Thomas had indeed weighed in with an achievement equalling Sherman’s—the virtual destruction of Hood’s Army of Tennessee. Hood’s activities after Sherman left Atlanta seemed to have been scripted in never-never land. Although he faced Union forces under Thomas totaling more than 60,000 men with only 40,000 of his own—one-fourth of them wearing shoes so rotten that by December they would march barefoot—Hood hoped to drive through Tennessee into Kentucky, where he expected to pick up 20,000 recruits and smash Thomas.
