Joe Hooker Takes Command

Hooker

Ambrose Burnside's Mud March, as it was called, was the last straw for Lincoln. Burnside had been disastrously defeated at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December, and with the latest debacle he had to be replaced. He was moved to the Department of the Ohio and replaced with Joseph Hooker on January 26th.

Hooker was a West Pointer from Massachusetts. He had fought in the Mexican-American War and served the staffs of the leading American generals. In the Civil War, he had quickly risen to prominence, and was known as Fighting Joe because of a typo in a newspaper article, but the name stuck because of his aggressiveness. Hooker was also famous for his hard drinking. One officer recorded that “the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac was a place to which no self-respecting man like to go, and no decent woman could go. It was a combination of bar-room and brothel."

Hooker

Lincoln wrote a letter to Hooker upon giving him the command giving him his instructions:

I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac... And yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which, I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and a 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 a valuable, if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm. But I think that during Gen. Burnside's command of the Army, you have taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as 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 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 it's ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the Army, of criticizing their Commander, and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can, to put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army, while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.