Hood and the Army of Tennessee were on their last legs. These Confederates had not won a battle, let alone a campaign, in fourteen months’ time. Hood unwisely led them north, hoping against hope that Sherman would be drawn into pursuit. Sherman, for his part, kept right on going.

Hood fought the Battle of Franklin against Major-General George Thomas’ Army of the Cumberland in November. In frontal assaults, Hood lost over 6,000 men killed, wounded, or missing and several general officers, including Patrick Cleburne, who many observers believed was the most promising of the younger officers in the Western theater. Hood actually pushed on and laid a very tentative siege to Nashville, Tennessee, but when Thomas attacked him in mid-December, the Confederates were bowled over. Following that defeat, it could be questioned whether there was any remaining Army of Tennessee.