Reviewed by:

• Texas Brigadier to the Fall of Atlanta: John Bell Hood by Stephen Davis
• Brian Craig Miller

John Bell Hood, a prominent Confederate general during the American Civil War, has always seemed more suited for central casting than at the head of an army. Physically attractive, Hood gained fame for his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862 and 1863 and the Army of Tennessee in 1864. Additionally, he gained notoriety among the social circles of Richmond, Virginia, during the fall of 1863, while he healed from an amputation that removed his leg only a few inches from the hip. He gained the trust of Confederate officials, from Robert E. Lee, who tasked Hood's Texans to take on numerous offensive maneuvers, to President Jefferson Davis, who gave Hood control of an army in the summer of 1864 to save the doomed city of Atlanta. In many ways, Hood seemed to be in the right place at the right time to secure his ascension through Confederate military command. Although Hood's biography has been explored on several previous occasions, author Stephen Davis, who has written extensively on the Atlanta campaign, believes a new two-volume biography of Hood is warranted because the officer deserves a fairer exploration as someone who did all he could to save the city of Atlanta. Volume 1, reviewed here, tackles Hood's childhood, his education at West Point, his service on the frontier in the 1850s, and his military command through the summer of 1864. This book's strengths are rooted in the author's exhaustive research in a cornucopia of primary sources and his strong grasp of the extensive secondary explorations of Hood's life and legacy. Additionally, Stephen Davis once again debunks wild rumors and myths about Hood, including his alleged drug and alcohol abuse that supposedly accompanied his war injuries and amputation.

Unfortunately, the biography, like Hood, trips up on numerous accounts, which I will lay at the feet of both the author and his press. First, the book needs serious editing, as two chapters each run over a hundred pages in length, and the first chapter alone weighs in at 106 pages. Thus, while the biography is designed chronologically, beginning with Hood's birth in Kentucky, the unbearably lengthy chapters make it difficult to digest some new and pertinent details, from questions about where Hood had his leg amputated to questions [End Page 347] about how he ended up injured in the first place. Second, while the research is exhaustive, it is severely uneven, as some pages go by without a single citation or reference. Then, at other points, we get notes that cover several pages, with several paragraphs of information that either should be in the text itself or placed on a website for further exploration. The editors here have done a great disservice to other historians trying to glean the larger argument of the work, as many of the important elements of debate are dumped into the notes rather than made part of the text itself. When the author reaches a point of historiographical contention about Hood's career, he rarely makes his own conclusion and takes a kitchen-sink approach by laying out what every single author has said about Hood on a particular point. As the reader moves day by day and month by month through 1864, the high level of detail hides the overall significance of why Hood's failed military career matters. Finally, the author has failed to grasp the importance of the scholarship on Civil War memory, as so much of Hood's career was rooted in how he and the events surrounding him have been remembered and misremembered, and why that memory mattered so much to Hood (who took great pains to constantly correct the historical record, both during and after the war). Perhaps the author plans to take this approach in the second volume.

More than likely, this review will appear after the publisher releases...

审核人：

• 亚特兰大沦陷的得克萨斯准将：斯蒂芬·戴维斯（Stephen Davis）的约翰·贝尔胡德
• 布莱恩·克雷格·米勒

约翰·贝尔·胡德（John Bell Hood），美国南北战争期间的杰出同盟将军，似乎总是比在军队中担任领导更适合中央集资。胡德在身体上颇具吸引力，他在1862年和1863年在北弗吉尼亚军队和1864年在田纳西州军队中的迅速崛起而声名fa起。此外，他在1863年秋天在弗吉尼亚州里士满的社交圈中声名狼藉，而他的截肢手术使他的腿离髋部只有几英寸远。他赢得了邦联官员的信任，从罗伯特·李（Robert E. Lee）（他委托胡德的德克萨斯人承担众多进攻行动）到杰斐逊·戴维斯（Jefferson Davis）总统，后者在1864年夏天让胡德控制了一支军队，以拯救这个注定要失败的亚特兰大市。很多方面，胡德似乎在正确的时机处于正确的位置，以通过同盟军的指挥权确保他的提升。尽管胡德的传记曾有过几次探索过，但在亚特兰大战役上写过很多篇文章的作家斯蒂芬·戴维斯（Stephen Davis）认为，胡德的两卷新传记是有必要的，因为该军官应该像他一样竭尽所能地进行更公平的探索。拯救亚特兰大市。第1卷，这里回顾了胡德的童年，他在西点的教育，他在1850年代在边境的服役以及他在1864年夏天之前的军事指挥。本书的优势源于作者对初等聚宝盆的详尽研究。资料和他对Hood的生活和遗产的广泛次要探索的深刻理解。此外，

不幸的是，这本传记像胡德（Hood）一样，经历了无数的叙述，我将把这本书放在作者及其新闻界的脚下。首先，这本书需要认真编辑，因为每两章的篇幅长达一百页，而仅第一章就占了106页。因此，虽然传记是按时间顺序设计的，从胡德在肯塔基州出生开始，但是篇幅冗长的章节使人们难以消化一些新的相关细节，从有关胡德的腿被截肢的地方到问题[End Page 347]一开始他是如何受伤的。其次，尽管研究是详尽无遗的，但它是严重不平衡的，因为有些页面没有单独引用或引用。然后，在其他时候，我们得到的注释覆盖了几页，其中几段信息应该放在文本本身中，或者放在网站上以进行进一步的研究。这里的编辑对其他试图收集更大范围论据的历史学家来说是极大的伤害，因为许多重要的辩论内容都被抛在了笔记中，而不是文本本身的一部分。当作者达到关于Hood的职业的史学论点时，他很少得出自己的结论，并且通过阐述每位作者在特定点上对Hood的看法，采取了一种沉沦的方法。直到1864年，读者日复一日，月复一日地移动，高水平的细节掩盖了胡德失败的军事生涯为何重要的总体意义。最后，作者未能掌握有关内战记忆学问的重要性，因为胡德的大部分职业生涯都源于他和他周围的事件如何被记住和误记，以及为什么记忆对胡德如此重要（在战争期间和战争结束后竭尽全力不断纠正历史记录的人）。也许作者计划在第二卷中采用这种方法。因为胡德的职业生涯之所以根深蒂固，是因为他和他周围的事件是如何被记住和误记的，以及为什么那段回忆对胡德如此重要（他在战争期间和战争后竭尽全力不断纠正历史记录） 。也许作者计划在第二卷中采用这种方法。因为胡德的职业生涯之所以根深蒂固，是因为他和他周围的事件是如何被记住和误记的，以及为什么那段回忆对胡德如此重要（他在战争期间和战争后竭尽全力不断纠正历史记录） 。也许作者计划在第二卷中采用这种方法。

该评论很有可能会在发布者发布后出现...