Joseph Hooker Joseph Hooker ( November 13 , 1814 – October 31 , 1879 ) was a career United States Army officer , achieving the rank of major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War . Although he served throughout the war , usually with distinction , Hooker is best remembered for his stunning defeat by Confederate General Robert E . Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 . After graduating from the United States Military Academy in 1837 , Hooker served in the Seminole Wars and the Mexican - American War , receiving three brevet promotions . Resigning from the Army in 1853 , he pursued farming , land development , and ( unsuccessfully ) politics in California . After the start of the Civil War he returned to the Army as a brigadier general . He distinguished himself as an aggressive combat commander leading a division in the Battle of Williamsburg , May 5 , 1862 , resulting in his promotion to major general . As a corps commander , he led the initial Union attacks at the Battle of Antietam , in which he was wounded . At the Battle of Fredericksburg , he commanded a " Grand Division " of two corps , and was ordered to conduct numerous futile frontal assaults that caused his men to suffer serious losses . Throughout this period , he conspired against and openly criticized his army commanders . Following the defeat at Fredericksburg , he was given command of the Army of the Potomac . Hooker planned an audacious campaign against Robert E . Lee , but he was defeated by the Confederate Army at the Battle of Chancellorsville . Hooker suddenly lacked the nerve to marshal the strength of his larger army against Lee , who boldly divided his army and routed a Union corps with a flank attack by Stonewall Jackson . Hooker began to pursue Lee at the start of the Gettysburg Campaign , but his poor performance at Chancellorsville prompted Abraham Lincoln to relieve him from command just prior to the Battle of Gettysburg . He returned to combat in November , leading two corps from the Army of the Potomac to help relieve the besieged Union Army at Chattanooga , Tennessee , and achieving an important victory at the Battle of Lookout Mountain during the Chattanooga Campaign . He continued in the Western Theater under Maj . Gen . William T . Sherman , but left before the end of the Atlanta Campaign when he was bypassed for a promotion to command the Army of the Tennessee . Hooker became known as " Fighting Joe " following a journalist ' s clerical error reporting from the Battle of Williamsburg ; however , the nickname stuck . His personal reputation was as a hard - drinking ladies ' man , and his headquarters was known for parties and gambling , although the historical evidence discounts any heavy drinking by the general himself . His name is often associated with the slang term for prostitute , although the word " hooker " has been documented to appear with that meaning in print well before he became a public figure . Early years . Hooker was born in Hadley , Massachusetts , the grandson of a captain in the American Revolutionary War . He was of entirely English ancestry , all of which had been in New England since the early 1600s . His initial schooling was at the local Hopkins Academy . He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1837 , ranked 29th out of a class of 50 , and was commission ed a second lieutenant in the 1st U . S . Artillery . His initial assignment was in Florida fighting in the second of the Seminole Wars . He served in the Mexican - American War in staff positions in the campaigns of both Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott . He received brevet promotions for his staff leadership and gallantry in three battles : Monterrey ( to captain ) , National Bridge ( major ) , and Chapultepec ( lieutenant colonel ) . His future Army reputation as a ladies ' man began in Mexico , where local girls referred to him as the " Handsome Captain " . After the war , he served as assistant adjutant general of the Pacific Division , but resigned his commission in 1853 ; his military reputation had been damaged when he testified against his former commander , General Scott , in the court - martial for insubordination of Gideon Pillow . Hooker settled in Sonoma County , California , as a farmer and land developer , but was more devoted to gambling and liquor than to agriculture . His house still exists in the city of Sonoma . When living in Sonoma , he stood for election to represent the region in the California legislature but was defeated by James Bennett of Santa Rosa . He was obviously unhappy and unsuccessful in his civilian pursuits because , in 1858 , he wrote to Secretary of War John B . Floyd to request that his name " be presented to the president Buchanan as a candidate for a lieutenant colonelcy " , but nothing came of his request . From 1859 to 1861 , he held a commission as a colonel in the California militia . Civil