General Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War

“ [349] General J. B. Hood has been commissioned to the temporary rank of general, under the late law of Congress. I am directed by the Secretary of War to inform you that, as you have failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity of Atlanta, far in the interior of Georgia, and express no confidence that you can defeat or repel him, you are hereby relieved from the command of the Army and Department of Tennessee, which you will immediately turn over to General Hood.”

Orders transferring the command of the army to General Hood were written and published immediately, and next morning I replied to the Hon. Secretary's telegram:

Your dispatch of yesterday received and obeyed. Command of the Army and Department of Tennessee has been transferred to General Hood. As to the alleged cause of my removal, I assert that Sherman's army is much stronger compared with that of Tennessee, than Grant's compared with that of Northern Virginia. Yet the enemy has been compelled to advance much more slowly to the vicinity of Atlanta, than to that of Richmond and Petersburg; and penetrated much deeper into Virginia than into Georgia.

Confident language by a military commander is not usually regarded as evidence of competence.

General Hood came to my quarters early in the morning of the 18th, and remained there during the day. Intelligence soon came from Major-Gen. Wheeler, that the Federal army was marching toward Atlanta, and at General Hood's earnest request I continued to give orders through Brigadier-Gen. Mackall, chief