With so many fine generals, how did J. B. Hood get put in charge of an army? He was a fighter but just an awful general.
Good question. It is unfair to second guess the person on the spot, but even as someone with no military training (God did I try to join but “too deaf to fire artillery’ according to the army) it seems like a case study of what NOT to do in defending a city.
Loved the cyclorama, even in 2004 when I was there is was impressive, must have been darn near virtual reality for 1921.
Longstreet should have been put in charge of the Army of Tennessee. He couldn’t have held Atlanta, either, but he was brilliant on the defensive and might have held it at least until the November elections. Absent the fall of Atlanta, Lincoln might not have won. Lincoln himself, that summer, was convinced he would lose. Atlanta changed everything for him.
That was Jefferson Davis’s call. He did not like Joseph Johnson. Johnson’s strategy of tactical withdrawal in front of Sherman’s 3 armies was galling to Davis. With the possibility of loosing Atlanta looming, Davis relieved Johnson and appointed Hood to command the army. General Lee upon hearing of Hood’s appointment commented that he thought “General Hood had to much wolf and not enough fox in him.” As events would turn out, a pretty accurate appraisal of John Hood.