing the right things in terms of ke preventing the confederate army from perhaps advancing across e w the river into ohio and into do northern territory. but -- and this is i think a key zf2fg to thomas' character, as i see move it -- that he was -- he was and certainly going to do everything he could not to delay, but he was not going to make a move and risk his soldiers' lives without!ñ kn a very, very fair prospect of winning the battle that he knew he should. so thomas, in my estimation, is deserved an enormous at uzer credit for resisting. and orders were perhaps being prepared even as he began to fight the battle of nashville e for his own removal -- thomas' cñ#val.pu yet, he would not be pushed, he would not be shoved into doing bmwg something that he knew was wrong.!

>> i might add that i think that is a point that certainly deserved emphasis as wylie íkw given it, and it made me think talking about winfield scott who was in command of the union armies at union ar the beginning of the war. lk a after the union disaster at bull ,t run, scott said -- not sure i can quote it exactly but certainly to the effect that, "i ought to be removed from command because i knew that army was note ready and i did not stand up andjx k oppose the advance and what resulted in the battle of bull certai run.

and certainly thomas at vximhnand 2 %11 u'der tremendous i gw] pressure to move out, to attack r÷z and yet, he waited until everything was set.t. and i guess if that meant that he would be removed from q8ìáhp &hc% command, so be it. and i might also add in regard to grant, he didn't really understand the situation at nashville. he di and from hundreds of miles away dnunders to be trying to direct things asta he did was not quite pretty. >> one thing i'd li+1 ! th there is a lot of controversy onere cou the confederate side which has ld been plumed by a lot of people for a lot of people for a long time. but there's controversy on unionmedez0ç side with the spring on hill-franklin campaign as well.5fñe john schofield particularly felt his band had been dispatched into central tennessee to hold john bell hood at bay as long as he could.hood a and then after the near miss at tzyñ spring hill i think he realized how perilously close that his

men had in fact come to being entrapped. so there was a whole post-war schofield-thomas conth%pere a letter appeared in "the new pos york herald" i believe it was, mas cont it was written by one of schofield's staff officers.r=gx with his help, and it was an anonymous letter basically tg psaying that george thomas had sort of botched the campaign in some ways and really came close to losing a good part of his army.pñixrt george thomas was preparing to i3qs p answer that article when he had a stroke and fell dead.l d so i think there is a lesson ea there about not answering your ññ critics. cr but at nashville, i really think that jim is right. i really do think that d washington authorities were panicked. they knew there was still a major confederate ar nashville. i don't think they realized how they re badly damaged had it been at franklin.at all they knew was there was v(":xthey k still an army out there in middle tennessee and they were really very worried about it, including lincoln.st but i think thomas was prudent k thomas in not attacking.w

i think he waited. if you read the accounts, the weather was terrible.rl if they had gone and attacked a couple of days earlier, it wouldsn have been through snow and sleet and civil war generals, especially those educated at t west point, always had this notion. they'd studied napoleon's campaigns and they always had this goal that they could the annihilate an enemy army as napoleon had done. i think they tried on several occasions.2#7 robert lee tried to do it at peninsula and wasúys#itt(puáq they could not have done it.írohnson albert sidney johnson would haveliked liked to done it at shiloh.íwbl but the only person who really w came close to it was george ho thomas at nashville who over those two days just pummeled the confederate army of tennessee. had not steven d. lee's corps not been there, who had not beennot be bloodied at franklin, i don't p know that he would not have inbl loq)ñoo4f@xñ that he fact essentially taken care of taken most of ap stewart and frank 0e6brin s cheatham's corps. so he deserves a lot of credit in some ways. several biographies of thomas have been written that sort of restore him to a more stellar

place in the pantheon of union omys.og generals.rath mfoh%ñ he did well. not justge well he,h[e o well aft the40yñ battle of nashville. >> thank you very much. we'll open it now to the very wepati patient gentleman who's been waiting to ask a question. >> hello, guys.wa thank you so much for your scholarship and your willing to accept questions. my question also refers to general thomas.3omas it seems to me that another . major missed opportunityxsid the atlanta campaign./ i believe thomas really wanted .om to push on at jonesboro.aß-jonesb he had hardy's men trapped, j>yave could have destroyed them.reca as i recall, sherman said no. seems like they could have prohibited a lot of the whole tennessee campaign from even happening at that point, but it already seemed also sherman it never liked the army of the $4%2 2!

he was more the army of the tennessee guy -- man. so i'm just interested on your jone thoughts at what happened at gpbìáhp &hc% jonesboro with general thomas and how that impacted the tennessee campaign. thank you.' .q >> i'll be honest with you.. jonesboro is a battle that i don't really know a lot about, partly because f$ç+out, was absent. but it was hardy's corps.f1cçent. that belonged to him who went down there.e it was a battle where the confederates were badly e outnumbered and the goal really o2e the last rail line into atla the last rail line into atlanta rfa(r(r y winning at jonesboro they did. ha0k you know, i really didn't know that thomas had wanted to continue on and really follow up the victory more than he did. my guessa÷j is that sherman felt that he had gotten his objective which was the railroad and so atlanta could not be resupplied.t and for him that was good enough. just a difference in philosophy, i would say, probably.fe"b2o >> i might add that i think by that stage of the war, very much

through the entire atlanta campaign, sherman increasingly úñ÷ saw the benefits of maneuver.>ñaç50@h and he was sick of all of the a ki killing that was taking place.llé3é andlzf r'k he believed, as was chris was saying, that he had f/j what he wanted, and he was not inclined then to initiate still q1xs, more bloodshed.çkz i think also that sherman -- 5!÷ this has been a controversial issue, but i'm not sure sherman nx held thomas in particularly high regard. but he and grant were somewhat kin in that respect. any other comments? >> yes.

