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Hooker's Chancellorsville Campaign
Appendix A: Hooker's Loss of Nerve
If you've read other accounts of the Battle of Chancellorsville, you will note that I have not made reference to a rather famous quote attributed to Hooker. When asked how he lost the battle, Hooker is reported to have said, "For once I lost confidence in Hooker." This quote is the source of all accounts of Hooker having lost his nerve at Chancellorsville. Hooker's loss of nerve has been recorded by almost every major Civil War historian, including Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton, and it was enshrined in Ken Burns' television documentary, The Civil War.
It is also complete fiction.
I was never happy with this quote. Even when first reading of Chancellorsville, I found it out of character for Hooker the braggart to admit to a subordinate that he had lost his nerve in battle. It didn't fit his personality. Still, I thought — like almost everyone else — that Hooker had suffered from a grave loss of nerve, resulting in his defeat at the hands of Robert E. Lee.
In January 2002 I came across Stephen W. Sears article "In Defense of Fighting Joe". At first I was incredulous, then skeptical. After reading the article, and subsequently Sears' book on Chancellorsville, I came to the conclusion that Hooker has been the victim of character assassination.
The source of the "lost confidence" quote is John Bigelow, Jr.'s The Campaign of Chancellorsville, published in 1910 and considered the authoritative account of the battle. In the final chapter of the book, Bigelow includes a footnote relating an incident that occurred "a couple of months" after Chancellorsville, on the march to Gettysburg (note: the Battle of Gettysburg was less than two months after the end of Chancellorsville, and Hooker was relieved of command before the battle). The incident was told to Bigelow by E. P. Halstead, a member of Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday's staff. Halstead told this story to Bigelow in 1903, 40 years after the battle.
The incident supposedly occurred after the Army of the Potomac had crossed over the Rappahannock in pursuit of Lee. Hooker was riding with Doubleday, who lead a division of Reynolds' First Corps. Doubleday asked Hooker, "What was wrong with you at Chancellorsville? Some say you were injured by a shell, and others that you were drunk; now tell us what it was." Hooker answered, frankly, "Doubleday, I was not hurt by a shell, and I was not drunk. For once I lost confidence in Hooker, and that is all there is to it."
Such is Bigelow's reputation that none have thought to question this footnote. Even on the face of it, though, it doesn't look quite right. As I said, I always suspected that the quote was out of character for Hooker. It is unbelievable that Hooker would admit such a thing within earshot of a junior subordinate like Halstead. Hooker was a braggart and not unlikely to say something outrageous, but never in a way as to disparage himself. To make matters worse, the rest of Halstead's letter to Bigelow doesn't instill confidence either, as it is a garbled and inaccurate account of the First Corps role at Chancellorsville.
Plotting the movements of the First Corps and the army headquarters, you see that during the time that Hooker was supposed to have said this to Doubleday the two headquarters were a dozen miles apart. They didn't have an opportunity to meet. In fact, there was never an opportunity for the two men to meet before Hooker was relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac.
Why would Hooker say he wasn't hurt when he was quite clearly hurt by the cannon shot. Hooker's injury is very well documented. There were too many witnesses to the event to doubt it. The witnesses detail symptoms of a severe concussion, which would be in keeping with the way he was injured. Furthermore, Hooker never tried to hide the fact he was injured. He spoke of his injury as a factor in his defeat, and so it's not credible that he would deny it to his subordinate, Doubleday, particularly in the presence of a junior officer.
Hooker wasn't known for being easily unnerved. His performance in the Seven Days, 2nd Manassas and Antietam were marked by personal bravery. His performance after Chancellorsville, though tainted by him being disliked by his superiors, is better than most generals in the war. Hooker played a key role at Chattanooga and his corps bore the heaviest fighting at Atlanta. Hooker liked to lead from the front (which is why he was injured in the first place).
So, the entire "unnerving" of Hooker — who, in spite of his many other faults, was never branded a coward — comes from the single account of one man, a man who was writing 40 years after the event, and years after the death of both principles (Doubleday and Hooker). It was not uncommon for men to write their tales of the war putting themselves in a better light, or at the focal point of an important moment in history. In fact, there is a fanciful account by a man who supposedly helped convince Jackson to outflank Hooker, and there are so many "eye witnesses" to Jackson's wounding that you wonder how anyone could have missed seeing Jackson's huge entourage on the way toward Union lines.
Perhaps Halstead was writing from faulty memory, or perhaps he was deliberately manufacturing a role for himself in history. The end result is that Bigelow took this comment at face value. Since then many others have taken this comment as gospel. Now you can scarcely read a secondary, tertiary, or other source that doesn't make reference to Hooker's loss of nerve. Thanks to Stephen Sears, this account has lost its credibility and Hooker can be seen more accurately.