ABSTRACT
Applying the phrase ‘war effort’ to the Confederacy after the re-election of Lincoln would be flattery. There were few efforts made to stop the inexorable Union advance, and calls for renewed defiance rang out as if their speakers played in opera buffe. But if it was a comedy, it was black comedy, and the greatest comedian was General John Bell Hood who succeeded in wrecking the Army of Tennessee by orders not only foolhardy but malicious.