i would just add, i agree. i i think sometimes in analyzing the relationship between some generals, a senior and a ls, a subordinate, that it's often easy to overlook the personalities of the generals involveds . now thomas was more of a ok the phlegmatic type personality. he certainly wasn't overt in ;n+umhe terms of his maneuvering like r/ñ maneu sherman was and whatnot.ve and so sometimes i think a relationship between wcqaviduals individuals -- and we've all seen it in civilian life -- it's influenced somewhat by the personalities of the generals and the people in this e people particular case that were involved.involv so without getting into

specifics ,-hkátá(jurr(r again, like chris, a technical aspect, i would say it may have f6 had something to do very much -f)t with the personalities of the two. >> thank you, gentlemen, for gent coming. i would like to reflect a little. tñof nashv bit on what you said and aim it toward the battle of nashville. cheatham, of course, didn't do l at spr very well at spring hill.:=z we're aware of that.ndorse hood had endorsed him for d promotion. and then on december the 6th, he he sent a telegram to beauregard indicating that he was summarilyindica withdrawing that recommendation for promotion.wotzthat r that's the prelude to my prom question. on the first day of the battle sgebdxúa) of nashville, focusedtm6 refused left flank along hillsborough road, cheatham nvúzñ

appears to have been quite slow quite in responding to the order to his send troops from his positions over to the refused left flank.ose tha the question i'm asking is, do dzá you suppose that beauregard -- excuse me -- that hood divulged 4qñ his withdrawal of that promotion to cheatham? and if he did tell cheatham, he would that, in your opinion, account for what appears to be aaccount rather slow response of cheatham to send troops when ordered by hood to the refused left flank xa÷4v. early to mid afternoon along hillsborough road.it9÷llsborou >> well, you're right in saying that hood originally recommended him for lieutenant general, and and then he withdrew that recommendation, and then later recommendation, and then later becaus on said, well, let's just forget about it. and because he's learned his i don't i don't know that carried over to nashville.5há

i really think that the acrimony between john bell hood and frank cheatham was more of a post-war development than a war time development.ac bx i think they really worked well together given their limitations.v &÷ with regard to the battle of nashville, i think the reason he was slow in sending troops over,"i"tn s as james lee talked about, there was a large demonstration headed largely by those u.s. colors tr;/trá did essentially what it was designed to do, to keep his men occupied. they were successful in doing oops succes that and he felt like he could not strip men away from his section of the battlefield he cou without endangering that part of@kqhñ you' the battlefields. you're right, he doesn't send doe but them for a while but i think he feels he literally cannot spare them and needs to have them. so when he feelu$e threat n has been eliminated to some eeds degree, he does it later. but i don't really think it is úh because he has a bone to pick j8eñ$uñ

that day with john bell hood. no, i don't. >> any other comments? >> in considering general george thomas at nashville, i think it might be useful to consider why he was here.us gen he was here because general sherman ordered him here.seçxf and to me, that suggests an extreme amount of confidence on the part of general sherman as to general thomas' abilities.#'zi because had thomas failed at nashville, sherman would have shared a great deal of the blame for that for having separated so his two armies. so it seems to me that in why looking at why thomas is here p one should consider that maybe #swy sherman showed the ultimate confidence in him when he sent ú him here. >> i'll start out with just a t ou comment in general in terms of tgx

thomas. as we mentioned, thomas was not going to move until he was convinced that everything was ina8b]t reasonable place and one of fms'i those aspects, and it's a very important aspect, especially in rb my opinion, because i studied many for many years i was a very 6ñ kx@di active collector in military weapons. well, as some of the civil war 7/c soldiers pointed out there's a s tremendous difference between a /láxgfield spencer rifle and a +5aasá )ját)ingfield .58 caliber miniball firing weapon single shot. and one of the reasons that thomas delayed at nashville was y;]j to make sure his horsemen, which they played a major role in attacking some of the outlying fo fortifications in forts and u readouts of the confederate army, were armed with spencers.q(ft

and a spencer rifle bnkseven-shot repeating-type rifle was one on, as heck of a weapon as they1 jx proved in notwer they proved in not only previous engagements, but at nashville, where the confederates were, indeed, driven out of very strong redoubts by spencer-armed troops.de cavalry. >> i think that sherman, whether. right or wrong, saw thomas as a vcq$ç very solid, stable, dependable 47 commander.xf?b but i don't think that he had t i d the confidence in him to lead jb-&y24 the maneuí$1ó ák he flanking force that he did in % f1 o2?pb)5 j rq)son.erf

also my reading of it is i thinkávñ he may have had more confidence 1ç=xp also in schofield, even, than thomas. but, so far as putting thomas in charge of defending nashville, and the defenses there, and to stop hood, he felt he had a verytaqnd solid general there. who could do the job. and as you pointed out, if thomas had failed, then en sherman's decision to take 6,000 men and march to the sea jsi÷ wouldn't look nearly as good as it did later.oum >> okay, sir? >> yes, i have a question about >> ye jefferson davis, and hood's campaign.r$ in his post-civil war writings, ies

that davis implies that he did not approve of hood's move-in to tennessee. and i've done some other readingú which says that he did. and i was wondering what your opinion was. did davis approve it, or didn't 6?% he? thank you. >> well, i'll start with my 5út answer in terms of you'1ré asking, in essence, about the jefferson davis/hood relationship.jéñ one of the things we didn't get into, when i was talking about john bell hood, was his kyz surreptitious correspondence with the davis administration, particularly hood ingratiated :ñd himself very much with the davis administration, and particularly jefferson davis during his s duri convalescence period. ng prior to being assigned as a xr core commander in the west.

