Joseph
Hooker was
born in Hadley, Massachusetts, on 13th November, 1814. He graduated
from the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point and served in the Seminole War
(1838-42) and the Mexican War (1846-48).
While in Mexico he clashed with General Winfield
Scott and decided to resign from the army in 1855.
Hooker became a farmer in California until offering his services to
the Union Army on the outbreak of the
American Civil War. Commissioned as
a brigadier general in August, 1861, he was sent to defend Washington.
Later he was sent on offensive duties and his aggressive style at
Antietam (September, 1862) and Fredericksburg
(November, 1862) earned him the nickname name 'Fighting Joe'
After the disappointment of Fredericksburg
President Abraham Lincoln selected Hooker
to replace Ambrose Burnside as commander
of the Army of the Potomac. In April, 1863, Hooker decided to attack
the Army of Northern Virginia that had been entrenched on the south
side of the Rappahonnock River since the battle of Fredericksburg.
Hooker crossed the river and took up position at Chancellorsville.
Although outnumbered two to one, Robert E.
Lee, opted to split his Confederate Army
into two groups. Lee left 10,000 men under Jubal
Early, while he and Thomas Stonewall
Jackson on 2nd May, successfully attacked the flank of Hooker's
army. However, after returning from the battlefield Jackson was accidentally
shot by one of his own men. Jackson's left arm was successfully amputated
but he developed pneumonia and he died
eight days later.
On the 3rd May, James Jeb Stuart, who
had taken command of Jackson's troops, mounted another attack and
drove Hooker back further. The following day Robert
E. Lee and Jubal Early and joined
the attack on the Union Army. By 6th
May, Hooker had lost over 11,000 men, and decided to retreat from
the area.
Abraham Lincoln lost confidence in Hooker
after Chancellorsville and
he decided to resign on the eve of Gettysburg
(July, 1863). He returned to the front when he led troops to rescue
William Rosecrans after he was defeated
at Chickamuga (September, 1863).
Hooker joined with William Sherman
at the Battle of Atlanta but resigned
after he failed to get the promotion he felt he deserved. Hooker moved
to command the Department of the East until he retired from the army
after suffering a stroke on 15th October, 1868. Joseph Hooker died
in Garden City, New York, on 31st October, 1879.
(1)
George Smalley, New York Tribune (20th September, 1862)
There
were woods in front of Doubleday's hill which the Rebels held, but
so long as those guns pointed that way they
did not care to attack. With his left then able to take care of itself,
with his right impregnable with two brigades of Mans-
field still fresh and coming rapidly up, and with this center a second
time victorious, General Hooker determined to advance. Orders were
sent to Crawford and Gordon - the two Mansfield brigades - to move
directly forward at once, the batteries in the center were ordered
on, the whole line was called on, and the General himself went forward.
To the right of the cornfield
and beyond it was a point of woods. Once carried and firmly held,
it was the key of the position. Hooker determined to take it. He rode
out in front of his furthest troops on a hill to examine the ground
for a battery. At the top he dismounted and went forward on foot,
completed his reconnaissance, and returned and remounted. The musketry
fire from the point of woods was all the while extremely hot. As he
put his foot in the stirrup a fresh volley of rifle bullets came whizzing
by. The tall soldierly figure of the General, the white horse which
he rode, the elevated place where he was - all made him a most dangerously
conspicuous mark. So he had been all day, riding often without a staff
officer or an orderly near him - all sent off on urgent duty - visible
everywhere on the field. The Rebel bullets had followed him all day,
but they had not hit him, and he would not regard them. Remounting
on this hill he had not ridden five steps when he was struck in the
foot by a ball.
Three men were shot down
at the same moment by his side. The air was alive with
bullets. He kept on his horse for a
few moments, though the wound was severe and excessively painful,
and would not dismount till he had given his last order to advance.
He was himself in the very front. Swaying unsteadily on his horse,
he turned in his seat to look about
him. "There is a regiment to the right. Order it forward! Crawford
and Gordon are coming up. Tell them to carry these woods and hold
them - and it is our fight!"
I see no reason why I
should disguise my admiration of General Hooker's bravery and soldierly
ability. Remaining nearly all the morning on the right, I could not
help seeing the sagacity and promptness of his maneuvers, how completely
his troops were kept in hand, how devotedly they trusted to him, how
keen was his insight into the battle; how every opportunity was seized
and every reverse was checked and
turned into another success. I say this the more unreservedly, because
I have no personal relation whatever with him, never saw him till
the day before the fight, and don't like his politics or opinions
in general. But what are politics in such a battle?
(2)
President Abraham Lincoln, letter to
Joseph Hooker (26th January, 1863)
I
have placed you the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have
done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet
I think it best for you to know what there are some things in regard
to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a
brave and skillful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe
you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right.
