Nashville: The Western Confederacy's Final Gamble

by James Lee McDonough

After Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s forces ravaged Atlanta in 1864, Ulysses S. Grant urged him to complete the primary mission Grant had given him: to destroy the Confederate Army in Georgia. Attempting to draw the Union army north, General John Bell Hood’s Confederate forces focused their attacks on Sherman’s supply line, the railroad from Chattanooga, and then moved across north Alabama and into Tennessee. As Sherman initially followed Hood’s men to protect the railroad, Hood hoped to lure the Union forces out of the lower South and, perhaps more important, to recapture the long-occupied city of Nashville.

Though Hood managed to cut communication between Sherman and George H. Thomas’s Union forces by placing his troops across the railroads south of the city, Hood’s men were spread over a wide area and much of the Confederate cavalry was in Murfreesboro. Hood’s army was ultimately routed. Union forces pursued the Confederate troops for ten days until they recrossed the Tennessee River. The decimated Army of Tennessee (now numbering only about 15,000) retreated into northern Alabama and eventually Mississippi. Hood requested to be relieved of his command. Less than four months later, the war was over.

Written in a lively and engaging style, Nashville presents new interpretations of the critical issues of the battle. James Lee McDonough sheds light on how the Union army stole past the Confederate forces at Spring Hill and their subsequent clash, which left six Confederate generals dead. He offers insightful analysis of John Bell Hood’s overconfidence in his position and of the leadership and decision-making skills of principal players such as Sherman, George Henry Thomas, John M. Schofield, Hood, and others.

Within the pages of Nashville, McDonough’s subjects, both common soldiers and officers, present their unforgettable stories in their own words. Unlike most earlier studies of the battle of Nashville, McDonough’s account examines the contributions of black Union regiments and gives a detailed account of the battle itself as well as its place in the overall military campaign. Filled with new information from important primary sources and fresh insights, Nashville will become the definitive treatment of a crucial battleground of the Civil War.

James Lee McDonough is retired professor of history from Auburn University. He is the author of numerous books on the Civil War, including Shiloh—In Hell Before Night, Chattanooga—Death Grip on the Confederacy, and War in Kentucky: From Shiloh to Perryville.

Genres: American Civil War, Civil War, Civil War Western Theater

358 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

James Lee McDonough is professor of history at Auburn University.

Reviews

[Sean Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of McDonough's last books, and arguably his best written. It is not a detailed analysis of the campaign, but rather a readable account that spends much of its time on the forgotten but bitter fighting at Nashville. This is a good place to start if you want to know more. That said, the maps are few and not too useful. The research is a bit thin.

Lastly, reading this in 2019 is interesting. McDonough does not flinch from describing the Confederates' bitter reactions and cruelty towards black troops, although Brigadier General James T. Holtzclaw is a notable exception. Yet, the book ends with a reunification narrative that has become frayed. I empathize with McDonough, as I did something a bit similar in my book on Petersburg. It certainly shows how the narrative has shifted. The degree to which it is a good or bad shift, I will leave up to future generations to decide who will have their own narratives to build. Not that we have much agency in such matters.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book; unfortunately, it has only a single map of the battlefield (reprinted twice in the book), showing the lines of fortifications. Maps showing the positions of units during the battle would have been helpful. Also, I'm not sure the author needed to go into so much detail about the campaign before the Battle of Nashville (especially since he had already written a book about Franklin).