Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/701

Rh was professor of mathematics in the university of the South, at Sewanee, Tennessee, until his death, March 28, 1893.

Lieutenant-General John Bell Hood, general with temporary rank, 1864, was born in Owensville, Ky., June 1, 1831. He was graduated at the United States military academy with the class of 1853, which included his subsequent antagonists, McPherson and Schofield. During his West Point life his fiery courage and persistence were impressed upon his associates. Years afterward General O. O. Howard, finding the Confederates active in his front, on the west of Atlanta, said to Sherman, "General, Hood will attack me here," and when Sherman expressed his doubt, Howard responded that he had known Hood at West Point and that he was indomitable." In the rank of second-lieutenant Hood served about two years in California, after his graduation, and was then transferred to a new cavalry regiment of which Albert Sidney Johnston was colonel and Robert E. Lee lieutenant-colonel. He engaged in frontier service in Texas in the winter of 1855, and in July following was wounded at Devil's river. In 1858 he was promoted first lieutenant, and in 1859-60 he performed the duties of cavalry instructor at West Point. Resigning his commission in April, 1861, he entered the service of the Confederate States, reporting to General Magruder on the peninsula of Virginia. With the temporary rank of major he was given command of the cavalry of this district by General Magruder, and on the organization of the cavalry companies into a regiment was promoted lieutenant-colonel. Next commissioned colonel of the Fourth Texas regiment in September, 1861, he thus began his association with the Texas troops in the Confederate war, his regiment becoming the nucleus of the Texas brigade which was soon formed and placed under his command in March, 1862, as brigadier-general. Under his daring