Reading The Army of Tennessee in Retreat

Proof of Purchase.

Even before I made my recent trek to Nashville and Franklin (and perhaps in part because of it) I was reading The Army of Tennessee in Retreat (2018) by O.C. Hood.  The subtitle of the book is “From Defeat at Nashville through ‘the Sternest Trials of the War.’”  That is surely not an overstatement.  While American soldiers on both sides were dealing with difficult winter conditions in December 1864, none had it worse that General John Bell Hood’s virtually destroyed Army of Tennessee following the overwhelming victory by General George Henry Thomas’ Union forces at Nashville.

My original attraction to this book was that it covered in greater detail an aspect of the War Between the States that was in short supply elsewhere in my robust Civil War collection.  In his classic work Autumn of Glory by Thomas Connelly, for example, Hood’s retreat from Nashville is barely mentioned at all.  James McPherson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom devotes three sentences to it.  In Shrouds of Glory, Winston Groom covers it in 10 pages.  Wiley Sword’s excellent study of the campaign devotes an 18-page chapter to it, and is probably as good source as any for the subject matter.  Was there more to the story?

O.C. Hood (apparently no relation to the bold, slapdash Confederate general) is no academic historian and it shows.  He allows a pro-Southern bias to creep into his writing (though, in fairness, there was more desperate action, which is the primary focus of this book, on that side than on the Federal side).  He greatly over-emphasizes Hood’s alleged “contrition” about the failures of the campaign and would have the reader believe thousands of ragged, overwhelmed and desolate Rebel soldiers were singing gospel songs of praise toward the end of the retreat.  His Christian mythology gets in the way of objective consideration of the facts.

Nevertheless, Hood has put together a great deal of original source material from both sides and made it available to the reader.  Although his writing style is such that the extended quotations from this collection of reports and correspondences often create a disjointed and repetitive narrative, there is a great deal of information here you won’t find anywhere else regarding a retreat so bleak that it is only rivaled by the Confederate experience during the final retreat to Appomattox in 1865.

Each chapter is devoted to a single day from the final collapse at Nashville on Friday, December 16, 1864 through Wednesday, December 28, when Hood past south of Tescumbia, Alabama where the whole perilous escapade began. Mostly, it is the story of how the Federal cavalry commander General James H. Wilson, with some Northern infantry assistance overcame brutal winter weather, rising rivers, and stiff rearguard actions to fight a series of running battles against the retreating Rebel army.  Meanwhile, those same obstacles were dealt with by the beleaguered Southerners while improvising with General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry and General Stephen D. Lee’s corps to prevent the capture of what was left of the Confederate army.

The author provides almost an hour by hour account of all of this.  The first few days are filled with repeated probes and skirmishes.  On Sunday, December 17, for example, four battles varying in size and intensity were fought during the course of the day, including a large cavalry battle that is dubiously proclaimed by the source material as “perhaps the largest cavalry engagement on American soil.”

Initially, Wilson’s cavalry pressed its routed adversary into the darkness of the first day, picking up again at sunrise on the second day.  The weight of the delaying Union pursuit fell to Lee’s corps since it was the only part of Hood’s army that remained reasonably intact following the disaster at Nashville.  The initial defense was put together by General Henry D. Clayton’s division, who was relieved on the second day by the thin brigades of General Carter Stevenson.  Both divisions were assisted by several brigades of Confederate cavalry which were, at times, heavily engaged.

The details of how the beaten Southern army managed to establish lines of defense and transfer responsibilities from one division to the next during the retreat are certainly one of the highlights of the book.  Covering a withdrawal is one of the most difficult military operations to undertake.  In this case it was accomplished by troops with low morale in horrific icy weather.  The author reminds us repeatedly (perhaps too much) that many of these men were marching on bleeding bare feet, all thread bear, and with virtually no supplies.  Under these circumstances, it makes the final success of the Confederate withdrawal from Tennessee all the more worthy of the meticulous study this book provides.

