Part 36

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.