As is well
known, the question of Hooker's sudden and unaccountable loss of power,
during the fighting half of this campaign, coupled with the question of
drunkenness, has been bandied to and 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.
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