The condition of Hood's army at the close of the campaign was anything but satisfactory to him. His theory was that his offensive tactics would keep up the spirit and energy of his men and constantly improve their _morale_. When he found that they were, on the contrary, discouraged and despondent, and could not be induced to repeat the assaults upon our positions which had followed each other so rapidly in the last days of July, he querulously laid the blame at the door of his subordinates. He called the attack upon Howard's advance at Flint River "a disgraceful effort" because only 1485 were wounded, and asked to have Hardee relieved and sent elsewhere. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. pp. 1021, 1023, 1030. Hardee had before asked to be relieved. (_Id_., pp. 987, 988.) For Hood's final, urgent request and the result, see vol. xxxix. pt. ii. pp. 832, 880, 881.] True, he had telegraphed Hardee that the necessity was imperative that the National troops should be driven into and across the river, and that the men must go at them with bayonets fixed; but it was his own old corps, now under Lieutenant-General S. D. Lee, that made the principal attack and was repulsed. Lee was not one of the officers who might be presumed to be discontented with Johnston's removal, but had been brought from the Department of Mississippi, at Hood's suggestion, to take the corps when the latter was promoted, and had won Davis's admiration by his zeal. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 892, and vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 713.] It would be hard to find better proof that the trouble lay in the consciousness of the men in the line that they were asked to lay down their lives without a reasonable hope of benefit to their cause. The discouragement pervaded the whole army, and is seen in Hood's own dispatches hardly less than in others. [Footnote: Hood to Davis, September 3, two dispatches, _Id_., vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 1016. In another, p. 1017, he repeated an earlier suggestion to remove the prisoners from Andersonville. When Johnston had done this, it was made one of the charges against him. See Davis to Lee, _Id_., vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 692. For Hardee's opinion of the situation, see _Id_., vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 1018.] In a labored letter to Bragg on September 4th, he unconsciously shows how his own total misunderstanding of Sherman's movements was the prime cause of his disaster, whilst the shame at the result leads him to charge it upon others. As to the spirit of the army, nobody has given more telling testimony, for he says, "I am officially informed that there is a tacit if not expressed determination among the men of this army, extending to officers as high in some instances as colonel, that they will not attack breastworks." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 730. This letter seems to have come to light since the first publication of the records of the campaign, and is found in the supplemental volume.]