You have confidence in yourself, which is valuable if not an indispensable
quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does
good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's
command of the army you have taken counsel by your ambition and thwarted
him so much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country
and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.
I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying
that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course
it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the
command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators.
What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.
The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which
is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders.
(3)
General
Oliver
Howard
wrote about Joseph Hooker in his autobiography published in 1907.
After
the battle of Fredericksburg we returned to the same encampments which
we had left to cross the Rappahannock, and on January 27, 1863, orders
from the President, dated the day before, placed our "Fighting
Joe Hooker" in command of the army. Burnside, Sumner, and Franklin
were relieved.
Hooker had been a little hard, in the camp conferences, upon McClellan,
and for poor Burnside he had shown no mercy. My own feelings at the
time was that of a want of confidence in the army itself. The ending
of the peninsular work, the confusion at the termination of the second
battle of Bull Run, the incompleteness of Antietam, and the fatal
consequences of Fredericksburg did not make the horizon of our dawning
future very luminous.
(4)
Carl
Schurz served
under both Ambrose Burnside and Joseph
Hooker during the American Civil War.
He
wrote about his commander and the battle of Chancellorsville
in his autobiography published in 1906
If Burnside lacked self-confidence,
Hooker had an abundance of it. he had been one of the bitterest critics
of McClellan and Burnside, and even the administration - perhaps the
loudest of all. He had even talked of the necessity of a military
dictatorship. But he had made his mark as a division and corps commander
and earned for himself the name of "Fighting Joe". The soldiers
and also some - although by no means all - of the generals had confidence
in him. Lincoln, as was his character and habit, overlooked all the
hard things Hooker had said of him, made him Commander of the Army
of the Potomac in view of the good things he expected him to do for
the country, and sent him, with the commission, a letter full of kindness
and wise advice.
Joseph Hooker was a strikingly handsome man, a clean-shaven, comely
face, some-what florid complexion, keen blue eyes, well-built, tall
figure, and erect soldierly bearing. Anybody would feel like cheering
when he rode by at the head of his staff. His organizing talent told
at once. The sudden gloom of the camps soon disappeared, and a new
spirit of pride and hope began to pervade the ranks.
(5)
The journalist, Henry
Villard, met General
Joseph
Hooker
just before the battle at Chancellorsville. He wrote about the meeting
in his book, Memoirs of Henry Villard (1904).
His exterior was certainly most attractive
and commanding. He was fully six feet high, finely proportioned, with
a soldierly, erect carriage, handsome and noble features, a slight
fringe of side-whiskers, a rosy complexion, abundant blond hair, a
fine and expressive mouth, and, most striking of all, great, speaking
grey-blue eyes. He looked, indeed, like the ideal soldier and captain,
fit for a model of a war-god.
He had even then an unenviable notoriety for a rash tongue, to which
he added lamentably in his subsequent career. He burst forth into
unsparing criticism of the general conduct of the war, of the government,
of Halleck, McClellan and Pope. His language was so severe and, at
the same time, so infused with self-assertion as to give rise immediately
to a fear on my part that he might be inclined to make use of me for
his own glorification and for the detraction of others.
(6)
George S. Boutwell, Abraham Lincoln:
Tributes from His Associates (1895)
Hooker
was in Washington on the Thursday of the week before the battle of
Gettysburg, and at a conference with the President and the Secretary
of War, it was agreed to hold Harper's Ferry, which, the year before,
had been surrendered with great loss of men and materials of war.
Upon his return to headquarters General Hooker changed his opinion,
and, without reporting to the Secretary of War, he ordered General
Wilson to evacuate the post and join the main army. The order Wilson
transmitted to the Secretary of War. Mr. Stanton, assuming that there
had been in error in the dispatches, or a misunderstanding, counter-manded
Hooker's order. Thereupon Hooker, without seeking for an explanation,
resigning his command.
(7)
Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, was
deeply upset when General Joseph Hooker resigned in July, 1863.
When I received the dispatch my hear sank
within me, and I was more depressed than at any other moment of the
war. I could not say that any other officer knew General Hooker's
plans, or the position even of the various divisions of the army.
I sent for the President to come to the War Office at once. It was
in the evening, but the President soon appeared. I handed him the
dispatch. As he read it his face became like lead. I said, "What
shall be done?" He replied instantly, "Accept his resignation."
(8)
In his book American Conflict, Horace
Greeley commented on the resignation of General Joseph Hooker
in July, 1863.
Such a change of commanders, for
no more urgent reasons, on the brink of a great battle, has few parallels
in history. Hooker was loved and trusted by his soldiers. Had the
army been polled, it would have voted to fight the impending battle
under Hooker without the aid of 11,000 men, rather than under Meade
with that reinforcement.
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