Generals Clayton and Hood

In the last year of the war, Stovall’s Georgia Brigade fought in the division of Henry De Lamar Clayton, a principled Alabama politician and a competent military commander. Clayton resigned from the Army of Tennessee in North Carolina two weeks before the final surrender in 1865. Why?

Among the letters published in the 2015 book The Lost Papers of Confederate General John Bell Hood, is an 1879 letter from Clayton to John Bell Hood. Knowing that General Hood was soon to publish his war memoir Advance and Retreat, the former division commander asked that Hood, in his new book, correct a slight made by Stephen Dill Lee against Stovall’s Georgia brigade. “Genl. Lee did me and my command great injustice in regard to the Battle of Nashville,” wrote an upset Clayton, “Before leaving the army he published a general order complimentary to my command, except one Brigade. I felt this such an undeserved reflection on that Brigade that I refused to publish it.” Clayton gathered statements about the meritorious conduct of the Georgians from Generals Gibson and Holtzclaw, and along with his own statement, submitted them to Lee. “Still he refused to make the correction,” said Clayton. When Lee returned to the army in North Carolina, “I still being in command of Stovall’s Brigade, promptly asked to be transferred, stating as a reason that I could not in my judgement again command Stovall’s Brigade under him.” Stephen Lee, it appears, had never quite forgiven the Georgians for their contribution to the disaster on Champion’s Hill in May 1863. “Now, General, can’t you do me justice?” asked Clayton of Hood (page 121). On page 304 of John Bell Hood’s 1880 book, Henry Clayton and his division would be acknowledged and complimented for their performance as the army’s rear guard during the initial stages of the retreat from Nashville (page 228).