Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man of the Confederacy

by Earl J. Hess

Overview

As a leading Confederate general, Braxton Bragg (1817–1876) earned a reputation for incompetence, for wantonly shooting his own soldiers, and for losing battles. This public image established him not only as a scapegoat for the South's military failures but also as the chief whipping boy of the Confederacy. The strongly negative opinions of Bragg's contemporaries have continued to color assessments of the general's military career and character by generations of historians. Rather than take these assessments at face value, Earl J. Hess's biography offers a much more balanced account of Bragg, the man and the officer.

While Hess analyzes Bragg's many campaigns and battles, he also emphasizes how his contemporaries viewed his successes and failures and how these reactions affected Bragg both personally and professionally. The testimony and opinions of other members of the Confederate army--including Bragg's superiors, his fellow generals, and his subordinates--reveal how the general became a symbol for the larger military failures that undid the Confederacy. By connecting the general's personal life to his military career, Hess positions Bragg as a figure saddled with unwarranted infamy and humanizes him as a flawed yet misunderstood figure in Civil War history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469628769
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/02/2016
Series:	Civil War America
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Earl J. Hess is Stewart W. McClelland Chair in History at Lincoln Memorial University and author of many books on the Civil War, including Fighting for Atlanta: Tactics, Terrain, and Trenches in the Civil War.
Earl J. Hess is Stewart W. McClelland Chair in History at Lincoln Memorial University and author of many books on the Civil War, including The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

In this skillful and balanced assessment of Confederate general Braxton Bragg, Earl J. Hess takes into account both sides' views of this controversial man and offers his own takes in ways that are informative, insightful, and persuasive. Sometimes surprising, always effective, this is the definitive study of the life and career of an unquestionably important but oft-maligned Civil War figure.—Ethan S. Rafuse, author of Robert E. Lee and the Fall of the Confederacy, 1863-1865

Earl Hess is one of the most prolific military historians of the Civil War, and one of the finest. He has a penchant for offering fresh, lucidly written, and convincing interpretations of supposedly long-settled issues. Braxton Bragg is no exception. This not only is a superb, even-handed study of Bragg's wartime performance; it also successfully challenges the reflexive negative stereotypes about Bragg and shows how they arose in the first place. Required reading for any serious student of the Civil War.—Mark Grimsley, author of The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865.

Editorial Reviews

A thoughtful reexamination of a man who has become, unfortunately and unfairly, the South's 'chief whipping boy'. . . . [A] sharp-eyed profile of the general's dour personality and snakebit career [that] will bring much-needed perspective to future studies of the Confederacy.—Russell S. Bonds, The Wall Street Journal

Well-documented, Hess's examination of Bragg is balanced and fair and will interest all Civil War aficionados.—Library Journal

Fleshes out [the] real Braxton Bragg. . . . [A] magnificent new study. . . . Exhaustively researched and trenchantly reasoned.—Ted Savas, Civil War News

Deeply researched and fair-minded.—News & Observer

An enjoyable read that makes a thought-provoking argument. . . . [An] even-handed look at Bragg's military career [that] will be useful reading for anyone interested in Civil War history, particularly the western theater.—The Civil War Monitor

Hess is a prolific author on many Civil War subjects with a well-earned reputation for shedding new light on long accepted theses. Bragg could not have asked for a more thoughtful, careful, and scrupulously honest evaluator. . . . Hess writes with an easy grace born of erudite scholarship and years in the classroom challenging fresh eyes to look upon old stories and interpret them in new ways.—Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia

This important study successfully challenges the many stale caricatures of Bragg that remain deeply ingrained in the Civil War literature.—Civil War Books and Authors

Hess is a first class historian. . . . Among the best in current Civil War writing.—Journal of America's Military Past

A significant addition to our understanding of the Civil War. . . . Any scholar of the war should consider it mandatory reading." —The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

An excellent synthesis that delves into Bragg's decisions and relationships as a general combined with the usual superb writing we have grown accustomed to from Hess. . . . A first-rate analysis of Braxton Bragg and a superb piece of Civil War history.—Army History

From the Publisher

07/01/2016
In his latest work, Hess (history, Lincoln Memorial Univ.; The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta) presents a study of the Civil War career of Braxton Bragg (1817–76). Graduating from West Point in 1837, Bragg served in the Second Seminole War and the Mexican-American War. When the Civil War began in 1861, Bragg, then a Confederate general, was assigned to the coastal defense of Florida. He was promoted after the Battle of Shiloh and began organizing an attack through Tennessee and Kentucky, which would ultimately be a failure, as would the Battle of Stones River. While Bragg found victory at Chickamauga, his continued efforts to break the Union forces failed, leading him to resign his position in the army and become a military advisor to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Bragg's devotion to strict military discipline, his acerbic personality, and his inability to cultivate favorable relationships with other officers and the press caused him immeasurable difficulties—and resulted in his infamous reputation. Hess analyzes Bragg's military campaigns and how his contemporaries viewed him as well as providing historians' opinions. VERDICT Well-documented, Hess's examination of Bragg is balanced and fair and will interest all Civil War aficionados.—Patricia Ann Owens, formerly with Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel

Library Journal