and if you go to the western reserve historical society, the braxton-bragg papers, and bragg at the time was, of course, nm/v jefferson davis's special ÷ihuqjyr(t&háhp &hc% military advisor, giving davis all the advice about the (bdb commanders who he knew in the w& west and you find that john bellfpst a hood was keeping a secretivend y correspondence with the administration through bragg andnistrati a lot of others that was, in effect, spying on joe johnson inhê terms of his conduct of the armys of h of tennessee during the initial atlanta campaign. so you find, i think, that there was a certain measure of trust @ between jefferson davis and john

between jefferson davis and john was jefferson davis' man, so to speak, in the webtç÷ he was the president's watch dog, as i termed in one of my chapters on -- in "embrace an angry wind."che but not that he couldn't give :rwñ hood advice, because he did give he did hood advice during the atlanta campaign that he was losing perhaps too many men and he'd s too ma better be circumspect in terms er be of the casualty figures that he was enacting, because of his offensive concepts, so i think, x÷nsive in my estimation, there was always a favoritism on the part of jefferson davis to the command situation of general hood in the west. >> jefferson davis made a couple of trips over from richmond to the western theater, one was after the bat of chickamauga n when his generals were battling

among each other and he felt he needed to intervene. the other one was after the fall chickamauga when his general by that time, the confederate tx and h army had moved out of palmetto. e and looped around to northern georgia.llarmy h and i think he comes basically to see for himself what's going on. o ñ he says to the confederate troops there that essentially they're going to go into hat es tennessee and theyhíl make se atlanta a perfect moscow. atlanta a perfect moscow. a reference to napoleon's failed and northern newspapers got wind an of it. and so, to say that jefferson davis did not approve hood's ç8!2ñthat tennessee campaign is incredibly duplicitous, if that's the case, because he certainly did so, and he told the troops that.uáñtroops and they simply did what he, beauregard and hood sort of thrashed out, an invasion of tennessee. >> just following up a bit on wwyi t foll hood's relationship with richmond, one of the things that, one of has disturbed me for a good manyo@z years, more disturbing things about hood jacksons was that he ?>v

was, i believe this was in a h letter to bragg, i'm not certain, i would have to check that. cert but he is talking about how johnston would not attack and how he had urged again and again that the confederates should %ñ+éç attack during the atlanta s #okr campaign, almost to the point, he says, that he had become -- i don't think obnoxious was the word he used, but anyway, sort j word he used, bu of a sore thumb to a lot of the confederate officers, because he continuing to urge attack. well, that simply wasn't true. he, hood, advised retreat at adairsville.xúkyk=" he advised joh.g.ó"_qáreat l$ahl from the edewaw river. he he advised him to retreat from kennesaw mountain. he he advised him to retreat from the chattahoochee.

>> yes, sir.@ñ >> just a general comment, perhaps, some of the discomfort the from washington on hood might have been because he was a virginian. >> i didn't understand that. >> didn't understand.w÷gñ >> did you want reaction? >> did you want reaction? >> he made a general comment. >> we didn't understand. >> could you repeat your

and i don't know that the washington authorities used that against him. ñ÷:4dyz÷ington a i think what they thought was that he was slow and too methodical and waited too long. without really knowing the situation, particularly in nashville.me q]kjñq] you know, i think there were were somewhat suspicious of him. but after chickamauga, how of hi anyone could doubt george m.rge thomas' devotion to the union is just beyond me. and i don't think washington -- d me. i don't think that was a factor, to be honest with you. géa&l >> any doubts i think,$jénu in the mind of the administration in washington was early, very earlyipated dissipated by the victories of thomas early in theffñent excellent combat record.comb indeed, he may have been criticized as being slow and methodical, but they knew he was a fighter and not only a good

fighter but he was certainly committed to the fighting on the6jìáhp &hc% union soldiers' part, winning battles. %j u dd, another factor in the nashville situation, it loi÷ seems to me, with grant and acñwñ washington worrying that thomas "non wor is not attacking, they couldn't conceive -- i don't believe theyk9h(t&háhp &hc% could conceive of how inadequateequate hood's logistics situation was, kentucky and on up the ohio into river, he couldn't have begun to do that. 4ñwhio he just didn't have the begun to logistics situation to do it. and i think grant probably found it difficult to believe that he would have come all this way into central tennessee with suchentral t poor logistics. fqj

>> we all know that general forrest had a lot of problems all know with his commanding officers. )$ what i would like to ask is, what was his relationship with is, general hood? how did he get along with him? and also in regards do we have vváp along w any comments or thoughts from him regarding springhilyih regarding franklin, regarding we the battle of nashville?p2m >> okay. úb[ew the question was, how forrest th and hood re 0t$urt((r ther #el that what i understand? >> and nashvilleat.ed t >> and nashville. yñhe s8]#gñ

well, in regard to franklin, 0kz(6ñ certainly, forrest did not agreeainly, f with hood's decision to attack there.ú back at springhill, it seems to me that forrest was never fully v3! cj4qb)á$rjp&legedly wanting to block the pike, and ;5x instead was coming in and attacking the union troops that :! were marshaled there, maybe some 6500, rather than trying to concentrate on blocking the pike. i think there's misunderstanding certainly between hood and certai forrest at springhill.u'q2q i don't know that that particularly affected what happened the next day at next franklin.

i think that probably forrest $pá i think that probably forrest idea of a frontal attack, a frontal assault at franklin and,eand, of course, wanted to try and blank the federals out of their position. xls out o >> i think another interesting point is that what happened in the nashville circumstances, forrest was detached and sent down to murfreesboro with the @vñ idea that it was presumed that, mó'g# id per se, the pressure brought to bear on the union garrison at he fort rose crans, and the qxuñhzvh murfreesboro area would forces a would union army to come oi#n their ou entrenchments, and attack the ;úh7 confederate army, and their the fortified redoubts and so forth ate at nashville.pefé well, it didn't work out that way. iekfv in fact, forrest took a pretty good beating at -- down around

murfreesboro. at but the point of the matter is çf5g that -- and i've never seen )f4z anything that per se discounts l[6 the relationship in terms of ter th forrest after the campaign, the tennessee campaign. he was so upset with the commandmand staff and the command of the he army of tennessee that he wanted to go to richmond. :y&p in fact, he asked permission to go to richmond. he wanted to go and set the record straight, according to his concept versus that of john gt ve bell hood in terms of why there rsus)y6(ñ1#+ frustration. lnd he, forrest, seemed to be, from est, see what i've read, very, very, verygo=% upset with the campaign as qfqx conducted from the very beginning of the tennessee campaign.

