Never-seen-before cache of Hood’s papers show he shouldn’t be blamed for the military debacle at Spring Hill.

Via SHNV

 

Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood, often blamed for the Confederacy’s staggering loss during the battles of Franklin and Nashville, might finally get his due 148 years later.

A never-seen-before cache of Hood’s personal papers — including handwritten notes, letters and field orders written by Hood and other Civil War luminaries — is now being pored over by historians who say they paint a fuller, more sympathetic picture of Hood.

Sam Hood, a retired West Virginia businessman and “collateral descendant” of the general, and Eric Jacobson, Battle of Franklin Trust chief operating officer, discussed the papers on Friday. They are in the midst of transcribing the letters and documents.

Sam Hood was writing a book about Gen. Hood’s career when he was contacted by a son of one of the general’s granddaughters living in Pennsylvania. The family showed Sam Hood boxes of papers that he said contain documents from a who’s who of the Civil War, including Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Union Gen. William T. Sherman.
Many believed Gen. Hood’s personal papers were thrown out after his 1879 death from yellow fever.
“Everybody thought they were gone, but they weren’t gone,” Sam Hood said. “They’d been somewhere all the time, and now we know where they are.”

More @ The Tennessean