Duty Faithfully Done: A Son Defends His Father's Legacy

In February 1945, an incensed reader of the of the McComb, Mississippi, Enterprise-Journal wrote the following letter to the editor of the paper:

Dear Sir:

Too often the truth of history is obscure or never known.

In a recent book review the following statement is made: 'Like Hood of the Confederacy and sundry

Generals of other times, he was effective as commander of a brigade or a division, but an army was beyond him. His ceiling probably was a corps.' That does not agree with General Stephen D. Lee, who was a West Pointer, and commanded a corps of Hood's army, who sent word to the writer, 'If Hood's orders had been carried out, Hood would have defeated Sherman at Atlanta,' or the telegram on file in the War Department in Washington in answer to a request of why General Sherman did not stop Hood. Sherman's reply was, 'because he is turning and twisting like a fox.'

Here we have General Sherman on the spur of the moment, actually admitting General Hood was out-maneuvering him, otherwise out generaling him. Jefferson Davis ordered Hood to take command when the older Generals of the Mexican war had refused to take command and the responsibility.

Hood was of the School of Lee and Jackson and gained his stars under the direct eyes of Stonewall Jackson. Hood was thus placed in a tough spot, for Lee was on his last legs in Virginia, and the Confederacy was already toppling. It is stated that some of the older generals resented that this younger man, thirty-three years old had been placed over them. It is an added difficult task when you have to also combat the 'green eyed monster.'

'If all had done their duty as faithfully as your father, the Confederacy would have won,' was a remark made to the writer when a younger man. God in his infinite wisdom decreed otherwise. (Enterprise-Journal, February 27, 1945)

The outraged writer was John B. Hood Junior, the oldest surviving son and namesake of Lieutenant General John Bell Hood. After the war General Hood had settled in New Orleans, and in 1868 he married Anne Marie Hennen. Over the next 10 years, the couple had 11 children, including three sets of twins. In 1879, both Hood, his wife, and daughter Lydia were struck down by the terrible yellow fever epidemic that ravaged the Mississippi Valley, leaving their 10 surviving children as orphans.

In the wake of their parent's deaths, the Hood children were adopted out to families throughout the United States. John B. Hood Junior was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. David M. Russell of Jonestown, Mississippi, in Coahoma County. (https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/hood/218/)

In 1898 when the United States declared war on Spain, John B. Hood joined the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, better known as the "Rough Riders," led by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. When Hood died in 1947, his obituary noted, 'Mr. Hood was the only Mississippian who was a member of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders. He took part in the battle of San Juan Hill in the Spanish - American War...The deceased served as commander of the Ben Humphries camp, Spanish - American War veterans in this city.' (Obit in John B. Hood Junior Subject File, Mississippi Department of Archives and History)

John Bell Hood Junior died on July 21, 1947, and is interred at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans, To the end of his life he was a staunch defender of his father's Civil War legacy.