>> the only thing i would add is;[e that in sam hood's book, he criticizes forrest for springhill, particularly .e ñ forrest allegedly had a meeting with him. ng and hood asked him if he could send troops, and the r/)h of springhill.s, and forrest said, my men have been fighting all day and we're have short of ammunition and bóbçr apparently a.p. stewart's men t of a gave him some ammunition and mm then the pike wasn't blocked.q so somehow along there, what wasn't hood really desired forrest to éa[ç w ãa@nd part of that controversy, desir apparently, you know, hood says to somebody, don't worry about it.lyfjto som general forrest is going to cut off the road. eb$÷ and apparently it didn't happen. we know it didn't happen. it did as to thñ338u relationships, i don't know. it always struck me that forrests struck had been a superb independent commander of raids and things like that. some historians have said that he should have been put in t charge of the army of tennessee.t. and i think he would have been aid miserable failure. of '÷)q idn't like criticism, was used to doing things his own way. n alike c

i just think that that would y. have been -- that's not his forte.irdz2ñrte. but, you know, he doesn't get 3!k(t&háhp &hc% criticized very often. ery of but you know, you can argue that at springhill particularly, so sometimes i think that if we ever perfect time travel, i 2g @ñ would like to go back and go to frank cheatham and some of you go to nathan bedford forrest andto say get across the damn road andome let's see what happens.únd you know, because if they had roa done that at least we would have a little different topic to talk about. >> yes, sir? out. >> yes. >> y this is less a question and more questio a plea for help, i guess. f2 #r my wife purchased this for me my about 25 years ago. dlip it's a swagger stick. and i got it from the veterans home in california, in napa valley. t it's got the name of wheeler on it and the name of palmer on qvkpi and a date of '65.7%c so if anyone wants to take a }rñshed look at it maybe shed some you.

light onuapñ it, i would be most appreciative. thank you. >> make sure you're standing in a good corner so we can find you when this is over. >> how about the museum? >> yes, sir. hes >> general hood seems to get ññ>> gen short shrift in everything i ever read. about the civil war. was ordered by president davis to take the army of tennessee on the offensive.6&é0iip to take the army of tennessee on the offensive. number two, the made any sense was what he triedonamely to retake nashville for the confederacy for th and go join lee in virginia. c"upç certainly he deserves criticism for, i guess, the rashness of the attack on franklin. on the other hand, it's a little different than what general lee oájx did at gettysburg and yet he gets virtually no criticism for that. th so i guess it just surprised me that the history (2á$áqqs oistory d

find anything favorable about the general. >> okay. well, and i have a little different perspective, to say j well, and i have a little the least, because i think there &átwsay are tremendous differences $ between gettysburg and franklin.7kiíñ lee had a lot of artillery, for # ç one thing, in terms of he bombarded the daylights out of the line on cemetery hill. and hood didn't.da but those are technical points. 0[:2ñ the aspect i think is that you've got to put things in t context the way i see it. you've got to put it in context you't&ww"syl3@ in the sense that hood had a se tha tremendous responsibility. he had the hopes of the ú

the south was losing the war. f atla they weren't going to do anything about bringing in black soldiers, so on and so forth. so the whole scenario was unfavorable. hie. so hood was in a desperate s in a desperate strait. but still, in terms of the decisions that you make as a commander, you cannot, on the co basis of desperation and the o!>l basis of a circumstance that doesn't look favorable, you ñ5bewn$(z can't just commit men in terms of a frontal assault like at e franklin without paying the v@ 2 responsibility in terms of the consequences, not only then but now. es, not and i think it's a disservice, i@ to be honest with you, to bring c@ gt) up the fact that john bell hood ;9ping should not be regarded as anything other than a tremendousther tha failure in his responsibility

for making that attack. will stay with him, in my xo opinion, forever.36vífm1çñw >> i'm more sympathetic to john bell hood than wiley. here's why.9î when he takes over the command zqjl of the army of tennessee in 1864 he's in a no-win situation. he's taken over for a commander who has surrendered about 100 commande miles of north georgia. k' 100 as an aside, if you want somebody who has taken a beating historically, there's not a soul who has anything nice to say about joseph e. johnson anymore.l bz bbr= ñ he just gets battered by historians, left and right. éc8nñ so hood takes over, and he knowsws that richmond thinks that this fabian strategy of falling back that r has to stop. and it has to stop now. so he fights three battles, !wcw÷ñá< around atlanta in about eight out eigh days or so, and none of them go the way he wants.

tactically, none of them go the w&ah÷: uák artly because isc; there's new commanders in f th unfamiliar positions and trying : ñ to take on this responsibility in ways that they have not grown into. ve not so i think he loses those g into. battles in part because he just can't get the army to do quite cause he what he wants, and part of it iso do q because the army is in command h shuffles. e wa if you want to give the best ilfjy=mfl sqptujjáu(urj jrj (u franklin, and here's what sam iéfyñ hood saq%!!=è u$ere.> and if you let him go, what happens? he goes all the way to nashville and he augments george thomas' tkv(t&háhp &hc% numbers at nashville.ugment so this is your only opportunity to get him before he withdraws, and gets all the way to the capital..÷ so he makes this decision. now, was it an impulsive decision? i don't know. -z÷k]y%decisi i know that frank cheatham( i don't know advised him against it. i know nathan bedford forrest advised him against it and other officers had great doubt about it.k chzgc)l forrest

advised him against it and other felt he had much choice, in the [ysñíìáhp &hc% sense that if you let schofield go, he'll be criticized by ield people later for that, too. i mean, this is sort of a damned&)n8 if you do, and damned if you i mea don't situation for hood.damned and then, you know, after franklin -- let me tell you this.zy $x!ó9 s when the battle starts, to be honest with you i think what ell y happens and i seuni y2hrough cheatham who was closer to the batfield.starcm he sent his staff officers in th and not a one of them ever came back.rp)xç once the smoke and the darkness ñm came, those generals had no idea what was transpiring.he smoke all they knew was that there was still musketry going for a long period of time. there was obviously a lot of fighting taking place.qtñther but they had no idea how ghastly the casualties would be, they particularly on the confederate side.ould so the best case for john bell ederate hood, i think, at franklin, is they're there. rynf÷ if i let them go, i've made things worse for myself. at nashville. let th i've got to inflict as much damage as i can.(e4yin and i'm going to roll the dice.m going

