INTO TENNESSEE AND FAILURE is the second volume of Stephen Davis's study of John Bell Hood's generalship in 1864. Here Davis picks up the story in September-October 1864, tracing Hood and his army into North Georgia and Alabama. Entering Tennessee in late November, Hood's forces failed to trap Union Maj. Gen. John Schofield's infantry at Spring Hill. On November 30, Hood ordered his soldiers to attack Schofield's fortified lines at Franklin. A tragic and bloody repulse followed. Schofield escaped to Nashville, joining Maj. Gen. George Thomas's forces. With few options left, Hood approached Nashville and had his troops dig in. Though his army was half the size of Thomas's 50,000, Hood hoped to win a defensive victory when Thomas attacked him. Instead, in the battle of Nashville, December 15-16, the Army of Tennessee was routed from the field. By the time it ended its retreat in North Mississippi, Confederate authorities were ready to relieve Hood from command. Hood resigned in January 1865.

"In this first biography of the general in more than twenty years, Miller offers a new original perspective, directly challenging those historians who have pointed to Hood's perceived personality flaws, his alleged abuse of painkillers, and other unsubstantiated claims as proof of his incompetence as a military leader. This book takes into account Hood's entire life -- as a student at West Point, his meteoric rise and fall as a soldier and Civil War commander, and his career as a successful postwar businessman. In many ways, Hood represents a typical southern man, consumed by personal and societal definitions of manhood that were threatened by amputation and preserved and reconstructed by Civil War memory. Miller consults an extensive variety of sources, explaining not only what Hood did but also the environment in which he lived and how it affected him"--Jacket.

Coffey delivers a clear and riveting evaluation of Confederate General John Bell Hood's service in and command of the Western Army in Northern Georgia and his performance in the Atlanta Campaign. 24 photos. 7 maps.

In the early 1800s John Bell moved his family from North Carolina to the rich bottom lands along the Red River in Robertson County, Tennessee. Bell, an elder in the Red River Baptist Church, was well-liked and respected by most in the community and prospered as a farmer. As Bell worked hard to raise his family and to carve out a living, the unusual, unexpected, and terrifying happened. Between 1817 and 1821 the Bell family were allegedly tormented day and night by some heinous menacing spirit called a "witch" known as "Kate." Kate's remonstrations and activities were witnessed by many in the community. The events eventually led to the death of John Bell, and he is the only person whose demise is attributed to the work of a spirit. Written only seventy-three years after the awful events transpired, this is the story of the Bell Witch. This is the eyewiteness account by a member of the Bell family.

Scholars hail Confederate General John Bell Hood's personal papers as "the most important discovery in Civil War scholarship in the last half century." This invaluable cache includes documents relating to Hood's U.S. Army service, Civil War career, and postwar life. It includes letters from Confederate and Union officers, unpublished battle reports, detailed medical reports relating to Hood's two major wounds, and dozens of letters exchanged between Hood and his wife Anna. This treasure trove is being made available for the first time in paperback for both professional and amateur Civil War historians in The Lost Papers of Confederate General John Bell Hood, edited and annotated by award-winning author Stephen M. Hood. The historical community long believed General Hood's papers were lost or destroyed, and numerous books and articles were written about him without the benefit of these invaluable documents. In fact, the papers had been carefully preserved for generations by Hood's descendants. In 2012, collateral descendent Stephen Hood was given access to these papers as part of his research for his book John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General (Savas Beatie, 2013). This 200+ document collection sheds important light on some of the war's lingering mysteries and controversies. For example, letters from Confederate officers help explain Hood's failure to entrap Schofield's Union army at Spring Hill, Tennessee, on November 29, 1864. Another letter by Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee helps to explain Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne's gallant but reckless conduct that resulted in his death at Franklin. Lee also lodges serious allegations against Confederate Maj. Gen. William Bate's troops. Other papers explain, for the first time, the purpose and intent behind Hood's "controversial" memoir Advance and Retreat, and validate its contents. While these and others offer a military perspective of Hood the general, the revealing letters between he and Anna, his beloved and devoted wife, help us better understand Hood the man and husband. Historians and other writers have spent generations speculating about Hood's motives, beliefs, actions, and objectives and the result has not always been flattering or even fully honest. Now, long-believed "lost" firsthand accounts previously unavailable offer insights into the character, personality, and military operations of John Bell Hood the general, husband, and father.

Because of its extraordinary consequences and because of Abraham Lincoln's place in the American pantheon, the presidential election of 1860 is probably the most studied in our history. But perhaps for the same reasons, historians have focused on the contest of Lincoln versus Stephen Douglas in the northern free states and John Bell versus John C. Breckinridge in the slaveholding South. In The Election of 1860 a preeminent scholar of American history disrupts this familiar narrative with a clearer and more comprehensive account of how the election unfolded and what it was actually about. Most critically, the book counters the common interpretation of the election as a referendum on slavery and the Republican Party's purported threat to it. However significantly slavery figured in the election, The Election of 1860 reveals the key importance of widespread opposition to the Republican Party because of its overtly anti-southern rhetoric and seemingly unstoppable rise to power in the North after its emergence in 1854. Also of critical importance was the corruption of the incumbent administration of Democrat James Buchanan—and a nationwide revulsion against party. Grounding his history in a nuanced retelling of the pre-1860 story, Michael F. Holt explores the sectional politics that permeated the election and foreshadowed the coming Civil War. He brings to light how the campaigns of the Republican Party and the National (Northern) Democrats and the Constitutional (Southern) Democrats and the newly formed Constitutional Union Party were not exclusively regional. His attention to the little-studied role of the Buchanan Administration, and of perceived threats to the preservation of the Union, clarifies the true dynamic of the 1860 presidential election, particularly in its early stages.

A malevolent entity known as the "Bell Witch" terrorized a pioneer Tennessee family from 1817 to 1821, predicting the future, singing hymns, cursing the preachers, beating the children, and killing John Bell, the patriarch. The characters and events were real. People from all walks of life--farmers, doctors, lawyers, and even preachers--witnessed and documented the horrific Bell Witch disturbances. Culminating 22+ years of extensive research, "The Bell Witch: The Full Account" is an essential tool for those wanting to learn more about the world's greatest ghost story. Includes photos, footnotes, end notes, appendices, and a comprehensive index.