In May 2023, Fort Hood, Texas was officially renamed Fort Cavazos and while some have expressed outrage at the name change, it’s honestly just much more fitting. Over the course of 30 years in service, Gen. Richard Cavazos became a veteran of two of America’s most brutal wars, receiving the Distinguished Service Cross in each of them – and his first one was upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
John Bell Hood, meanwhile, has been referred to as “the single largest mistake that either government made during the war.” If there is one general that could be considered as having single-handedly lost the Civil War for the Confederates, it’s Hood.
Here are 5 reasons Hood was the absolute worst:
1. Hood was insubordinate.
After getting promoted to brigadier general, Hood got into a disagreement with his superior, Gen. Nathan Evans. Hood captured some Union ambulances and Evans ordered him to send his spoils to another unit. Hood refused, saying it was unfair that his men shouldn’t get the wagons because they captured them.
Maybe it was unfair, but that’s how armies work. Evans rightfully had Hood arrested. When Robert E. Lee told Hood he would free him if he just apologized, Hood again refused. Lee let him go eventually, probably the first bad call Lee made during the war. Later, at the Battle of Antietam, Lee asked Hood where his division was, to which Hood replied “lying in the field where you sent them.”
2. People thought he was addicted to opium.
There’s no doubt Hood was good at leading men into battle, but once he was wounded and became a strategist, that all changed. It led many to believe that he became addicted to laudanum (a tincture of opium used as a painkiller during the war), which explained his poor performance later on. Some historians refute that allegation citing the papers of his doctor as evidence.
Whether he was an addict or not, the fact that he was so bad at being a general that his contemporaries thought he was high all the time says a lot about his abilities.
3. He led the Confederates into disaster at Gettysburg.
At Gettysburg, Gen. James Longstreet ordered Hood to take his men through the Devil’s Den, a rocky area that he believed could hamper his effectiveness. Hood instead requested to go around the Devil’s Den to avoid the difficult terrain. His request was denied but when he actually moved, much of his force somehow still ended up drifting away from the Devil’s Den and into the Union forces on Little Round Top.
Robert E. Lee’s master plan at Gettysburg did not include engaging Little Round Top because he considered it irrelevant to his objective and Longstreet was ordered to pass it by entirely. By drifting into Little Round Top, he gave the Union some of its most storied actions of the battle and the entire Civil War. The bayonet charge of the 20th Maine wiped up two rebel regiments and Hood was wounded in the assault. Did Hood veer to the East on purpose? No one knows.
4. He single-handedly lost Atlanta.
It’s hard to overestimate the importance of Atlanta to the Confederacy. It was a hub for several railroads, a key commercial area and an important manufacturing center. So when William Tecumseh Sherman came marching toward the city in 1864, it was really important that the rebels repel his army. Defending the city was Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who stalemated Sherman by holding his defenses, strategically withdrawing and not being lured to a fight he couldn’t win.
But Johnston was soon replaced by Hood, who had been undermining Johnston by sending criticism of his performance to Richmond for months, something totally on-brand for Hood. The result was a disaster for the south. Sherman took Atlanta in time to guarantee Abraham Lincoln’s re-election and doom the Confederacy forever.
5. He lost the entire Army of Tennessee.
Reeling from Atlanta, he decided to attack the Union in Tennessee, believing Sherman would abandon Atlanta to pursue him. He was wrong. When Sherman found out Hood was moving north, he said “If he goes all the way to Ohio, I’ll supply him with rations. My business is down here.” Unfortunately for Hood, he would instead be fighting the undefeated Union Gen. George Henry Thomas.
Hood attacked Thomas at Franklin by sending his men across two miles of open ground without artillery support. The didn’t even make it to the Union lines. It was one of the worst disasters for the rebels in the entire war, and the second of such disasters led by Hood. To make matters worse, he reportedly attacked that way to teach his own army a lesson in discipline. The Battle of Franklin was so embarrassing that Hood’s girlfriend dumped him.
He followed up that attack by laying siege to Nashville, where he was outnumbered two-to-one in freezing weather. Thomas repeated the exact same tactic on both days of the battle, changing nothing. He used an attack on the right to draw troops from the rebels’ left flank and then attacked the left flank. Hood fell for it both days and was forced to withdraw on the second day. The Army of the Tennessee was no longer an effective fighting force – and had John Bell Hood to thank for it.