fro for years. The mention alone
of Chancellorsville has been enough, ever since that day, to provoke
a query on this very subject, among civilians and soldiers alike. In a
lecture on the subject, I deemed it judicious to lay this ghost as
well as might be. Had I believed that Hooker was intoxicated at
Chancellorsville, I should not have been deterred by the fear of
opposition from saying so. Hooker's over-anxious friends have now turned
into a public scandal what was generally understood as an exoneration,
by intentionally distorting what was said into an implication that
Hooker was so besotted as to be incapable of command. What I have
written of his marching the army to this field and to the field of
Gettysburg is a full answer to such unnecessary perversion. Let these
would-be friends of Hooker remember that this calumny is of their own
making, not mine. I am as sorry for it, as they ought to be. If the
contempt expressed in the resolutions they passed had been silent,
instead of boisterous, Hooker's memory would have suffered far less
damage.

Gens. Sickles and Butterfield are doubtless good witnesses, though
they sedulously refrained from any testimony on the subject, contenting
themselves with declamation. But they are not the only good witnesses.
After the loss of a leg at Gettysburg, I was ordered to duty in the War
Department, where I served in charge of one or other bureau for seven
years. I have heard this Hooker question discussed in all its bearings,
in the office of the Secretary of War or Adjutant-General, by nearly
every leading officer of the army, hundreds of whom had known Hooker
from West Point up. I have had abundant opportunity of forming an
opinion, and I have expressed it. Let him who garbles its meaning, bear
the blame.

This action by many veterans of the Third Corps--even though procured
by design from their thoughtless and open soldier's nature--is, however,
much more sweeping and important. To the world at large it is a general
condemnation of every thing which can be said in criticism of Hooker.
It will reach far and wide, and in this light I desire to say what I
do. The resolutions passed at the meeting explicitly protest against the
statement that Hooker proved a failure as an independent commander.
This needs notice at greater length than the question of sobriety
or drunkenness. Few have studied the details of the campaign of
Chancellorsville as carefully as I; but one other author ha