Is Albert Sidney Johnston overated?

Basically, during the "Lost Cause" era, Texas needed a Confederate hero, and it didn't have too many good options. Shiloh was retconned into a Confederate Victory, and Johnston was rewritten as a martyred hero who died on the field of battle.

Well, he was a martyred hero, if you regard a traitor as a hero, and death by stupidity as martyrdom.

Kind of glad they picked Sidney over Sam Hood though. Sam Hood as the Lost Cause Hero of Texas is stomach turning.
 
Basically, during the "Lost Cause" era, Texas needed a Confederate hero, and it didn't have too many good options. Shiloh was retconned into a Confederate Victory, and Johnston was rewritten as a martyred hero who died on the field of battle.


How did they manage retconning Shiloh to a Confederate Victory? The Union held the field and took a slightly smaller percentage of its army as casualties(19.5% vs 23.9%).
 
Well, he was a martyred hero, if you regard a traitor as a hero, and death by stupidity as martyrdom.

Kind of glad they picked Sidney over Sam Hood though. Sam Hood as the Lost Cause Hero of Texas is stomach turning.


Considering the stupidity at Franklin and Nashville it is hard to see Hood as a Lost Cause Hero.
 
How did they manage retconning Shiloh to a Confederate Victory? The Union held the field and took a slightly smaller percentage of its army as casualties(19.5% vs 23.9%).

Focusing on a massively distorted view of the first day and completely ignoring the second. It was Grant's nadir as a tactician and yet the forces under his command still won the battle, but if the first day is selectively focused on it could be spun into a Confederate victory. P.G.T. Beauregard certainly thought of it thus.
 
Considering the stupidity at Franklin and Nashville it is hard to see Hood as a Lost Cause Hero.

If one can count Sidney Johnston as not stupid, one can probably find a way that Franklin was a glorious victory against overwhelming odds and Nashville...well, Snake can probably answer this one.
 
Considering the stupidity at Franklin and Nashville it is hard to see Hood as a Lost Cause Hero.

Considering on the other hand Hood's role as one of the greatest Confederate division commanders, it's quite possible for an ATL to develop a twisted view of Hood as a tragic hero weighed down by the failings of Joe Johnston and fighting a series of battles he could never win, and his destruction of the Army of Tennessee was a verdict on how bad that army itself was. Which is how Hood's own memoirs actually reported it.....
 
Point me to anyone nowadays who rates AS Johnston highly and I'll agree that he's overrated.

Jeff Davis considered him the best general he had until RE Lee. But what did he do that was so great? As far as I can tell he did little but get his butt kicked by US Grant and die in the Battle of Shiloh. Is there something I am missing? True Grant was the best general in the war but just because you lose to the best doesn't necessarily make you good. I would be totally creamed by Micheal Jordon in his prime but that doesn't make me great. I would still be lousy at basketball. I would just be someone lousy at basketball creamed by MJ.
 
Focusing on a massively distorted view of the first day and completely ignoring the second. It was Grant's nadir as a tactician and yet the forces under his command still won the battle, but if the first day is selectively focused on it could be spun into a Confederate victory. P.G.T. Beauregard certainly thought of it thus.

Awesome. This is like bragging that you TOTALLY ACED those questions on a test that you got right.
 
Point me to anyone nowadays who rates AS Johnston highly and I'll agree that he's overrated.


Shelby Foote seemed to by his statements in "The Civil War" by Ken Burns. I think that part of it was that he had a soft spot for Southern generals and had a hard time criticizing them even when deserved.
 
Considering on the other hand Hood's role as one of the greatest Confederate division commanders, it's quite possible for an ATL to develop a twisted view of Hood as a tragic hero weighed down by the failings of Joe Johnston and fighting a series of battles he could never win, and his destruction of the Army of Tennessee was a verdict on how bad that army itself was. Which is how Hood's own memoirs actually reported it.....

That's also how the people of Georgia see Hood during a long stretch of the Atlanta Campaign in "Gone with the Wind". As I remember, public opinion switches back to Johnston by the March to the Sea.
 
That's also how the people of Georgia see Hood during a long stretch of the Atlanta Campaign in "Gone with the Wind". As I remember, public opinion switches back to Johnston by the March to the Sea.


Makes sense. Johnston retreated all the way to Atlanta which discouraged people but when Hood wrecks the army and goes hunting snipe in TN people would rather have Johnston back. With Johnston there would at least been an army to prevent Sherman from pillaging the area as bad.
 
That's also how the people of Georgia see Hood during a long stretch of the Atlanta Campaign in "Gone with the Wind". As I remember, public opinion switches back to Johnston by the March to the Sea.

Unfortunately given the historical fate of the Army of Tennessee I fail to see how Joe Johnston actually fighting could end up *worse* than the Battles of Franklin and Nashville.
 
Some Lost Causers seem to pretend that Hood died in September of 1863.

It would have been better for his cause and his personal reputation if he had died then. Or at least decided that a crippled arm and a missing leg were more than enough to give for his cause.
 
It would have been better for his cause and his personal reputation if he had died then. Or at least decided that a crippled arm and a missing leg were more than enough to give for his cause.

Hood did delay the fall of Atlanta (after undermining Johnston even more than Joe's own actions managed to do), but I can't really argue with this.
 
Hood did delay the fall of Atlanta (after undermining Johnston even more than Joe's own actions managed to do), but I can't really argue with this.

If he did delay it, it was not by much and he badly beat up his army to do it. Then he wrecks it at Franklin and has it all come apart at Nashville.
 
If he did delay it, it was not by much and he badly beat up his army to do it. Then he wrecks it at Franklin and has it all come apart at Nashville.

Well, delayed it compared to how soon it would have fallen if someone like Johnston was still in charge.

I'm not touching the imbecility of his Tennessee folly.

But comparing Hood to Joe Johnston is getting us off the topic of Sidney the Horribly Unsuccessful On All Occasions Johnston.

Joe shouldn't be dragged into this.
 
I always got the feeling that A.S. Johnson was fighting in a war he was not meant to fight in going so far as to die in his first major battle. Get a weird feeling he would have been a very very good commander in the Mexican War :confused:

Then again that might just be my Texaness showing
 
If he did delay it, it was not by much and he badly beat up his army to do it. Then he wrecks it at Franklin and has it all come apart at Nashville.

It was by a full month after Sherman's campaign had been one of the real bright spots for the Union cause in the political side of the war. Hood also had the same problem Bragg did of sound concepts and lousy execution of those concepts, unlike Bragg blaming the entire army for it and not just some of the officers.
 
It was by a full month after Sherman's campaign had been one of the real bright spots for the Union cause in the political side of the war. Hood also had the same problem Bragg did of sound concepts and lousy execution of those concepts, unlike Bragg blaming the entire army for it and not just some of the officers.

What concept? Running off to TN where Thomas was waiting for him (Which wasn't a secret) and allow Sherman to roam at will? Even without Franklin it was stupid.
 
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