[Jerry D]

Myth: Hood coldly sacrificed his men in combat.

Reality: In author R. E. L. Kreck's essay in "The 1862 Richmond Campaign," after the victorious assault at Gaines's Mill, "...a staff officer found the sturdy general in the darkness, 'sitting on a cracker box, crying.'" According to Chaplain Nicholas Davis, General Hood attended the next morning's roll call and was appalled that only a fraction of the men were present. "Is this the Fourth Texas?? asked Hood. 'This is all that remains,' was the reply. Tears rolled down the general's cheeks as he rode away, and there was not a soldier in that line but what thought more of him now than ever before."

At Antietam, Richard O' Connor wrote in "Hood: Cavalier General," "...the sad-eyed Hood...wept as he told Lee of the hundreds of his Texans and Georgians who had fallen that day in the cornfield."

On the morning after the Battle of Franklin, as Hood was inspecting the battlefield, one of his soldiers recalled, " His sturdy visage assumed a melancholy appearance, and for a considerable time he sat on his horse and wept like a child."

Private Sam Watkins (a distant cousin of Mine, Jerry) visited Hood's tent for a furlough on the retreat from Nashville and wrote "I was at General Hood's headquarters. He was much agitated and affected, pulling his hair with his one hand (he had but one), and crying like his heart would break. I pitied him, poor fellow."

John Bell Hood knew first hand the terror and carnage of combat. Having been seriously wounded three times in battle, and losing half of his limbs, he appreciated and respected his soldiers who risked their lives for a patriotic cause, and grieved at their deaths and their suffering.