to roll the dice. to sit here in 2014 and 39 man, what a terrible decision. i think whate)p,%m%=9burfbyç+?lñatever d makes is bad, you know. s is bad i do think that. 4"wñ+q,ñ >> yes, sir? >> and we've got two more questions, so greg and then. >> dr. west, panel, thank you all for being here. i've followed your work for a long time.el i've always enjoyed and appreciated what you've done. yed an i do have a question along the lines of the prior gentleman lines of the prior gentleman about general hood. [pit four years ago, several boxes of documents, previously unknown, i think, were discovered as hood's personal papers.hood's i wonder if you guys have had p the chance to review those?sñç and if so, has it changed your e chan thoughts in any way about hood'scet performance?anged yo thank you. >> i never have had any opportunity to see those papers.hose pap

>> sam hood found those papers -- like some relatives said hey, we've got these old n ÷ things, they knew he was working rel on general hood.at got as it turned out it was this treasure trove of papers. general i mean, it's a thing that we all out would die for, you know. and iwu arely. frank cheatham's papers are wo burned, i'm afraid. ers are what they -- if you want to p@éq ]q r(t&háhp &hc% know, sam hood has written a ritten a book about them, taken the hbá documents and, you know)pa:qñ them and things like tháaznts an if you want to know what's in d,em and there -- i don't have that book.to know i have his study of his dhv> well, again, as i say, i well, don't want to beat a dead horse ant to be to death, but in terms of my view, my view is, again, you

look at john bell hood, what did view he have access to when he wrote his memoirs.jo did he have these papers that sam hood found? i presume he did.z7dau certainly, why didn't he -- if there's any really tremendously exculpating evidence or ly something that hasn't been xddñ6uú brought out, why didn't hood utilize them in his own defense?dn't which that cerz+eb (jjre? his memoir, advance and retreat, advance and retreat, was terms of the events and whatnot.n why wouldn't he use these papersp events and if they were so important? and critical in terms of the memoir he wro,ñh i'm not saying -- i certainly haven't examined the papers.e:q maybe there are some great ers. material there. i presume that there's a lot of at the post-war material in the collection. re

and i'm sure that there probably co is some material of very much nd] and value. zx#y but, again, in terms of hood's bnp, in ter defense, in terms of himself, if de he had access to these papers tos8uñ begin with, it seems to me that ú he certainly would have utilized would these papers in his defense in hz>p,ñ writing that book. "advance and retreat" his memoirs.t" his >> the only thing i want to say the o in addition is i think that hood died really before that book was fully fashioned. he died of yellow fever. he may d1q$p((qááháo the fever. he may have had access to the advance and retreat has this féjañfqb!a feeling of -- it's not really ;ry polished, not that it ip necessarily would have been. but it's almost like an d have b incomplete work that he would at he have gone through and revised. so i don't know that he wouldn't have made better use of those use of documents, but yellow fever cameellow fe along and took him away, so. >> yes, sir?

>> in the aftermath of the qvadf2xh of t battle of franklin, the federal troops leave in the middle of s 6e the night, leaving behind all the severely wounded men, thousands and thousands of confederates and union wounded are there. are what happens to them when the ther confederates move on to nashville? peon to are they just told to go home? ygddvzx i mean, there's very little transport.naf what happens to these people? >> the really severely wounded stayed here in franklin. stayed here in franklin. sharpsburgöf.zejj gettysburg, wherever you want totown talk, fredricksburg, became a b9hçt to vast hospital for wounded men.4!e÷vast h and robert hicks' novel 4rqz describes -- that's really the basis of his novel. 1.r6(ld think that some of the "ss more slightly wounded, if they're confederates, wo5çmy)y gone on to nashville to reunite d have with their commands. but there were an awful lot of people here. the other problem is what to do with the dead.

i think what they did with the o union dead, there were two lines. un they simply threw a lot of them into one of those lines and took the dirt that they had piled up simply and put it on the bodies. those bodies sometime after the they had piled up and put it on the bodies. to nashville and put in the national cemetery. the confederate bodies were removed after the war.di and one of the things that eric es w jacobson has said it looks like an the space between graves is so small, and that's becauseújacobson has said it looks tho the space between graves is so small, and that's be there really wasn't that much left.t you could put them in little, i mean these human remains you could put in boxes about this size.le, i so that's what happened to them. when the yankees came back ut thi through, they basically yan reclaimed franklin, and took ke,k4 care of theirs, as well as confederates who were here.ell a and some of the union probably as and some of the union probably cared as well as the >ñ t confederates had. but i'm not sure that that's as the accurate to say.&pmm confederate medical doctors^z$ñ's t )(p& personnel probably did, my guess, is as good as they nd could with what they had to work with.onjyto w

