In the call for the meeting of the Third Corps Gettysburg Re-union
Association, held at Music Hall on Fast Day, was the following clause:--
"Loyalty to the memory of our beloved commander, Major-Gen. Joseph
Hooker, makes it a duty, on this occasion, to protest against unjust and
uncalled-for criticisms on his military record as commander of the Army
of the Potomac."
It having been intimated to me by some old brother officers of the Third
Corps, that my late Lowell lecture on Chancellorsville was the occasion
of this proposed protest, I wrote to the chairman of the committee which
called the meeting, asking for an opportunity to reply to this protest,
within such bounds as even-handedness and the purposes of the meeting
would allow. The committee answered that it could not see the propriety
of turning the occasion into a public debate, and referred me to the
press. I do not object to their decision, made, no doubt, upon what
appeared to them sufficient grounds; but as the occasion was turned into
a public debate--one-sided, to be sure--I ask you for space, to reply in
your valued columns.
As an old Third-Corps man, I attended the meeting at Music Hall.
The treasurer did not object to selling me a ticket to the dinner. I
expected to hear some new facts about Hooker and Chancellorsville. I
expected to hear some new deductions from old facts. I do not consider
myself beyond making an occasional lapse even in a carefully prepared
piece of work, and am always open to correction. But, to my surprise
(with the exception of a conjecture that Lee's object in his march into
Pennsylvania was to wreck the anthracite-coal industry), there was not
one single fact or statement laid before the meeting, or the company at
dinner, which has not already been, in its minutest details, canvassed
and argued at a length covering hundreds of pages in the volumes on
Chancellorsville, by Hotchkiss and Allen, Swinton, Bates, the Comte de
Paris, Doubleday, and myself, not to speak of numberless and valuable
brochures by others. The bulk of the time devoted to talking on this
occasion was used in denunciation of the wretch--in other words,
myself--who alleged that Joseph Hooker was drunk at Chancellorsville,
or at any other time. This denunciation began with a devout curse in the
chaplain's prayer, culminated in a set of fierce resolutions, and ended
with the last after-dinner speech.
One thing particularly struck me. There was no one, of all who spoke,
who began to say as many things in favor of Joseph Hooker as I for years
have done; and not in fleeting words, but printed chapters. There was
plenty of eulogy, in nine-tenths of which I joined with all my heart.
But it was of the soldiers'-talk order,--cheering and honest and loyal,
appealing to the sentiments rather than the intelligence. What I have
said of Hooker has been solid praise of his soldierly worth, shown to be
borne out by the facts. Barring, in all I say, the five fighting days
at Chancellorsville, I have yet to find the man who has publicly, and
in print, eulogized Hooker as I have done; and no one among the veterans
gathered together Fast Day applauded with more sincerity than I, all
the tributes to his memory. For though, as some one remarked, it is true
that I "fought mit Sigel," and decamped from Chancellorsville with the
Eleventh Corps; it is also true that I passed through the fiery ordeal
of the Seven Days, and fought my way across the railroad-cutting at
Manassas, side by side with Joseph Hooker, under the gallant leadership
of that other hero Philip Kearney. It was very evident that but few of
the speakers, as well as auditors, had themselves heard or read what
I actually said. The result of "coaching" for the occasion by some
wire-puller was painfully apparent. Let us see what was said. I give the
entire paragraph from my Lowell lecture:--
"It has been surmised that Hooker, during this campaign, was
incapacitated by a habit of which, at times, he had been the victim.
There is, rather, evidence that he was prostrated by too much
abstemiousness, when a reasonable use of stimulants might have kept his
nervous system at its normal tension. It was certainly not the use of
alcohol, during this time, which lay at the root of his indecision."
If that is an accusation that Hooker was then drunk, if it does not
rather lean toward an exculpation from the charge of drunkenness, then
I can neither write nor read the English language. As is well known, the
question of Hooker's sudden and unaccountable loss of power, during
the fighting half of this campaign, coupled with the question of
drunkenness, has been bandied to and fro for years. The mention alone
of Chancellorsville has been enough, ever since that day, to provoke
a query on this very subject, among civilians and soldiers alike. In a
lecture on the subject, I deemed it judicious to lay this ghost as
well as might be. Had I believed that Hooker was intoxicated at
Chancellorsville, I should not have been deterred by the fear of
opposition from saying so. Hooker's over-anxious friends have now turned
into a public scandal what was generally understood as an exoneration,
by intentionally distorting what was said into an implication that
Hooker was so besotted as to be incapable of command. What I have
written of his marching the army to this field and to the field of
Gettysburg is a full answer to such unnecessary perversion. Let these
would-be friends of Hooker remember that this calumny is of their own
making, not mine. I am as sorry for it, as they ought to be. If the
contempt expressed in the resolutions they passed had been silent,
instead of boisterous, Hooker's memory would have suffered far less
damage.
