As he marched to the sea in the fall of 1864, General William Sherman brushed aside the slight Confederate opposition, cutting a swath through the heart of Georgia. Far to his rear, General John Bell Hood, Commanding General of the Army of Tennessee, was marching his way northward in the hope of recapturing Tennessee and Kentucky. But Hood's plans to revive the Confederacy's chances of victory were crushed during the Battle of Nashville, which took place in December 1864.