War . At the start of the war , Hooker requested a commission , but his first application was rejected , possibly because of the lingering resentment harbored by Winfield Scott , general - in - chief of the Army . He had to borrow money to make the trip east from California . After he witnessed the Union Army defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run , he wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln that complained of military mismanagement , promoted his own qualifications , and again requested a commission . He was appointed , in August 1861 , as brigadier general of volunteers to rank from May 17 . He commanded a brigade and then division around Washington , D . C . , as part of the effort to organize and train the new Army of the Potomac , under Maj . Gen . George B . McClellan . 1862 . In the Peninsula Campaign of 1862 , Hooker commanded the 2nd Division of the III Corps and made a good name for himself as a combat leader who handled himself well and aggressively sought out the key points on battlefields . He distinguished himself at the Battle of Williamsburg ( as a result of which he was promoted to major general as of May 5 , 1862 ) and throughout the Seven Days Battles . He chafed at the cautious generalship of McClellan and openly criticized his failure to capture Richmond . Of his commander , Hooker said , " He is not only not a soldier , but he does not know what soldiership is . " The Peninsula cemented two further reputations of Hooker ' s : his devotion to the welfare and morale of his men , and his hard drinking social life , even on the battlefield . As McClellan ' s army retreated into inactivity , Hooker was transferred to Maj . Gen . John Pope ' s Army of Virginia . His division first served in its III Corps under Maj . Gen . Samuel P . Heintzelman , but Hooker assumed corps command ( III Corps of the Army of Virginia ) on September 6 , after the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run , a severe Union defeat . As Robert E . Lee ' s Army of Northern Virginia moved north into Maryland , Hooker ' s corps ( redesignated the I Corps on September 12 ) was returned to the Army of the Potomac , and he fought with distinction at South Mountain and Antietam . At Antietam , his corps launched the first assault of the bloodiest day in American history , driving south into the corps of Lt . Gen . Stonewall Jackson , where they fought each other to a standstill . Hooker , aggressive and inspiring to his men , left the battle early in the morning with a foot wound . He asserted that the battle would have been a decisive Union victory if he had managed to stay on the field , but General McClellan ' s caution once again failed the Northern troops and Lee ' s much smaller army eluded destruction . With his patience at an end , President Lincoln replaced McClellan with Maj . Gen . Ambrose Burnside . The December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg was another Union debacle . Upon recovering from his foot wound , Hooker was briefly made commander of V Corps , but was then promoted to " Grand Division " command , with a command that consisted of both III and V Corps . Hooker derided Burnside ' s plan to assault the fortified heights behind the city , deeming them " preposterous " . His Grand Division ( particularly V Corps ) suffered serious losses in fourteen futile assaults ordered by Burnside over Hooker ' s protests . Burnside followed up this battle with the humiliating Mud March in January and Hooker ' s criticism of his commander bordered on formal insubordination . He described Burnside as a " wretch . . . of blundering sacrifice . " Burnside planned a wholesale purge of his subordinates , including Hooker , and drafted an order for the president ' s approval . He stated that Hooker was " unfit to hold an important commission during a crisis like the present . " But Lincoln ' s patience had again run out and he removed Burnside instead . Army of the Potomac . The new commander of the Army of the Potomac , as of January 26 , 1863 , was Fighting Joe Hooker . Parts of the army saw this move as inevitable , given Hooker ' s reputation for aggressive fighting , something sorely lacking in his predecessors . During the " Mud March " Hooker was quoted by a " New York Times " army correspondent as saying that " Nothing would go right until we had a dictator , and the sooner the better . " Lincoln wrote a letter to the newly appointed general , part of which stated , During the spring of 1863 , Hooker established a reputation as an outstanding administrator and restored the morale of his soldiers , which had plummeted to a new low under Burnside . Among his changes were fixes to the daily diet of the troops , camp sanitary changes , improvements and accountability of the quartermaster system , addition of and monitoring of company cooks , several hospital reforms , and an improved furlough system ( one man