Grant A Third "Grant as a Soldier" - Hooker's opinion of Grant

In which we find out that Joseph Hooker didn't like Ulysses S. Grant and thus endorsed an attack on Grant's generalship made during the 1872 presidential contest.

Most amusing is Hooker's concern about Grant's drinking.

EDITED BY MATT MCKEON
 
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Wow! That's strong stuff by Hooker and his cronies. Bitter much?

I've just been reading where he had to shamefacedly face Grant at Ringgold to explain why he hadn't cleared the Gap of Cleburne's men, relying on a frontal assault and ham-fisted flanking movement with no artillery cover.

You can feel the spite coming out of that article … it seems time didn't heal wounds for Hooker.
 
This one seems a little shaky. It isn't really Hooker's view, but the author's James Clement Ambrose, who quotes a letter from Hooker in which Hooker praises Ambrose to the skies.

The difficulty is the article is from 1884, years after Hooker's death, and a year before Grant's for that matter, and Ambrose was writing for the Chicago Times, the leading Democratic paper during the campaign of 1872, which he claims for the date of this exchange of letters. He writes a lot of incentive about Grant, and claims Hooker's approved it all.
 
Wow! That's strong stuff by Hooker and his cronies. Bitter much?

I've just been reading where he had to shamefacedly face Grant at Ringgold to explain why he hadn't cleared the Gap of Cleburne's men, relying on a frontal assault and ham-fisted flanking movement with no artillery cover.

You can feel the spite coming out of that article … it seems time didn't heal wounds for Hooker.
If you read carefully, most of the words are Ambrose, not Hooker. Ambrose then quotes Hooker saying he approved of Ambrose's article. And its all five years after Hooker passed away.

War.1861-65
Ambrose's letters critical of Grant 1872, during the campaign, published in a staunch Democratic paper. Supposedly Hooker writes to Ambrose during this time.

Hooker dies 1879

1884. Ambrose writes this article in this magazine Potter's American Monthly.
 
This one seems a little shaky. It isn't really Hooker's view, but the author's James Clement Ambrose, who quotes a letter from Hooker in which Hooker praises Ambrose to the skies.

The difficulty is the article is from 1884, years after Hooker's death, and a year before Grant's for that matter, and Ambrose was writing for the Chicago Times, the leading Democratic paper during the campaign of 1872, which he claims for the date of this exchange of letters. He writes a lot of incentive about Grant, and claims Hooker's approved it all.

"Incentive"? Invective?

Still, this is sidestepping the merits of the argument Ambrose (and Hooker) present.
 
If you read carefully, most of the words are Ambrose, not Hooker. Ambrose then quotes Hooker saying he approved of Ambrose's article. And its all five years after Hooker passed away.

War.1861-65
Ambrose's letters critical of Grant 1872, during the campaign, published in a staunch Democratic paper. Supposedly Hooker writes to Ambrose during this time.

Hooker dies 1879

1884. Ambrose writes this article in this magazine Potter's American Monthly.

Thank you for the clarification. Yes, the politics would certainly explain some of the poison in that article.

However, Hooker certainly hated Sherman and had no respect for Grant - a man who he claimed at a Veteran meeting had 'no more moral sense than a dog' - so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine a 'staunch Democrat' like Hooker giving the nod to a less vitriolic version of that article published after his death.
 
As a commentary, its all places Hooker wasn't at. Its funny in the article supposedly Hooker writes that the only accurate book about the war was by a sergeant who wrote about his own experiences. Yet what we have here is secondhand gossip. And I'm not sure its even Hooker's repeating gossip, or if its Ambrose repeating it, and is using the decreased Hooker as a celebrity endorsement.

Hooker was in Grant's command for several months. An account of that time would be useful.
 
Hooker was most unhappy with Grant and Sherman due to being bypassed for command of the Army of the Tennessee after the death of McPherson in favor of O. O. Howard. By the time of the transmission of that letter to Mr. Ambrose, he may have gotten over it, but I doubt it. He is however the closest of these 19th century critics of Grant to a legitimate critic. Although one must laugh at the irony of his criticism of Grant's drinking - that alone is circumstantial evidence of his lack of objectivity.
 
This one seems a little shaky. It isn't really Hooker's view, but the author's James Clement Ambrose, who quotes a letter from Hooker in which Hooker praises Ambrose to the skies.

The difficulty is the article is from 1884, years after Hooker's death, and a year before Grant's for that matter, and Ambrose was writing for the Chicago Times, the leading Democratic paper during the campaign of 1872, which he claims for the date of this exchange of letters. He writes a lot of incentive about Grant, and claims Hooker's approved it all.
Did you mean invective about Grant?
 
I'll bet the telegraph was singing between Sherman and Grant after this incident at Marietta …

Jacob D. Cox 'Atlanta'

During the evening after the engagement, and acting upon
second-hand information from prisoners (to which Geary also
refers in his report), Hooker reported to General Sherman
that he had been attacked by three corps, but had repulsed
them, and was only anxious about his right flank.
The General-in-Chief, who had been near the centre of the whole
line, at his signal station, was concerned lest Schofield had
not fully met the spirit of his instructions, and next morn-
ing went in person to the little church in the woods near
Gulp's, where he met both those officers.


On his way Sherman had passed through "Ward's (Butterfleld's) division, and
learned that it was in reserve. Schofield, on being informed
of the despatch sent by Hooker, indignantly declared it in-
excusably wrong, and invited both officers to go to Hascall's
front and see whose dead lay farthest in advance.

Sherman, reminding Hooker that three corps was the whole of
Johnston's army, which, if it had attacked, would have
made itself felt along a larger front than two or three bri-
gades, indicated his dislike of such sensational reports, and
especially of the unjust insinuation as to Schofield. After a
repulse of the enemy, and with Butterfield's division of his own
corps still within reach, he thought an officer of Hooker's ex-
perience should not have been so anxious about his flank as to
have sent the despatch, even if Schofield had not been there.


The incident was a personal one which might well be
omitted from history, but as it had its influence upon the
subsequent relations of these officers, and upon General
Hooker's withdrawal from the army, it is necessary to
notice it.

https://archive.org/stream/cihm_05307?ref=ol#page/113/search/hooker
 
All of which tends to confirm my impression that House of Cards created a Civil War like atmosphere in which the Republic was in jeopardy. For selfish pettiness, the Civil War era was great. Shakespeare would have had 50 plays to work on. As Mark Twain noted, fiction is restrained by probabilities, reality is not similarly restrained.
 
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