Book Review: Detour to Disaster: General John Bell Hood’s “Slight Demonstration” at Decatur and the Unravelling of the Tennessee Campaign

Detour to Disaster: General John Bell Hood’s “Slight Demonstration” at Decatur and the Unravelling of the Tennessee Campaign. By Noel Carpenter. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2023 (reprint). Softcover, 206 pp. $19.95.

Reviewed by Lee White

Have you ever heard of the Battle of Decatur, Alabama? Most readers probably have not, or if they have, it comes across as only a footnote in the scope of the larger 1864 Tennessee Campaign. Years later, in his memoir Advance and Retreat, Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood glossed over this part of the campaign writing, “While the Army turned Decatur, I ordered a slight demonstration to be made against the town till our forces passed safely beyond. . . .” As it turned out, the four-day detour became a critical turning point that set the stage for the campaign into Tennessee that followed.

There are many “little” battles that have never received their own independent histories, and it was not until Decatur, Alabama, native Noel Carpenter wrote his manuscript for, “A Slight Demonstration: Clumsy Beginning of Gen. John B. Hood’s Tennessee Campaign”, after twelve years of research and writing, that this North Alabama engagement received its first independent treatment. Sadly, Carpenter passed away shortly after he finished writing the manuscript for the book in October, 2000. Fortunately for us, his daughter, Carol Carpenter Powell, saw the value in her father’s work and decided she would fulfil her father’s wishes and was able to get the manuscript published by a small press in 2007 with a run of only 500 copies, which limited its public availability.

Now, Savas Beatie has republished the title in paperback form. This second edition is largely an unaltered version of the first edition with but few changes from Carpenter’s original narrative; the most notable addition being a Forward by Stephen M. Hood.

Readers will soon note that the narrative is very much a microhistory, but it is a key part of understanding the larger 1864 Tennessee Campaign as a whole, with Decatur being what Carpenter claims, “a turning point with many important implications.” Indeed, Carpenter presents the affair at Decatur as a critical moment in this campaign, whose aftermath would haunt Hood’s efforts as he moved into Tennessee a few weeks later. One could speculate that it should be viewed as being another great “what if” moment in the campaign, which seems to have an abundance of such events along the route that led to the killing fields at Franklin and the frozen and muddy slopes of the Overton Hills just south of Nashville.

The setback that occurred at Decatur all but ensured the failure of Hood’s ambitious campaign before it really began. Carpenter presents the story of the battle in a straight forward narrative fashion in nine chapters totaling 156 pages, including three appendices that provide the engagement’s Confederate order of battle, an important and valuable listing of all of the fords and ferries on the Tennessee River between Chattanooga and Tuscumbia Landing (with distances from Chattanooga), and a reprint of the evacuation orders for the town in the aftermath of the fight.

Also included within the study are a number of photographs that provide readers with images of several of the personalities involved in these events. Unfortunately, only two maps are available, which is the book’s one drawback. Carpenter uses both his research and his intimate knowledge of the area to present a very readable and interesting account of this little known, but important engagement. Detour to Disaster is sure to please Civil War enthusiasts of all levels of interest.