Perhaps the most invidious subject fell to my lot. What I said was
merely a summary of the foregoing pages. But one point in my lecture
aroused the ire of some of Gen. Hooker's partisans, and was made the
subject of attacks so bitter that virulence degenerated into puerility.
The occasion of this rodomontade was a meeting of Third-Corps veterans,
and its outcome was a series of resolutions aimed at the person who had
dared to reflect on Gen. Hooker's capacity, and to refer to the question
of Gen. Hooker's habitual use of stimulants. The public mention of my
name was as sedulously avoided as a reference to his satanic majesty is
wont to be in the society of the superstitious; but the exuberance of
the attack must have afforded unbounded satisfaction to its authors, as
it very apparently did to the audience.
Following are the resolutions, which are of mild flavor compared to
their accompanying seasoning of speeches:--
RESOLUTIONS.
The veterans of the Third Army Corps assembled here to-day, soldiers
who served under Gen. Joseph Hooker in his division, corps, and army,
re-affirm their lifelong affection for their old commander, their
admiration for his brilliant achievements as one of the prominent
generals of our armies, and protest against the recent revival of unjust
assaults made on his conduct at Chancellorsville. Whether, after _one
of the most noted tactical victories of modern times_, having placed the
Army of the Potomac across the Rappahannock River on the flank of Lee,
he might have gained a still farther advanced position; whether the
failure of the cavalry to fully accomplish what was expected of it;
whether the disaster to the Eleventh Corps and the delay in the advance
of the Sixth Corps,--are to be attributed to errors of judgment of
Gen. Hooker or of the subordinate commanders, are points which will be
discussed again and again with profit to the military student. But we,
who witnessed his successful generalship at Williamsburg, Glendale,
Malvern Hill, Second Bull Run, and Antietam, have no language at our
command strong enough to express our contempt for any one who, twenty
years after the war, affirms that on any occasion in battle, with the
lives of his men and the cause of his country in his keeping, Gen.
Hooker was incapacitated for performing his whole duty as an officer by
either the use of liquor or by the want of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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