Gens. Sickles and Butterfield are doubtless good witnesses, though
they sedulously refrained from any testimony on the subject, contenting
themselves with declamation. But they are not the only good witnesses.
After the loss of a leg at Gettysburg, I was ordered to duty in the War
Department, where I served in charge of one or other bureau for seven
years. I have heard this Hooker question discussed in all its bearings,
in the office of the Secretary of War or Adjutant-General, by nearly
every leading officer of the army, hundreds of whom had known Hooker
from West Point up. I have had abundant opportunity of forming an
opinion, and I have expressed it. Let him who garbles its meaning, bear
the blame.
This action by many veterans of the Third Corps--even though procured
by design from their thoughtless and open soldier's nature--is, however,
much more sweeping and important. To the world at large it is a general
condemnation of every thing which can be said in criticism of Hooker.
It will reach far and wide, and in this light I desire to say what I
do. The resolutions passed at the meeting explicitly protest against the
statement that Hooker proved a failure as an independent commander.
This needs notice at greater length than the question of sobriety
or drunkenness. Few have studied the details of the campaign of
Chancellorsville as carefully as I; but one other author has spread the
facts so fully before the reading public. No part of my recent criticism
before the Lowell Institute was new. It was embodied at much greater
length four years ago, in my "History of Chancellorsville;" the
reception of which volume by press, public, and soldiers, has been its
own best excuse. Gen. Hooker, though making no report, has put on record
his explanation of this campaign. Before the Committee on the Conduct of
the War, he stated his views as follows: "I may say here, the battle of
Chancellorsville has been associated with the battle of Fredericksburg,
and has been called a disaster. My whole loss in the battle of
Chancellorsville was a little over seventeen thousand.... In my opinion,
there is nothing to regret in regard to Chancellorsville, except to
accomplish all I moved to accomplish. The troops lost no honor, except
one corps, and we lost no more men than the enemy; but expectation was
high, the army in splendid condition, and greater results were expected
from it. When I returned from Chancellorsville, I felt that I had fought
no battle; in fact, I had more men than I could use, and I fought no
general battle, for the reason that I could not get my men in position
to do so."
To speak thus of a passage of arms lasting a week and costing seventeen
thousand men is, to say the least, abnormal.
In trying to shift the onus of failure from his own shoulders he said:
"Some of our corps commanders, and also officers of other rank, appear
to be unwilling to go into a fight.... So far as my experience extends,
there are in all armies officers more valiant after the fight than while
it is pending, and when a truthful history of the Rebellion shall
be written, it will be found that the Army of the Potomac is not an
exception."
This slur is cast upon men like Reynolds, Meade, Couch, Sedgwick,
Slocum, Howard, Hancock, Humphreys, Sykes, Warren, Birney, Whipple,
Wright, Griffin, and many others equally gallant. To call it ungenerous,
is a mild phrase. It certainly does open the door to unsparing
criticism. Hooker also concisely stated his military rule of action:
"Throughout the Rebellion I have acted on the principle that if I had as
large a force as the enemy, I had no apprehensions of the result of
an encounter." And in his initial orders to Stoneman, in opening the
campaign, came the true ring of the always gallant corps commander, "Let
your watchword be 'Fight!' and let all your orders be, 'Fight, fight,
fight!'"
I might here say that the only attempt, on Fast Day, to exculpate Hooker
for the disaster of Chancellorsville was not of an order which can be
answered. When one speaker asks, "If Gen. Hooker tells us that it was
wise to withdraw across the river, is not that enough for you and me,
my comrades?" I can only say that history is not so easily satisfied.
