"I have heard in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command of the Army of the Potomac. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship!"
It was April, 1863, Hooker issued the stereotyped address full of confidence on taking command, advanced, and withdrew his army after the repulse by Lee. All he scored was the death of "Stonewall" Jackson, Lee's right hand, and that was an accident. As Lee invaded Maryland, all hopes of Hooker's dictatorship were dispersed in the battle smoke penetrating too far North to be pleasant incense to fallen heroes.
A STAGE IN THE CEASELESS MARCH ONWARD TO VICTORY.
Veterans will remember the peculiar effect, on a forced march, of the younger or less-enduring comrade falling asleep as to all but his eyes and the muscles employed, but stepping out and apparently sustained only by the touching of elbows in the lurching from the ruts in the obliterated road. On the night of the stunning news of the last conflict at Chancellorsville, Lincoln could derive no comfort from later intelligence. Late at night General Halleck, commanding the capital, and Secretary Stanton left him unconsoled. Then his secretary, as long as he stayed, heard the man on whom rested the national hopes--her very future--pace his room without pause save to turn. It was like the fisher on the banks who must keep awake for a chance at a grab at the chains of the ship that may burst through the fog and crush his smack like a coconut-shell. At midnight the chief may have stopped to write, for there was a pause--but a breathing-spell. Then the pacing again till the attaché left at 3 A.M. When he came in the morning, not unanxious himself, he found his chief eating breakfast alone in the unquitted room. On the table lay a sheet of written paper: instructions for General Hooker to renew fighting although it only brought the slap on the other cheek--at Winchester--and still Lee pressed on into Pennsylvania till Harrisburg was menaced! But Meade supplanted "Fighting Joe," and Gettysburg wiped out the shame of the later repulses.
(The private secretary was W. O. Stoddard.)
WORKING FOR A LIVING MAKES ONE PRACTICAL.
The year 1863 was black-lettered in the North by disaster. General Hooker had been badly beaten by General Lee. The Confederate advance into Pennsylvania shook the strongest faith in the triumph of the Federal arms, and the victory of Gettysburg was attained at a bloody cost. The draft riots in New York excited a fear that the discontent with the colossal strife was deep-rooted. General Thomas, at Chickamauga, saved the Union Army from destruction, but the call for 300,000 three-years' men denoted that the end was not even glimpsed. Nevertheless, this latter feat of arms gladdened tremulous Washington, and among the exploits was cited to the President the desperate victualing of General Thomas' exhausted troops by General Garfield. He performed a dangerous ride from Rosencrantz to the beleagured victor and brought him craved-for provisions.
"How is it," inquired President Lincoln of an officer, courier of the details, "that Garfield did in two weeks what would have taken one of your West Pointers two months to accomplish?"
The recollection was perfectly well understood by the regular, who thought the amateur commander "meddled too much" with the operations of the field.
"Because he was not educated at West Point," was the reply, but half in jest.