Booknotes: They Came Only to Die

New Arrival:
• They Came Only to Die: The Battle of Nashville, December 15-16, 1864 by Sean Michael Chick (Savas Beatie, 2023).

One of the newest ECW volumes, Sean Chick's They Came Only to Die recounts the post-Franklin maneuvering of both sides, the fight at Overall Creek, the climactic two-day Battle of Nashville, and the retreat/pursuit back to Alabama and Tennessee, all of which left John Bell Hood's badly defeated Army of Tennessee with less than half the men and guns it possessed back in November.

According to the description, the brigade and division-scale maps of the Battle of Nashville (of which there are five, out of a volume total of eight) are "the most accurate maps yet made of this crucial battle." Additionally, pages are chock-full of contemporary art/drawings and period and modern photographs. There is an 11-stop driving tour of Nashville and environs, complete with detailed directions, a brief descriptive passage for each site, and photographs.

The balance of the book's extensive appendix section (B-G) addresses the war's most infamous incident of captured general officer abuse (along with the rest of victim Thomas B. Smith's life story), the Civil War and political careers of Pres. Benjamin Harrison, General Hood's postwar activities and memorialization, General George Thomas's conduct of the campaign, and the December 17 rear guard clashes fought north and south of Franklin during the retreat. The last appendix discusses Battle of Nashville preservation history and issues. Orders of battle and a Suggested Reading list round out of the volume.