To another speaker, who states that when Hooker had planted himself in
Lee's flank by crossing the river, Lee ought, by all the rules of
war, to have retreated, but when he didn't he upset all Hooker's
calculations; that when Jackson made his "extra hazardous" march around
Hooker's flank, he ought, by all rules of war, to have been destroyed,
but when he was not he upset all Hooker's calculations, and that
therefore Hooker was forced to retreat,--it is quite beyond my ability
to reply. When Gen. Sickles throws the blame upon Howard for the defeat
of the Eleventh Corps, by reading the 9.30 A.M. order, without saying
one word about Hooker's actions, change of plans, and despatches from
that hour till the attack at 6 P.M., he makes any thinking man question
seriously the sincerity of what he calls history. When Gen. Butterfield
indulges in innuendoes against Gen. Meade, whose chief of staff he was,
and insults his memory in the effort to exculpate the Third Corps from
a charge no one has ever made, or thought of making, against it, the
fair-minded can only wonder why he goes out of his way to call any one
to task for criticising Hooker. Not one word was spoken on Fast Day
which does not find its full and entire answer in the already published
works on Chancellorsville. It was all a mere re-hash, and poorly cooked
at that. To rely on the four reasons given by the Committee on the
Conduct of the War as a purgation of Hooker from responsibility for our
defeat at Chancellorsville, simply deserves no notice. It is all of a
piece with the discussion of the Third-Corps fight at Gettysburg on July
2. No one ever doubted that the Third Corps fought, as they always did,
like heroes that day. What has been alleged is merely that Sickles did
not occupy and protect Little Round Top, as he would have done if he had
had the military coup d'oeil.
Now, I desire to compare with Hooker's recorded words, and the
utterances of Fast Day, the actual performance, and see what "loyalty to
Hooker," as voted in Music Hall, means. Chancellorsville bristles
with points of criticism, and there are some few points of possible
disagreement. Of the latter the principal ones upon which Hooker's
formal apologists rely, are the destruction of the Eleventh Corps
through Howard's alleged carelessness, and the failure of Sedgwick
to perform the herculean task assigned to him in coming to Hooker's
support. Allowing, for the moment, that Howard and Sedgwick were
entirely at fault, and eliminating these two questions entirely from the
issue, let us see what Hooker himself did, bearing in mind that he has
officially acknowledged that he knew, substantially, the number of Lee's
army, and bearing also in mind that the following are facts which can
be disputed only by denying the truth and accuracy of all the reports,
Federal and Confederate, taken as a body; and these happen to dovetail
into each other in one so consistent whole, that they leave to the
careful student none but entirely insignificant items open to doubt.
From Saturday at 8 A.M. till Sunday noon, some twenty-eight hours,
Hooker with seventy-five thousand, and, after the arrival of the First
Corps, nearly ninety thousand men, lay between the separated wings
of Lee's army of twenty-four thousand and seventeen thousand men
respectively, being all the while cognizant of the facts. Had ever a
general a better chance to whip his enemy in detail? And yet we were
badly beaten in this fight. Now, if loyalty to Hooker requires us to
believe that his conduct of this campaign was even respectable, it
follows that the Army of the Potomac, respectably led, could be defeated
by the Army of Northern Virginia, two to one. Will the soldiers of the
ever-faithful army accept this as an explanation of our defeat?
Again: from Sunday noon till Monday at 9 A.M., twenty-one hours, Hooker,
with over eighty thousand men, was held in the White House lines by
a force of twenty-seven thousand. If loyalty to Hooker requires us to
believe that this was even respectable generalship, it follows that the
Army of the Potomac, well led, could be defeated by the Army of Northern
Virginia, three to one. Shall we accept this as an explanation of our
defeat?
Again: from Monday at 9 A.M. till Tuesday at 4 P.M., thirty-one hours,
against the advice of all his corps commanders except Sickles and Couch
(the latter agreeing to retreat only because he felt that the army would
be defeated under Hooker whatever they might do), Hooker, with eighty
thousand men, was held in the White House lines by a force of nineteen
thousand, while the rest turned upon and demolished Sedgwick. If
loyalty to Hooker requires us to believe that this was even respectable
generalship, it follows that the Army of the Potomac, well led, could be
defeated by the Army of Northern Virginia, four to one. Shall we accept
this as an explanation of our defeat?
