9. John Bell Hood, United States Army, Confederate States Army
Kentucky born John Bell Hood used well-placed family connections to obtain an appointment to West Point, entering the class of 1853. At the time Robert E. Lee served as Superintendent of the Academy. Hood performed indifferently in academics, finishing 44th in the class of 52, and narrowly avoided expulsion over disciplinary issues. In his final year, he collected 196 demerits, with 200 the threshold for expulsion. Following graduation, he served in the cavalry in Texas, fought against the Comanche, and acquired the first of many wounds he sustained in his military career. When Texas seceded and his native Kentucky did not, Hood joined the Confederate troops in the former state.
Hood saw action in most of the major battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia through Gettysburg, where he lost the use of his left arm from a wound. After recovering, he commanded a division at Chickamauga, where another wound necessitated the amputation of his right leg. He returned to action for the Atlanta campaign, during which in a letter to his opponent, William Tecumseh Sherman, he wrote that the Union intended to “place over us an inferior race, which we have raised from barbarism to its present position, which is the highest ever attained by that race, in any country in all time”. Hood surrendered himself in Natchez, Mississippi, in May 1865, accepting a pardon at the time.