STONEWALL JACKSON.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—It was with surprise that I read in the article on Colone Henderson's " Stonewall Jackson" in the Spectator of Novem- ber 15th that General Hooker was not a West-Pointer. 1 believe that your reviewer is mistaken. Colonel Henderson (Vol. I., p. 63) speaks of Hooker as serving during the Mexican War in the same Artillery regiment as Jackson. An Artillery commission was only to be secured by a graduate of West Point who "passed out" high. General Doubleday in his " Chancellorsville and Gettysburg" speaks of Hooker as a West-Pointer and as having gained a considerable military reputation on the Staff of General Gideon Pillow in the Mexican War. At the outbreak of the Civil War Hooker had
been out of the United States for some time, but so had Grant, Halleck, McLellan, Sherman, and a number of others. Your reviewer stigmatises Hooker as one of the greatest failures of the war. But without attempting to defend his Chancellors- vine campaign, it may be fairly maintained that as commander of the Army of the Potomac his record compares favourably with Burnside's or Pope's, and that as a divisional com- mander in the Peninsula and 'a ;corps commander both in the East and the West he did fine service. To classify him with amateur Generals like Banks, Butler, and Fremont is a grave injustice to the memory of a gallant soldier.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
