Anglo-American Memories

by George W. Smalley

From what Sedgwick told me and from what others told me, I gathered that this was the critical point of the battle. If Hooker could either have kept these Rebel reinforcements busy elsewhere, or have strengthened Sedgwick earlier in the day, the Rebel lines would have been broken or turned, and the battle won. But he was outmanoeuvred by Lee, here and elsewhere.

That is Chancellorsville in a nutshell. Hooker was, I suppose, overweighted with the command of an army of a hundred and twenty thousand men. As a corps commander and for fighting purposes, he had no equal. But he was pitted against a General whom European critics have praised till they seem inclined to put him on a level with Hannibal or Moltke, where he certainly does not belong. But he was good enough in these May days of 1863 to defeat General Hooker.

There have been stories in print to which I refer because they have been in print. It was said of General Hooker, as it was said of a greater General in this Civil War, that he drank. Lincoln's wish to send a barrel of Grant's whisky to every other General in the Union armies had not then been expressed. But, in the first place, having heard this rumour before I left New York, I asked everybody likely to know, and not one witness could testify to having seen General Hooker the worse for whisky. There is, in the second place, a statement that while Hooker was standing, on the morning of the 3rd, near Chancellor's Inn, the porch was struck by a cannon shot, and a beam fell on Hooker's head. He was not disabled, but the working power of his brain, at high pressure night and day for some sixty hours, may well have been impaired. One story may be set off against the other.

Rightly or wrongly, the Army of the Potomac had lost confidence in General Hooker. It had also lost confidence in itself. It was a beaten army and the soul had gone out of it. On both points, the evidence was overwhelming. There could be no doubt that I must report to Mr. Gay that the demoralization was complete. When I set myself to discover a remedy—in other words a possible successor to General Hooker—I was at a loss. General Sedgwick's officers and men believed in him, but the army as a whole thought he was in his right place as a corps commander. Other names were mentioned and put aside. There was no reason why officers high in rank should talk freely to me. There was every reason they should not talk freely to the representative of The Tribune, if The Tribune was to publish an account of the state of public opinion in the army with reference to a new commander. I endeavoured to make it clear that all statements on this matter would be treated as confidential. Still, as you may imagine, there were difficulties.

If one man was named more often than another, it was General Meade. I was urged by a number of officers—mostly staff officers—as I had been at Antietam in connection with General Hooker, to see General Meade and lay before him what my friends declared to be the wish of the army, or of a great part of the army. They wanted him to succeed General Hooker. It did not seem desirable to pledge myself to anything, but I did see General Meade. I had met him but once before. He was just mounting his horse, and proposed that we should ride together. Explaining that, though I came on no mission and with no authority, I had been asked to lay certain matters before him, I gave him such an account as I could of what my friends thought the army wanted. When he saw what was coming, he turned as if to interrupt. "I don't know that I ought to listen to you," he said. But I asked him to consider that I was a civilian, that I was in no sense an ambassador, that I brought no proposals, that he was asked to take no step whatever not even to say anything, but only to hear what others thought. Upon that, I was allowed to go on. I said my say. From beginning to end, General Meade listened with an impassive face. He did not interrupt. He never asked a question. He never made a comment. When I had finished I had not the least notion what impression my narrative had made on him; nor whether it had made any impression. He was a model of military discretion. Then we talked a little about other things. I said good-bye, rode away, and never again saw General Meade. But Gettysburg was the vindication of my friends' judgment.

Thinking I had done all I could, I said good-bye to General Hooker, who asked no questions, went back to New York, made a full oral report to Mr. Gay, and asked him whether I was to write a statement for publication. He considered a while, then said:

"No, it is a case where the truth can do only harm. It is not for the public interest that the public should know the army is demoralized, or know that Hooker must go, or know that no successor to him can yet be named. Write an editorial, keep to generalities, and forget most of what you have told me."

I obeyed orders. But the orders were given forty-odd years ago. Such interest as the matter has is now historical, and so, for the first time, I make public a part, and only a part, of what I learned in that month of May, 1863, on the banks of the Rappahannock.