If there is in the world's military history a parallel to this
extraordinary generalship, for which any one who has even pretended to
study the art of war is able to find an excuse, I have failed to find
such an instance in the course of many years' reading, and shall be
happy to have it pointed out to me. Hooker's wound cannot be alleged in
extenuation. If he was disabled, his duty was to turn the command over
to Couch, the next in rank. If he did not do this, he was responsible
for what followed. And he retained the command himself, only using Couch
as his mouthpiece.
I have always maintained, that, man for man, the Army of the Potomac was
at any time the equal of the Army of Northern Virginia, and that, man
for man, the old Third Corps has proved itself good for Jackson's in its
palmiest days. When, therefore, the Army of the Potomac was, as here,
defeated or bottled up by one-half, one-third, or one-quarter its force
of the enemy, my loyalty to that army demands that I seek a reason other
than Hooker's alleged lack of heart of his subordinate officers. And
this reason is only to be found in Hooker's inability to handle so
many men. All the resolutions in the world, passed under a furore of
misstatement and misconception, even by such a noble body of men as
Third-Corps veterans, will not re-habilitate Joseph Hooker's military
character during these five days, nor make him other than a morally
and intellectually impotent man from May 1 to May 5, 1863. Loyalty to
Hooker, so-called, is disloyalty to the grand old army, disloyalty to
the seventeen thousand men who fell, disloyalty to every comrade who
fought at Chancellorsville. I begrudge no man the desire to blanket
facts and smother truth in order to turn a galling defeat into a
respectable campaign; I begrudge no man his acceptance of Hooker's
theory that Chancellorsville was not a disaster; I begrudge no one his
faith in Hooker as a successful battle-field commander of the Army of
the Potomac. But let it be well understood that this faith of necessity
implies the fact that the Army of the Potomac was unable or unwilling to
fight one-quarter its number of Lee's troops. I prefer my faith in
the stanch, patient army, in its noble rank and file, in its gallant
officers, from company to corps; and I refuse to accept Hooker's insult
to his subordinates as any explanation for allowing the Army of the
Potomac to "be here defeated without ever being fought."
The Army of the Potomac was better than its commanders from first to
last. It was, beyond speaking, superior to its commander during the
fighting days at Chancellorsville. As a corps commander, Joseph
Hooker will always be a type and household word. In logistics, even as
commander of the Army of the Potomac, he deserves high praise. But when
it comes to fighting the army at Chancellorsville, let whoso will keep
his loyalty to Hooker, without protest from me. I claim for myself and
the bulk of my comrades the right, equally without protest, sneers, or
resolutions, to express my loyalty to the rank and file, my loyalty
to the officers, and my loyalty to the army as a whole. And I claim,
moreover, the right, without protest, sneers, or resolutions, to show
that on this field it was the general commanding, and not the army,
whose lapses caused defeat. Not that I object to these Fast-Day
resolutions. I believe that I can still struggle onward in life, even
under the contempt of their authors. But partisanship in matters of
history is a boomerang which always flies back to whack its thrower. And
Fast Day's performance was baldly partisan.
I am satisfied to abide the verdict of all soldiers, of all citizens,
who ever studied the facts of this campaign. What ever the action of any
meeting of old soldiers may be under partial knowledge of facts,
under the influence of heated or sectional discussion, or under the
whipping-in of a member of Hooker's staff, I do not believe that with
the issue squarely put before them, and the facts plainly stated, any
but a very inconsiderable fraction, and that not the most intelligent
one, of the men of the Army of the Potomac, will give their suffrage
to what has been suddenly discovered to be loyalty due to Gen. Joseph
Hooker, as against loyalty to the Army of the Potomac.
The recent course of lectures at the Lowell Institute was intended to
be a purely military one. There was no intention of bringing politics
or sectional pride into the discussion, and it was thought that the
lectures could to-day be delivered without rousing a breath of ancient
animosity. If there was any campaign during our civil war which was
especially, in a military sense, a glorious one for the rebels, and an
ignominious one for us, it was Chancellorsville. It is indeed a pity
that the skill of the one side and the errors of the other cannot be
once again pointed out, that the true and only possible explanation of
Hooker's one hundred and thirty thousand men being defeated by Lee's
sixty thousand cannot be once again stated, without eliciting from
a body of veterans of the old Third Corps a set of condemnatory
resolutions. There has been some very heated criticism of the recent
lectures, and not a little fault-finding with the lecturers. I presume
that none of the gentlemen who participated in the course would feel
like denying the inference, so often suggested, that the censors might
have done much better than they were able to do. Such censors generally
can. These dozen lecturers have all been earnest students of our civil
war, as is abundantly testified by the twenty odd volumes on the subject
published by them since the reports of operations became available; and
they keenly feel that modesty which is always bred of study. Such as
they had, they were glad to give the public; nor do they in any wise
shrink from generous disagreement or courteous criticism. I submit,
however, that some of the carping which has been indulged in is scarcely
apt to lead to the correction of errors, or the elucidation of truth.
