ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk
Hood was worse, but it wasn't like Johnston had run out of reasons for retreating. He never said to Davis that he would fight for Atlanta. He never could find the right position to hold. In his defense, one probably didn't exist, especially after Sherman had learned his lesson at Kennesaw Mt. One thing Davis did know (like Lincoln with Grant) was that Hood would fight until his remaining appendages had fallen or been blown off.
Thing was that Joe Johnson wasn't going to get his men killed in hopeless attacks. Davis, Bragg, Hood and the like seem to have remembered the Mexican War to much, and assumed that all that was needed to chase the Yankees back home was a good spirited bayonet charge. Bragg launched 11 of them at the Hornet's Nest, Hood left his Brigade "dead on the field" at Antietam. Johnson learned much quicker from Seven Pines that defense was definately the stronger tactic in the Civil War. He may have lacked Lee's ability to "get into the head" of his opponants, but no one ever had an easy time pushing an army commanded by Johnson around. Nor did he squander troops. Had he remained in command, Sherman would never dared cut loose from his supply lines on his "March to the Sea". It would have been the same slow slog as it was to get from Chattanooga to Atlanta. And a lot more Southern troops would have seen the end of the war.
