Detour to Disaster

Book excerpt: In October of 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood set out through Alabama on what would be the final campaign of the Army of Tennessee. One event in particular, overlooked and misunderstood for generations, portended what was to follow and is the subject of Noel Carpenter’s Detour to Disaster: General John Bell Hood’s “Slight Demonstration” at Decatur and the Unravelling of the Tennessee Campaign. In this fascinating and meticulously detailed and documented account—the first book-length study of the weighty decision to march to Decatur and the combat that followed there—Carpenter investigates the circumstances surrounding these matters and how they overwhelmed the controversial young army commander and potentially doomed his daring invasion. Detour to Disaster is required reading for everyone interested in the Western Theater, and especially the doomed Tennessee Campaign.