Joseph E. Johnston as military adviser to the president. Davis offered the position to William J. Hardee, the senior corps commander, who refused it. He considered P.G.T. Beauregard, another general with whom he had poor personal relations, and also Robert E. Lee. Lee, who was reluctant to leave Virginia, first recommended Beauregard, but sensing Davis's discomfort, changed his recommendation to Johnston. After much agonizing, Davis appointed Johnston to command the Army of Tennessee in Dalton, Georgia, on December 27, 1863. Faced with Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta in the spring of 1864, Johnston conducted a series of withdrawals
Army of Northern Virginia and James Longstreet as division commanders. Beauregard quarreled with Johnston and was transferred to the Western theater over the winter months. Jackson was sent to the Shenandoah Valley in October 1861, initially with his own old Stonewall Brigade and later with two other brigades from Western Virginia. Several newly arrived brigades were added to Johnston's army in late 1861-early 1862. When the Peninsula Campaign began, Johnston took his army down to the Richmond environs where it was merged with several smaller Confederate commands, including a division led by D.H. Hill as well as Benjamin Huger's Department of Norfolk, John Magruder's