Nashville 1864

"In September 1864, the Confederate Army abandoned Atlanta and were on the verge of being driven out of the critical state of Tennessee. In an attempt to regain the initiative, John Bell Hood launched an attack on Union General Sherman's supply lines, before pushing north in an effort to retake Tennessee's capital, Nashville. The three-month campaign confounded the expectations of both sides. Instead of fighting Sherman's Union Army of the Tennessee, the Confederates found themselves fighting an older and more traditional enemy: the Army of the Cumberland, led by George R. Thomas, a phlegmatic general temperramentally indifferent to both the mercurial Hood and Sherman. The critical Nashville campaign, often ignored by modern treatments, is brought to the fore once again in this [book], ... revealing how for 11 weeks the fate of the American Civil War was held in the balance."--Back cover.