Grant's Victory by Bruce L. Brager

Author:Bruce L. Brager
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: 2020-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

Some sources say that Lincoln had more details on Lee’s losses, and that this may have provoked his comment to William Stoddard about more such losses, which Stoddard remembered as just after the Battle of Fredericksburg.6 Lincoln’s statements are consistent with Lee’s lack of enthusiasm over his seemingly clear victory at Chancellorsville.

About a week later, when he learned that Hooker was considering a direct stab across the river at Fredericksburg, Lincoln discouraged the move, writing Hooker that the immediate time for such an attempt had passed. Lincoln was also displeased to hear that Hooker had started to inflate Lee’s strength, McClellan style.

At the same May 13 meeting, Lincoln told Hooker that “I must tell you, that I have some painful intimations that your corps and division commanders are not giving you their entire confidence. This would be ruinous, if true.”7 This would also be a replay of the situation just before Hooker’s predecessor, Ambrose Burnside, was relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac, which both Lincoln and Hooker would have realized. There were some major differences with the commanders, though. Many of the discontented senior commanders had left the army the same time Hooker took command. Hooker himself was a notable exception. George Meade, John Reynolds, and Darius Couch, though all unhappy with Hooker, would not have engaged in something like the plotting against Burnside.

There was a more important difference. The Army of the Potomac had been misused at Chancellorsville. However, it was still in better shape than when Hooker had taken command four months earlier. There was, as might be expected, some grumbling on the state of the army, but focusing on its poor leadership. One Federal wrote, “The Chancellorsville Campaign pretty thoroughly demonstrated the fact that as a general in the field at the head of an army, Gen. Joseph Hooker was no match for Gen. R. E. Lee.”8

One Pennsylvania soldier wrote, in a letter published in a newspaper, “The talk about demoralization in this army is all false. The army is no more demoralized than the day it first started out, although God knows it has had, though the blundering of inefficient commanders and other causes too numerous to mention, plenty of reason to be.”9

However, Lincoln, Secretary of War Stanton, and General Halleck decided that Hooker had to go. They began looking for a replacement. On May 22 Lincoln asked Darius Couch, senior general in the Army of the Potomac outside of Hooker, if he wanted the command. Couch, though agreeing that Hooker had to go, declined on grounds of health. He also asked to be relieved from service in the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln transferred Couch to command of the newly created Department of Pennsylvania. During the same meeting, Couch recommended putting George Meade in command.

John Reynolds met with Lincoln on June 1. He was asked his conditions for accepting command of the Army of the Potomac. Reynolds had one condition for accepting: that he would have no interference from the president or the War Department.

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