The BGES' Staff Ride: A Study of Hood's 1864 Tennessee Campaign in 3 Parts

Part 3: Destruction at Nashville and the Retreat to Mississippi

Go straight to the Detailed Itinerary and Registration Form.

Seats will be at a premium on Dececember 8-11, 2010 at this conclusion to the BGES' unprecedented study of the 1864 Tennessee Campaign. Since 2008 we have invested six plus days in walking, talking and kicking dirt from the banks of the Tennessee through the back country of southern Tennessee over the Duck River and to the banks of the Harpeth.

Now we come to the final act, the battle for Nashville. Actually it may not have been a battle for the city at all-Hood's army was decimated by the carnival of death at Franklin and perhaps like a beaten heavyweight, refusing to quit, was looking and indeed expecting the knock out blow. Hood spent two weeks on the hills looking at Nashville and in the end it was Thomas who came to him and delivered the coup de grace.

Finally and decisively beaten the Confederates conducted a spirited rear guard action as they slipped back from whence they came not stopping until they reached Mississippi. There Hood worn and beaten offered his resignation which was accepted.

Hood had bravely done what he had been asked to do-something Joseph E. Johnston couldn't and wouldn't do. He devised and executed a bold plan that caught the federals unaware and scrambling to avoid destruction in detail. In the end he failed but was it a result of poor leadership, poor timing or the federal army? History has not been kind to Hood or has it. Surely, modern historians were not but has he been truthfully evaluated?

Over three days, this program will cover that part of the Battle of Nashville that it is still possible to see; follow Hood on his retreat and then in a culminating day long seminar recap and analyze the campaign with four or five historians of note.

For more information or to register: Detailed itinerary and registration for Hood's 1864 Tennessee Campaign.

For a participant's view of the first two programs in the series go to posix.com/CW08/index.html or Google Hal Jespersen's Travel Log 2008 and 2009 then scroll or page down to the Spring Hill and Franklin programs.