Advance abd Retreat - Hood

1985 hardcover with dust jacket in very good condition. 358 pages. R42 postage in SA. John Bell Hood may be the South America's most famously unfortunate soldier. With his reckless charges that broke Union defences at Gaines Mill, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam, Hood became the beau ideal of the Southern cavalier. However his heroics contained the seeds of his own downfall: trusting too much in sheer courage and dash, Hood schemed against General Joseph E. Johnston and supplanted him as commander of the Army of Tennessee in the defence of Atlanta; Hood's suicidal charges at Franklin and Nashville destroyed his army. Hood was, if nothing else, fiercely courageous; he lost both an arm and a leg in combat, and finally had to be strapped to his horse to ride.