per company by turn , 10 days each ) . Other orders addressed the need to stem rising desertion ( one from Lincoln combined with incoming mail review , the ability to shoot deserters , and better camp picket lines ) , more and better drills , stronger officer training , and for the first time , combining the federal cavalry into a single corps . Hooker said of his revived army : Also during this winter Hooker made several high - level command changes , including with his corps commanders . Both " Left Grand Division " commander Maj . Gen . William B . Franklin , who vowed that he would not serve under Hooker , and II Corps commander Maj . Gen . Edwin Vose Sumner were relieved of command , on Burnside ' s recommendation , in the same order appointing Hooker to command . The IX Corps was a potential source of embarrassment or friction within the army because it was Burnside ' s old corps , so it was detached as a separate organization and sent to the Virginia Peninsula under the command of Brig . Gen . William F . " Baldy " Smith , former commander of VI Corps . ( Both Franklin and Smith were considered suspect by Hooker because of their previous political maneuvering against Burnside and on behalf of McClellan . ) For the important position of chief of staff , Hooker asked the War Department to send him Brig . Gen . Charles Stone , however this was denied . Stone had been relieved , arrested , and imprisoned for his role in the Battle of Ball ' s Bluff in the fall of 1861 , despite the lack of any trial . Upon his release Stone would not receive a command , mostly due to political pressures , which left him militarily exiled and disgraced . Army of the Potomac historian and author Bruce Catton termed this request by Hooker " a strange and seemingly uncharacteristic thing " and " one of the most interesting things he ever did . " Hooker never explained why he asked for Stone , but Catton believed : Despite this , Fighting Joe would set a very bad example for the conduct of generals and their staffs and subordinates . His headquarters in Falmouth , Virginia , was described by cavalry officer Charles F . Adams , Jr . , as being a combination of a " bar - room and a brothel " . He built a network of loyal political cronies that included Maj . Gen . Dan Butterfield for chief of staff , and the notorious political general , Maj . Gen . Daniel E . Sickles , for command of the III Corps . Chancellorsville . Hooker ' s plan for the spring and summer campaign was both elegant and promising . He first planned to send his cavalry corps deep into the enemy ' s rear , disrupting supply lines and distracting him from the main attack . He would pin down Robert E . Lee ' s much smaller army at Fredericksburg , while taking the large bulk of the Army of the Potomac on a flanking march to strike Lee in his rear . Defeating Lee , he could move on to seize Richmond . Unfortunately for Hooker and the Union , the execution of his plan did not match the elegance of the plan itself . The cavalry raid was conducted cautiously by its commander , Brig . Gen . George Stoneman , and met none of its objectives . The flanking march went well enough , achieving strategic surprise , but Hooker somehow lost his nerve when the first reports of enemy contact reached him on May 1 , 1863 . Rather than pushing aggressively into Lee ' s rear , he pulled his army back around the tiny crossroads town of Chancellorsville and waited for Lee to attack . Lee audaciously split his smaller army in two to deal with both parts of Hooker ' s army . Then , he split again , sending Stonewall Jackson ' s corps on its own flanking march , striking Hooker ' s exposed right flank and routing the Union XI Corps . The Army of the Potomac dropped into a purely defensive mode and eventually was forced to retreat . The Battle of Chancellorsville has been called " Lee ' s perfect battle " because of his ability to vanquish a much larger foe through audacious tactics . Part of Hooker ' s failure can be attributed to a deadly encounter with a cannonball . While standing on the porch of his headquarters , the missile struck a wooden column the general was leaning against , knocking him senseless and putting him out of action for the rest of the day . Despite his incapacitation , he refused entreaties to turn over temporary command of the army to his second - in - command , Maj . Gen . Darius N . Couch . Several of his subordinate generals , including Couch and Maj . Gen . Henry W . Slocum , openly questioned Hooker ' s command decisions . Couch was so disgusted that he refused to ever serve under Hooker again . Political winds blew strongly in the following weeks as generals maneuvered to overthrow Hooker or to position themselves if Lincoln decided on his own to do so . Robert E . Lee once again began an invasion of the North , in June 1863 , and Lincoln urged Hooker to pursue and defeat him . Hooker ' s initial plan was to seize