Advance Or Retreat

John Bell Hood may be the South's most famously unfortunate soldier. With his reckless charges that broke Union defenses at Gaines's Mill, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam, Hood became the beau ideal of the Southern cavalier. However, his heroics contained the seeds of his own downfall: trusting too much in sheer courage and dash, Hood schemed against General Joseph E. Johnston and supplanted him as commander of the Army of Tennessee in the defense of Atlanta; Hood's suicidal charges at Franklin and Nashville destroyed his army. Hood was, if nothing else, fiercely courageous; he lost both an arm and a leg in combat, and finally had to be strapped to his horse to ride. In Hood's recollections, we find his unwavering loyalty to the Confederate cause and his unshakable admiration for Lee and Davis. We can follow his implacable dislike for his former friend and comrade, Joe Johnston, as well as his penchant for blaming reverses on his subordinates. Like many of the surviving Confederate generals, Hood believed that somehow the Confederacy would have triumphed were it not for the mistakes and negligence of others. In 1879, bankrupt and the father of eleven children, he lost his wife and eldest daughter, and his own life to the same yellow fever that had ruined his business. General P. G. T. Beauregard arranged for the publication of Hood's memoirs to benefit Hood's orphaned children. Bruce J. Dinges is director of publications at the Arizona Historical Society. His articles on the history of the West and on the Civil War have appeared in numerous journals.

Includes Civil War Map and Illustrations Pack – 224 battle plans, campaign maps and detailed analyses of actions spanning the entire period of hostilities. “When John Bell Hood entered into the services of the Confederate Army, he was 29 years old, a handsome man and courageous soldier, loyal to the ideal of Confederate Independence and eager to fight for it. He led his men bravely into the battles of Second Manassas, Gaines’s Mill, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Chickamauga. He rose fast, attaining the temporary rank of full general, only to fall faster. Hood emerged from the war with his left arm shattered and useless, his right leg missing, his face aged far beyond his 33 years, and with his military reputation in disgrace. Blamed by contemporaries for contributing to the defeat of his beloved Confederacy, Hood struggled to refute their accusations. His most vehement critic, General Johnston, charged Hood with insubordination while serving under him and, after succeeding him in command, of recklessly leading Confederate troops to their “slaughter” and “useless butchery.” Sherman, too, in his Memoirs, took a harsh view of Hood. Born of controversy, Advance and Retreat is of course a highly controversial book. It is also full of invaluable information and insights into the retreat from Dalton in early 1864, the fighting around Atlanta, and the disastrous Tennessee Campaign in winter of that year. Far from being a careful, sober, objective account, this book is the passionate, bitter attempt of a soldier to rebut history’s judgment of himself as general and man.”-Print ed.

This book presents the impact of climate change on Mount Baker glaciers, USA, and the rivers surrounding them. Glaciers are natural reservoirs that yield their resource primarily on warm dry summer days when other sources are at their lowest yield. This natural tempering of drought conditions will be reduced as they retreat. Mount Baker, a volcano in the Cascades of Washington, is currently host to 12 principal glaciers with an area of 36.8 km2. The glaciers yield 125 million cubic meters of water each summer that is a resource for salmon, irrigation and hydropower to the Nooksack River and Baker River watersheds. Recent rapid retreat of all 22 glaciers is altering the runoff from the glaciers, impacting both the discharge and temperature of the Nooksack and Baker River. Over the last 30 years we have spent 270 nights camped on the mountain conducting 10,500 observations of snow depth and melt rate on Mount Baker. This data combined with observations of terminus change, area change and glacier runoff over the same 30 years allow an unusually comprehensive story to be told of the effects of climate change to Mount Baker Glaciers and the rivers that drain them.