On Sunday, December 18, that Forrest arrived with the bulk of his cavalry to cover the retreat.  He had been sent by Hood to menace Murfreesboro prior to the Battle of Nashville.  On December 20, Hood relieved Stevenson’s division of rearguard duty and placed that responsibility under Forrest and General Edward C. Walthall, the later being allowed to handpick the eight most battle-ready, in his estimation, from all the army's weakened brigades, totaling about 1,600 men.  Combined with Forrest’s cavalry, they were expected to check the relentless probes and advances by a Federal force of about 10,000.

The author details the conditions of Walthall’s selected infantry at the time: “…on third of them were without shoes or blankets, with little or nothing to eat, and many were so footsore they were prevented from participating in combat…Despite their gaunt and pitiful condition, Walthall’s selected brigades were destined in the following days, in concert with Forrest’s spirited cavalry, to so chastise the Federal army that to his credit the Union commander would be compelled to commend them for their unyielding tenacity in consistently repelling numerous attacks brought against them…” (page 119)

Though ice storms, frozen ground lacking good roads, swollen creeks and rivers without bridges or pontoons made the retreat difficult, these same conditions also greatly hindered the Federal pursuit.  These elements became more of factor as Federal infantry joined in the action.  They had difficulty keeping up with the Wilson’s cavalry and often were only able to attack after the Rebel’s had had plenty of time of choose ground best conducive for a prepared defense.

The fundamental drama on the Union side was the pressure placed upon Thomas to capture Hood’s army before it could get away.  Authorities in Washington were constantly nagging him for swifter, more aggressive action.  Thomas resented this since DC had little appreciation for the difficulties he was facing in terms of maneuver.  General Thomas J. Wood was the primary Yankee infantry commander.  He was frequently delayed by rivers that were difficult to ford and the promised pontoon bridges took a lot of time to trek down from Nashville and assemble.  This bought Hood’s army some breathing room and infuriated the Lincoln administration all the more.

Interestingly, Thomas sought to coordinate the pursuit with Rear Admiral S.P. Lee’s river gunboats.  Ultimately, the fleet managed to do considerable damage along the Tennessee River, particularly near Florence, Alabama where, it was believed, Hood would attempt to cross.  The goal was to search for and destroy the Confederate pontoon bridge, cutting off Hood’s ability to re-cross the river, thereby trapping him for the forces of Wilson and Wood to capture.  

This failed to occur, however, not because of any Southern ingenuity, but rather due to the fact that the river level receded by Tuesday, December 27 before the Federal fleet could safely reach the point of Hood’s crossing.  I found this to be an exciting part of the story but the author does not do as much with it as I would like.  More information concerning the fleet’s progress would have made for a better book, particularly since the author gathers so much minutia about everything else.

O.C. Hood concludes with: “Nothing in American Civil War history quite resembles the Army of Tennessee’s withdrawal from Nashville to Tuscumbia.  The collective forces of prolonged intolerable weather with it impossible traveling conditions in combination with an enraged foe unleashed without restraint upon them created a never to be forgotten or possibly repeated scenario, a picture that can by no means be fully grasped or appreciated in its scope.

“Regardless of the intensity of enemy pursuit, the resolute, fierce stands of prolonged Confederate rear guard actions over a distance of a hundred miles displayed by Lee’s corps, Forrest’s band of cavalry, and Walthall’s infantry brigades literally saved the Army from certain capture and extinction.” (page 195)

Though this book has its faults, it presents an impressive collection of factual material that is not readily available to the general reader of military history elsewhere.  For that reason, The Army of Tennessee in Retreat rounds out my understanding of this bizarre campaign, filling in the gaps that all the other, more academic, works mentioned above chose not to delve in to.  It is a rather bleak and somewhat repetitive (in terms of the individual rearguard actions and the delays) story.  But it deserves to be known and will enrich anyone interested in the final inglorious demise of the Southern Confederacy. 

Note:  The overwhelming Union victory at Nashville happened 155 years ago today, necessitating Hood's desperate and harrowing retreat.