It is passing strange, that, at this late day, one may not criticise the
military operations without arousing the evil spirit of the war. Can
we not aim at truth, rather than self-gratulation, which will live no
longer than we do? Criticism has always been indulged in, always will
be. If a Frederick may be dissected by a Lloyd, if a Napoleon may be sat
on in judgment by a Lanfrey, may not the merest tyro in the art of war
he pardoned for reviewing Hooker? The gallant soldier who helped make
history rarely writes history. The same spirit which sent him to
the front in 1861 generally keeps him busy to-day with the material
interests of the country. Despite the certainly novel fling of Fast Day
at one who went into service as a mere boy, it remains a fact that rank,
without the devoted study of years and a single eye to truth, will not
enable any one to write history. It was proven beyond a peradventure on
Fast Day, that the command of a corps, let alone a division, will not of
itself breed a historian. Partisanship never will.
Truth will get written some day. I myself prefer to write as an
American, forgetting North and South, and to pass down to those who
will write better than any of us, as one who tried to speak the truth,
whomsoever it struck. It is not I who criticise, who condemn Joseph
Hooker: it is the maxims of every master, of every authority on the
art of war. Not one of Hooker's apologists can turn to the history of a
master's achievements, or to a volume of any accepted authority, without
finding his pet commander condemned, in every action, and on every page,
for the faults of the fighting days at Chancellorsville.
It was assumed on Fast Day that one should criticise only what he saw.
I have never understood that Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire" is any the less good because he did not live in the first few
centuries of the Christian era, or that Jomini could write any less
well of Frederick than of Napoleon. Service certainly helps a man in his
researches or work, but it only helps. The best critic may be one who
never served. I think I was the first officer to whom the Secretary of
War permitted free use of the rebel archives for study. I have had good
opportunities. How I have used them, I leave to others to say. It is
easy to capture a meeting of honest-hearted veterans by such lamentable
prestidigitation as was exhibited on Fast Day, and to pass any
resolutions desired, by appealing to their enthusiasm. I prefer to be
judged by the sober after-thought of men who are neither partisans,
nor ready to warp facts or make partial statements to sustain their
theories.
THEODORE A. DODGE.
BOSTON, April 10, 1886.
Transcriber's Appendix: Transcription notes:
The first edition of this book was published in 1881. The author's
appendix was added in the second edition, in 1886, which is the source
for this etext.
The following modifications were applied while transcribing the
printed book to e-text:
chapter 4
- table on p 19, fixed typo ("McGown", should be "McGowan")
chapter 12
- p 71, para 1, fixed typo ("inititate")
chapter 18
- p 111, para 1, fixed typo ("Pleasanton")
chapter 27
- p 180, para 1, fixed "the the"
Limitations imposed by converting to plain ASCII:
- The words "manoeuvre", "manoeuvres" and "manoeuvring" are printed in
the book using the "oe" ligature. The term "coup d'oeil" was also
printed with the "oe" ligature, "minutiae" was printed using the "ae"
ligature, and several other French terms (such as "elan" and "echelon")
were printed with accented vowels. However, this does not seem enough
to merit an 8-bit text.
- Italics were printed for various non-English words and phrases, and
occasionally for emphasis. For the most part, these were simply
converted to plain text. However, I did use underscores to denote
two italicized phrases in the author's appendix, where the use of
italics was more significant.
I did not modify:
- The phrases "on each side the road", "on both sides the road"
- The first paragraph of chapter 22 contains the phrase
"angle of refusal or Archer and McGowan"
I believe "or" is incorrect and should be probably "for" or "of", but
I don't know which. "or" is printed in both the 1881 and 1886 editions,
so I left it as is.