In October of 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood set out through Alabama on what would be the final campaign of the Army of Tennessee. One event in particular, overlooked and misunderstood for generations, portended what was to follow and is the subject of Noel Carpenter’s Detour to Disaster: General John Bell Hood’s “Slight Demonstration” at Decatur and the Unravelling of the Tennessee Campaign. In this fascinating and meticulously detailed and documented account—the first book-length study of the weighty decision to march to Decatur and the combat that followed there—Carpenter investigates the circumstances surrounding these matters and how they overwhelmed the controversial young army commander and potentially doomed his daring invasion. Detour to Disaster is required reading for everyone interested in the Western Theater, and especially the doomed Tennessee Campaign.

In October of 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood set out through Alabama on what would be the final campaign of the Army of Tennessee. One event in particular, overlooked and misunderstood for generations, portended what was to follow and is the subject of Noel Carpenter's Detour to Disaster: General John Bell Hood's "Slight Demonstration" at Decatur and the Unravelling of the Tennessee Campaign. By late 1864, Hood's army of hardened veterans had one thin ray of hope: they would somehow invade Tennessee and defeat Union General George Thomas outside Nashville in a victory that would force General William T. Sherman to follow them into Tennessee (and perhaps even Kentucky). While weighing his options for a Tennessee River crossing, however, Hood diverted his army to the town of Decatur, Alabama, a decision that undermined his own plan for a rapid move north to Nashville. In his only mention of his army's action at Decatur, Alabama, Hood described it all in just one sentence: "While the Army turned Decatur, I ordered a slight demonstration to be made against the town till our forces passed safely beyond." In fact, this four-day detour was a turning point that set the stage for the disastrous Tennessee Campaign that followed. In this fascinating and meticulously detailed and documented account--the first book-length study of the weighty decision to march to Decatur and the combat that followed there--the author investigates the circumstances surrounding these matters and how they overwhelmed the controversial young army commander and potentially doomed his daring campaign. Detour to Disaster is required reading for everyone interested in the Western Theater, and especially the doomed Tennessee Campaign.

Dressed in the Urban Bus Lines uniform, Harry Wardell walked out the door of his house to find a dead bird on the sidewalk. "Is this an omen of some sort?" Officially retired, but covering for a friend's Atlantic City casino run today, it's too late to find a replacement. The routine trip of hauling day gamblers ninety miles for low-stakes gambling turns into a high-stakes fight for survival in the New Jersey Pine Barrens against criminals, forces of nature and non-so-natural enemies. Detour to Disaster is a thrilling tale of ordinary people put into an extraordinary situation and their determination to come out alive.

"From the Justice Department memos defending coerced interrogation to the firing of U.S. Attorneys who did not fit the Bush Administration's political needs, Law's Detour depicts the many detours that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney created to thwart transparency and undermine the rule of law after September 11, 2001. Bush officials set up a law-free zone at Guantanamo, pressured prosecutors to pursue political enemies, undermined the protection of bona fide refugees, and screened candidates for civil service jobs to ensure the hiring of "real Americans."" "While government needs flexibility to address genuine risks to national security - which certainly exist in the post-9/11 world - the Bush Administration's use of detours distracted the government from urgent priorities, tarnished America's reputation, and threatened voting and civil rights. In this comprehensive analysis of Bush officials' efforts to stretch and strain the justice system, Peter Margulies canvasses the costs of the Administration's digressions in the war on terror to thwarting economic and environment regulation." --Book Jacket.