>> i'm going to squeeze in that last one. ork going t but to be like george plaster, you've got 30 seconds.@y >> shouldn't take that long. (#(ú basically this is a two-part question. uúc first, in reality, is it possible that the south could have taken nashville? and what would have been the 'a ould hav strategy implications had they mplicati taken nashville? ta thank you. yi >> well, i'll give a simple answer. i don't think they had a chance of taking nashville. 2!÷ui=gs now, to speculate then on what to sp might have been the strategic implications of something that i;>k@implic don't think could have happened,dir i find rather difficult to deal with. >> i completely agree with james.xv]y because the -- you look -- from any aspect, the technical aspect, the ordnance aspect, yhnotui/yl wha2! )q)e was really very

little chance that, unless there was some major, major mistakes made by thomas and the union as and t command, that there was very little chance of nashville falling to the confederate forc` ñjtpereashvil especially after they had been pecial so greatly devastated at 2 "ç÷ franklin. but indeed, the question -- the old saying "if" is the biggeslu÷ word in the english language. if nashville had fallen, what difference would it have made? i think, indeed,wiq an imponderable question. but in my opinion, the concentration that would have been brought -- if hood and his ught -- army somehow had managed to take nashville, the conceni that would have been brought that against that army through the rough influence of grant and others and would have been such that, i think, they would have had no othat i think, they would h chance, even after the, shall wem=t4

say, the conquest or victory at nashville.ictory a >> real briefly i'll just agree with my two other panelists. i really think that nashville by agr late 1864 was one of the most heavily fortified cities in america.hville and let's take franklin out of the equation. waheav let's say it never happens and il frankli hood had some with his army intact and everything.tht's say i really just don't think he had his the men to covers rotedous of nashville. i don't think you could storm nashville.i k h vicksburg told us that.ñjko grant tried on may 15th and may t think 22nd to storm the works at 22nd to vicksburg and was unsuccessful.vicksb i don't think that>f3+gd could have happened. the best hood could have done is wait for thomas to come out and ss if lucky destroyed a part of ould thomas' army. done that might have been a gateway into the city.or t i think it's highly, highly thomas unlikely and i really don't ht have think it would have happened. >> well, let's give our l historians a big round of applause.w [ applause ];"óq you've been watching c-span's american history tv.) we want to hear from you. t to

hear from you. history. connect with us on facebook at íñ facebook.com/cspan history.book at or you can leave comments, too. and check out our upcoming programs at our website c-span.org/history. sybñ >> we'd like to tell you about some of our other american history tv programs.p be with us every saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern for lectures in history.urday at join students in the classroom to hear lectures on campuses his across the country on topics to ranging from the american fses revolution toúee>z"uj attacks.%3áñamt lectures in history every ing fr saturday at 8:00 p.m. and omrorist midnight eastern here on american history tv on c-span three. new year's day on the c-span networks, here are some of our featured programs.n networks, here are some of our washington ideas foq/u energy conservation with david crane. business magnate t. boone pickens.ane.

cake love owner warren brown. t. b and inventor dean cayman.zn at 4:00 p.m. eastern the tf%en brooklyn historical society wsbñ4:00 holds a conversation on race.holds then at 8:00 p.m. eastern from a the explorer's club, apollo e seven astronaut walt cunningham on the first manned space flight. new year's day on c-span2, just fl before noon eastern, author befo hector tobar on the 33 men that a were buried in a chilean mine. we and at 3:00 p.m. eastern richard chi norton smith on the life of leand nelson rockefeller.atrn then at 8:00 p.m. eastern.yyvpçn th former investigative 1 th correspondent for cbs news sharyl attkisson on her mxq experiences reporting on the pq2áñt for cb obama administration. new year's day on american eh&"ë,v on history tv on c-span3, at 10:00 a.m. eastern juanita abernathy on her experiences and the role of women in the civil rights movement.nathnaxt at 4:00 p.m., brooklyn college f :00 professor benjamin cart on the &6r link between alcohol and /ñ politics in pre-revolutionary ñcñ new york city.lutionar and then at 8:00 p.m. cartoonist

patrick oliphant draws ten presidential caricatures as t historian david mccullough discusses the presidents and some of their most memorable qualities.ttial caricatures as new year's day on the c-span lough networks. some for our complete schedule go to ble c-span.orgèwlfysñ on december 21st, 1864, on union forces under general william tecumseh sherman und captured savannah, completing er the march to the sea campaign that started in atlanta more-xa than five weeks earlier.n todd gross, president of the georgia historical society, gross talks about the significance of orical the campaign, and how it has been remembered. 1:c been this ceremony in savannah is xe9 about 20 minutes, and includes 3'f>dáejut)sr'g of a new historical marker about the march to the sea.ó-u:% lad f9 good afternoon.m£c; i'm bob jepsen, chairman of the

georgia historical society and i'd like to welcome you all to madison square on this warm and balmy day.>b i'm taking a big risk, we believe that the bells are finished for awhile, so i hope you can hear me.>úpoi@d part of our mission at the georgia historical society is ) the education of the history of the great state of georgia, and p $ we're here today to dedicate a marker that represents an event, jyib people, and a time in our çibjç÷ history, and to get on with the program, i'd like to introduce the president of the historical society, dr. todd gross. todd? >> thank you, bob. thank you, sir. thank you.kzv well, thank you, bob. and good afternoon, everyone.in let me add my welcome to this historical marker dedication armmy commemorating the 150th anniversary of the end of the march to the sea.

one of the best-known, but most controversial, and i would hasten to add, misunderstood, mp aspects of the american civil war.6aúñp s the marker we dedicate today is one of 25 markers installed by the georgia h8%2ñrical society, and our partners, over the last five years as a part of the ia civil war 150 historical8 project. a public education and heritage tourism initiative, launched by $3 the georgia historical society to help georgia's and visitors jí tt#

south, and one of the oldest in the nation.0 for the past 175 years the georgia historical society has dmç helped georgians through d education and research to study the past, in order to make sense of the present, and create a better future for us all. as a public history institution, the georgs serves as the bridge between théc academic community, and the people of our state, taking the =t=c cutting edge historical research being produced in universities around the nation, and $hv connecting it with the general óqm public, thereby creating and expanding access to history. one of the most significant ways in which we make scholarly history available to a wide 0l audience is through the georgia historical marker program.b p since the program was privatized(?zor in 1998, the georgia historical society has placed over 200 4 > markers across the state.z

these markers provide an executive summary based on sound!6v scholarls ! w$'&b[cqú6bíy credentialed historians of the events and people that created modern-day georgia.57r] building on this successful private/public partnership on the eve of the civil war sesquicentennial the georgia historical society developed r.a with the georgia department of economic development, the georgia department of labor, and the georgia department of natural resources, a project to promote heritage tourism by telling stories about the civil war that had been heretofore missing from the public narrative as defined and 1vcgpn interpreted in the public spaces of our state. a year-long survey conducted at the beginning of the project revealed that of the nearly 1,000 civil war historical ,"óalñ markers in georgia, over 90% were about battles and leaders. there was virtually nothing about the role of

