influenced solely by motives of patriotism, generous and magnanimous to a fault, manly and Christian in his deportment, unassuming and almost diffident, he was the idol of the Ninth Army Corps, and won the esteem and admiration of all who were thrown in contact with him. His only faults were those of a military character: of these the main one was a want of reticence. The closest secrecy in all matters was seemingly incompatible with his frank, open nature. Lack of confidence in his own judgment led him to confer freely with others concerning his plans, who in turn communicated them to others, until he could with truth, exclaim:
“I never whisper a private affair
Within the hearing of cat or mouse,
But I hear it shouted at once from
The top of the house.”
But admitting, as he himself repeatedly did, that he was not endowed with that grasp of intellect, fertility of resource, in short Napoleonic comprehensiveness, necessary for commanding so large an army, how many men are born in a century who are thus endowed? Napoleon once remarked that there was but one General in the whole of France, besides himself, who could manœuvre one hundred thousand men.
General Hooker came into power with a flourish of trumpets, breathing death and destruction to the foe. After ridiculing without stint his predecessors, plotting and scheming for their overthrow, and declaring that he would “take the contract for bagging the whole rebel army,” he had at last prevailed upon the President, who was boxing the compass for a new chief, to appoint him. The appointment was, however, conferred, as General Hooker has frequently said, in direct opposition to General Halleck’s wishes. Now that he had secured the reins, Mr. Rebel must beware. He would “smash them to ——.” “God Almighty must have mercy on their souls—he wouldn’t.”
The prince of braggarts, one could not be in his presence an hour without recalling a character in King John.
“Here’s a stay