Joseph Hooker (November 13, 1814 – October 31, 1879) was a career United States Army officer, achieving the rank of major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Although he served throughout the war, usually with distinction, Hooker is best remembered for his stunning defeat by Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863.
After graduating from the United States Military Academy in 1837, Hooker served in the Seminole Wars and the Mexican–American War, receiving three brevet promotions. He resigned from the Army in 1853 and pursued farming, land development, and (unsuccessfully) politics in California. After the start of the Civil War he returned to the Army as a brigadier general. He distinguished himself as an aggressive combat commander leading a division in the Battle of Williamsburg, May 5, 1862, resulting in his promotion to major general. As a corps commander, he led the initial Union attacks at the Battle of Antietam, in which he was wounded. At the Battle of Fredericksburg, he commanded a “Grand Division” of two corps, and was ordered to conduct numerous futile frontal assaults that caused his men to suffer serious losses. Throughout this period, he conspired against and openly criticized his army commanders. Following the defeat at Fredericksburg, he was given command of the Army of the Potomac.
Hooker planned an audacious campaign against Robert E. Lee, but his Army was defeated by the Confederate Army at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Hooker’s subordinate general’s mistakes, and a loss of confidence on his part contributed to a failure to marshal the strength of his larger army against Lee, who boldly divided his army and routed a Union corps with a flank attack led by Stonewall Jackson. Casualties were heavy on both sides (approximately 17,000 of the Union’s 117,000 troops, and 13,000 of the Confederate’s 60,000 troops), and the defeat handed Lee the initiative, which allowed him to travel north to Gettysburg.[1]
Lincoln kept Hooker in command, but when General Halleck and Lincoln declined Hooker’s request for troops from Harpers Ferry to reinforce his army while in pursuit of Lee’s advance toward Pennsylvania, Hooker resigned his command. George G. Meade was appointed to the command of the Army of the Potomac on June 28, 1863, three days before Gettysburg, and was allowed to take the troops from Harpers Ferry.[1]
Hooker returned to combat in November, leading two corps from the Army of the Potomac to help relieve the besieged Union Army at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and achieving an important victory at the Battle of Lookout Mountain during the Chattanooga Campaign. He continued in the Western Theater under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, but departed in protest before the end of the Atlanta Campaign when he was passed over for promotion to command the Army of the Tennessee.
Hooker became known as “Fighting Joe” following a journalist’s clerical error reporting from the Battle of Williamsburg; however, the nickname stuck. His personal reputation was as a hard-drinking ladies’ man, and his headquarters were known for parties and gambling, although the historical evidence discounts any heavy drinking by the general himself.
Western Theater
Hooker’s military career was not ended by his poor performance in the summer of 1863. He went on to regain a reputation as a solid corps commander when he was transferred with the XI and XII Corps of the Army of the Potomac westward to reinforce the Army of the Cumberland around Chattanooga, Tennessee. Hooker was in command at the Battle of Lookout Mountain, playing an important role in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s decisive victory at the Battle of Chattanooga. He was brevetted to major general in the regular army for his success at Chattanooga, but he was disappointed to find that Grant’s official report of the battle credited his friend William Tecumseh Sherman’s contribution over Hooker’s.
Hooker led his corps (now designated the XX Corps) competently in the 1864 Atlanta Campaign under Sherman, but asked to be relieved before the capture of the city because of his dissatisfaction with the promotion of Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard to command of the Army of the Tennessee, upon the death of Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson. Not only did Hooker have seniority over Howard, but he also blamed Howard in large part for his defeat at Chancellorsville (Howard had commanded the XI Corps, which had borne the brunt of Jackson’s flank attack). Hooker’s biographer reports that there were numerous stories indicating that Abraham Lincoln attempted to intercede with Sherman, urging that Hooker be appointed to command the Army of the Tennessee, but Sherman threatened to resign if the president insisted. However, due to “obvious gaps” in the Official Records, the story cannot be verified.[18]
After leaving Georgia, Hooker commanded the Northern Department (comprising the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois), headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, from October 1, 1864, until the end of the war.[7] While in Cincinnati he married Olivia Groesbeck, sister of Congressman William S. Groesbeck.
Legacy
Hooker was popularly known as “Fighting Joe” Hooker, a nickname he regretted deeply; he said, “People will think I am a highwayman or a bandit.”[19] When a newspaper dispatch arrived in New York during the Peninsula Campaign, a typographical error changed an entry “Fighting — Joe Hooker Attacks Rebels” to remove the dash and the name stuck.[20] Robert E. Lee occasionally referred to him as “Mr. F. J. Hooker” in a mildly sarcastic jab at his opponent.
Hooker’s reputation as a hard-drinking ladies’ man was established through rumors in the pre-Civil War Army and has been cited by a number of popular histories.[21] Biographer Walter H. Hebert describe the general’s personal habits as the “subject of much debate”[22] although there was little debate in the popular opinion of the time. His men parodied Hooker in the popular war song Marching Along. The lines
McClellan’s our leader,
He’s gallant and strong
were replaced by
Joe Hooker’s our leader,
He takes his whiskey strong.[22]
Historian Stephen W. Sears, however, states that there is no basis to the claims that Hooker was a heavy drinker or that he was ever intoxicated on the battlefield.[23]
There is a popular legend that “hooker” as a slang term for a prostitute is derived from his last name[24] because of parties and a lack of military discipline at his headquarters near the Murder Bay district of Washington, DC. Some versions of the legend claim that the band of prostitutes that followed his division were derisively referred to as “General Hooker’s Army” or “Hooker’s Brigade.”[25] However, the term “hooker” was used in print as early as 1845, years before Hooker was a public figure,[26] and is likely derived from the concentration of prostitutes around the shipyards and ferry terminal of the Corlear’s Hook area of Manhattan in the early to middle 19th century, who came to be referred to as “hookers”.[27] The prevalence of the Hooker legend may have been at least partly responsible for the popularity of the term.[28] There is some evidence that an area in Washington, DC, known for prostitution during the Civil War, was referred to as “Hooker’s Division”. The name was shortened to “The Division” when he spent time there after First Bull Run guarding D.C. from incursion.[29]
There is an equestrian statue of General Hooker outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston, and Hooker County in Nebraska is named for him.
Content retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Hooker.