african-americans, and women, about unionists and their resistance to secession, and confederate authority, and about the story of the home front, and the war's impact on society. in short the existing markers presented a lopsided picture of the war that ignored large segments of our state's people, b!.2 rendering the war a purely military event.[púl]rbñ@f so beginning in 2010, the georgia historical society launched a storytelling 1@ñ campaign, aimed at making the public narrative more inclusive tç by relaying the experiences of civilians, as well as soldiers, unionists as well as confederates, we did this by bringing to the public xaññp findings of historians from overl t accessible scholarship that mrf takes an unblinking intellectually honest look at the war, and that challenges all of us to stand on

and to see a familiar event in a new light. the marker we dedicaftédlday is a prime example of what this project is all about.y29 uqf]zi &háhp &hc% it is one of two markers, one in atlanta, where the march began, and one in savannah where it áñv$g ended, that anchor both ends of kcf the savannah campaign, and provide an interpretive overviewsau for the 50 existing markers put çzf/< up since the 1950s that trace sherman's route to the sea.4tñ the georgia historical society sá2 developed technology that allows the public to find these r4tññ markers, and the stories they tell in c%lm georgia.kvñ there is a free smartphone app qab for iphone and android, and a new website that allows users toqofpp create custom designed driving tours using google maps and historical markers. one of the most important and consistent partners in the effort has been the georgia battlefields association, and i

am pleased to introduce the president of that organization mr. charlie crawford. charlie?#né!3z >> the gppaq:ujjut)pgq battlefield's association, and we're just about to celebrate ob battlefield land. so that would naturally lead to the question, perhaps, what brings you to participate in this particular effort. well, we find an important part vbkañ-v4ñ of getting people to support preservation of battlefields is pa to educate them about where historic sites are.ñ +/ and so when todd, who i've known for quite a few years now, 2m9ss approached me about gba participating in this effort, wehg- thought it was a good fit.sp=yt4 and so we're happy to help with both the financing, and the preparation of these particular markers, and have done, oh, about ten or so now in ñ@lw conjunction with georgia historical society. i'm glad to see so many people here. we want you to be aware of the history that surrounds so many em of us throughout the state, especially here in a city such m)á

as savannah, and i think you'll be pleased w)ç7he result. thank you.(xqih >> charlie, thank you. the georgia battlefields association has been an lr.ñx@k important partner we would not have been able to do all that we did without them..crz÷e(q well, on december 22nd, 1864, three days prior to the third christmas of the civil war, united states army general l

end to the march%ó'j the íw$hssea, an'g event that has come down to us as an act of savagezf brutality, perpetrated by one of the great villains of american history. just the mention of william tecumseh pww/÷sherman's name brings to mind terror stricken women and children aedala gone with the w"$eñairt;dáç even after years, most 4 conversations about sherman continue to generate more heat than light. after three years of fighting and over half a million dead8%tgz by the fall of 1864 the united states still had not suppressed what union leaders considered a slave+t arguably the most potent threat ever posed to the nation's existence. faced with8 and climbing casualty figures sherman decided the time had come to widen the burden and

pain of the war beyond just rebel soldiers to include the supporters of the confederacy, especially the common folk who j?filled the ranks of the rebel armies. sherman believed that forcing noncombatants to field what he 6há called the hard hand of war was a military necessity.,8k÷ making the war as harsh as possible but bringing victory more quickly and with a minimum loss of life on both sides.zc it would undermine confederate trigger a wave of desertions áhz from the armies, destroy the oney"f" l #5onfederacy's ability to wage qú war and prove to the rebels that their cause was hopeless and their government impotent to protect them and their property.a> this new hard war doctrine was fully sanctioned by the united states government. the previous year president abraham lincoln had approved the creation of the libor code, a set of rules based on aca)5 practices that authorized the army to destroy civilian pbñud property, starve noncombatants,

shell to'prkeep enemy civilians in besieged cities, free slaves, and summarily t)@ya execute guerrillas if such me>h nqáhu eemed necessary to winning the war, and defending the country.u to save the country the code's author the columbia professor francis libor stated is c"amount to all other considerations. like other wartime chief & fófz& executives right down to the 6 present day, lincoln was willing to take drastic measures to ensure the survival of the united states.2 ] so on november the 15th, 1864, sherman's army set out from atlanta on its infamous march toy the sea, cutting a swath of destruction t>tñmhjr the coast. sherman swore to make georgia q@gx howl and in his special field order number 120 he laid out the rules of destruction and conductìáhp &hc% for the march. the army was to, quote, forage a 5 details of men sent and officers sent out each day to gather

food. soldiers were instructed not to enter private homes, and to discriminate between the rich, who were usually hostile, sherman observed, and the poor and industrious, who are usuallyfq neutral or friendly. now, to be sure, there was more destruction than allowed by these orders. sherman's soldiers, as the historian joseph gladhar has written, saw this as a golden ÷!w opportunity to teach the people of georgia the hardships and terrors of a war which they n@fñ blamed confederates for starting, and continuing despite repeated defeats on the battlefield. some homes, especially of those wealthy slave holders, considered guilty of bringing on the war, were burned.om>s private dwellings were entered, and personal property was dg÷k or ruined.vmée and civilians were stripped of more food than the army needed or could possibly consume.:n beyond food and livestock, high

value targets included anything gek that could be used by the confederates to continue the struggle. factories, mills, cotton gins, ?m x warehouses, train depots, bridges, and railroads.éz. still, in georgia, relatively few private homes like that of howell cobb a former federal official deemed a traitor by $h!f÷ chambersburg, pennsylvania, that had been burned by confederates p

the previous july.s%ñ as this author intended, the march to the sea was harsh on civilians. losing crops, food stores and livestock left noncombatants with little to eat as winter approached. but the fear sherman created was more powerful than his acts of destruction. the site of federal troops marching across the state, destroying property, and pillaging virtually unopposed, had a demoralizing effect on white georgians who supported the confederacy. by waging war aga$]÷e@q! táhpl of his opponents, sherman's march@$"vju$rás creator's goal of hastening an end to the conflict. the wives of confederate soldiers along the route of the d@yç march who feared that they lay ñ in the path of sherman's ]0yñ z]] advancing legions begged their husbands to come home, and desertions increased j significantly during the fall and winter of 1864-65. this hemorrhaging from robert e. lee's army in virginia further

depleted his already thin ranks, and allowed general ulysses s. grant to deliver the knockout blow in the spring of 1865.qgmz from th = 21st century, sherman's way of xhnñ war seems a dra-e.t5 departure from earlier methods, and has prompted some historians to 1k] characterize his march to the sea as the birth of modern total war.zúy5q but hard war was not total war. while the march destroyed property and infrastructure and visited suffering and fear on 6,4 the civilian population, it lacked the wholesale destructionz of human life that characterized world war ii. sherman's primary targets, food stuffs, and industrial government and military property, were carefully chosen to create the desired effect, and never included mass killing ó0h9t of civilians, especially those 5jc law-abiding noncombatants who did not resist what sherman described as the national 8ihaz authority.

indeed, sherman always claimed that his war on property was more humane than traditional methods of conflict between armies. he even told one south carolina woman that he was ransacking her plantation so that her soldier husband would come home and general grant would not have to kill him in thyprynches at petersburg. he was fighting to bring rebels g ba3$/s o the union, not to annihilate them. at the end of the march, when the people of savannah surrendered virtually without a fight, they were completely subjugated, sherman wrote.pñ he saw no need to wreck the city's military and zmqi%1ñ facilities or to destroy private homes. an end to resistance mitigated any further need for destruction.+bu five months earlier sherman had told the mayor of atlanta, if you and your citizens will give up, i and this army will become your greatest protectors. and it was a lesson not lost on savannahians. the fate of the march of the city where the march to the city ended was different than the fate of the one where it began.

sherman demonstrated for the first time in the modern era the power of/"vy%=ie psychological warfare in breaking an enemy's will to resist. this concept would come into full bloom during world war ii nok< when both axis and allied powers indiscriminately bombed civilians in order to create terror, and win the war by any 2ex means at their disposal, including dropping two atomic bombs. it would be seen again during @tw the vietnam war when america bombed hanoi, dropping on a single city more ordnance than táe$áupáes dropped in all of world war ii. indeed, in america in the 20th century, waged total war to such a frightening extent that one wonders if sherman had commanded nxeorld war ii or vietnam, would his detractors be so repelled by him, especially those white southerners, taught to hate him as a war criminal? ñ6ñdú r(t&háhp &hc% if he had served in the same

army a century later, and had worn khaki or green, rather than blue, and if his targets had been germans, japanese, vietnamese, or islamic terrorists, rather than loathe him to the same degree? francis libor's words, written in 1862, to save the country is paramount to all other considerations, could 6 or george patton as they smashed their way through another german town.í or curtis lemay as he ordered the fire bombing of japanese cities. history has deemed them heroes, because their actions were against their country's foreign foes, while sherman has been vilified as a terrorist because 0; his actions, although less severe, were against his country's domestic enemies.$

government, and to save his country. rather than an aberration, his y%@+ hard hand of war fits well within the american military tradition. it is no wonder that such distinguished generals as john @m!tp 0@qing, george patton, and norman schwarzkopf would revere ñl[ and emulate sherman. schwarzkopf even kept on his desk during the first iraq war a quote from sherman. war is the remedy our enemies $ have chosen, and i say let us give them all they want. like the war tactics of his 21st century successors, and the enhanced interrogation techniques employed more recently, sherman's march to the sea reveals the moral ambiguity of war and the extent to which l ñ americans are willing to go when our national existence is at stake. i would like now to invite the members of the board of the georgia historical society to

join me at the marker and charlie crawfordxu!x from the georgia battlefieldoa#. association will read the marker text as we unveil it.i you stay on this side.?(á that's it?=(qñ >> the march to the sea. on december 21st, 1864, during the civil war, u.s. forces under general william t. sherman captured savannah, completing the march to the sea. a military campaign devised to destroy the confederacy's ability to wage war, and break the will of its people to resist.sm&"l after destroying atlanta's industrial and business, but not residential districts, sherman's 62,500 men left that city in mid! ÷ november, and marched over 250 miles, reaching savannah by mid december. contrary to popular myth, sherman's troops primarily &o$ destroyed only property used for waging war.

factories, cotton gins and warehouses. abandoning their supply base, they lived off the land, destroying food they could not f consume.2 i÷)r÷ they also liberated thousands of enslaved african-americans.dçbg sherman's hard hand of war &"! demoralized confederates, hastening the end of slavery, and the reunification of the nation. erected for the civil war 150 commemoration by the georgia historical society, and georgia battlefields association. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> good job, as always.rhbzr"á r+á >> well, that concludes the ceremony. thank you all for coming. remember, that there is a free phone app for android and iphone for finding all these markers. there is a website, if you go to? the georgia historical society site, to find all of the new markers plus the 1,000 existing markers about the civil war.

you can use those to create driving tours around the state, and learn about this fascinating conflict that created this world that we live in today. thank you so much for being here.teówhbf we'd like to tell you about some of our other american history tv programs.tú7"lájruáhq+ery saturday at 6:00 v b so p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern for hist a special look at the civil war. we'll bring you to the battlefields.m. we'll let you hear from scholars and re-enactors and bring you the latest historical forums on the subject.bah that's programs on the civil warbject. every saturday at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern here on american am history tv on c-span3.$x)/ you've been watching c-span's american history tv.v. follow us on twitter @c-span history. connect with us on facebook at @c-span facebook.com/cspan history.v i or you can leave comments, too. and check out our upcoming programs at our website, c-span.org/history.