Richmond instead , but Lincoln immediately vetoed that idea , so the Army of the Potomac began to march north , attempting to locate Lee ' s Army of Northern Virginia as it slipped down the Shenandoah Valley into Pennsylvania . Hooker ' s mission was first to protect Washington , D . C . , and Baltimore and second to intercept and defeat Lee . Unfortunately , Lincoln was losing any remaining confidence he had in Hooker . When the general got into a dispute with Army headquarters over the status of defensive forces in Harpers Ferry , he impulsively offered his resignation in protest , which was quickly accepted by Lincoln and General - in - chief Henry W . Halleck . On June 28 , three days before the climactic Battle of Gettysburg , Hooker was replaced by Maj . Gen . George Meade . Hooker received the Thanks of Congress for his role at the start of the Gettysburg Campaign , but the glory would go to Meade . Western Theater . Hooker ' s military career was not ended by his poor performance in the summer of 1863 . He went on to regain a reputation as a solid commander when he was transferred with the XI and XII Corps of the Army of the Potomac westward to reinforce the Army of the Cumberland around Chattanooga , Tennessee . Hooker was in command at the Battle of Lookout Mountain , playing an important role in Lt . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant ' s decisive victory at the Battle of Chattanooga . He was brevetted to major general in the regular army for his success at Chattanooga , but he was disappointed to find that Grant ' s official report of the battle credited his friend William Tecumseh Sherman ' s contribution over Hooker ' s . Hooker led his corps ( now designated the XX Corps ) competently in the 1864 Atlanta Campaign under Sherman , but asked to be relieved before the capture of the city because of his dissatisfaction with the promotion of Maj . Gen . Oliver O . Howard to command of the Army of the Tennessee , upon the death of Maj . Gen . James B . McPherson . Not only did Hooker have seniority over Howard , but he also blamed Howard in large part for his defeat at Chancellorsville ( Howard had commanded the XI Corps , which had borne the brunt of Jackson ' s flank attack ) . Hooker ' s biographer reports that there were numerous stories indicating that Abraham Lincoln attempted to intercede with Sherman , urging that Hooker be appointed to command the Army of the Tennessee , but Sherman threatened to resign if the president insisted . However , due to " obvious gaps " in the Official Records , the story cannot be verified . After leaving Georgia , Hooker commanded the Northern Department ( comprising the states of Michigan , Ohio , Indiana , and Illinois ) , headquartered in Cincinnati , Ohio , from October 1 , 1864 , until the end of the war . While in Cincinnati he married Olivia Groesbeck , sister of Congressman William S . Groesbeck . Final years and legacy . After the war , Hooker led President Abraham Lincoln ' s Springfield funeral procession on May 4 , 1865 . His postbellum life was marred by poor health and he was partially paralyzed by a stroke . He was mustered out of the volunteer service on September 1 , 1866 , and retired from the U . S . Army on October 15 , 1868 , with the regular army rank of major general . He died on a visit to Garden City , New York , and is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery , Cincinnati , Ohio , his wife ' s home town . Hooker was popularly known as " Fighting Joe " Hooker , a nickname he regretted deeply ; he said , " People will think I am a highwayman or a bandit . " When a newspaper dispatch arrived in New York during the Peninsula Campaign , a typographical error changed an entry " Fighting — Joe Hooker Attacks Rebels " to remove the dash and the name stuck . Robert E . Lee occasionally referred to him as " Mr . F . J . Hooker " in a mildly sarcastic jab at his opponent . Hooker ' s reputation as a hard - drinking ladies ' man was established through rumors in the pre - Civil War Army and has been cited by a number of popular histories . Biographer Walter H . Hebert describe the general ' s personal habits as the " subject of much debate " although there was little debate in the popular opinion of the time . His men parodied Hooker in the popular war song " Marching Along " . The lines were replaced by Historian Stephen W . Sears , however , states that there is no basis to the claims that Hooker was either a heavy drinker , or that he was ever intoxicated on the battlefield . There is a popular legend that " hooker " as a slang term for a prostitute is derived from his last name because of parties and a lack of military discipline at his headquarters near the Murder Bay district of Washington , DC . Some versions of the legend claim that the band of prostitutes that followed his division were derisively referred to as " General Hooker ' s Army " or " Hooker ' s Brigade . " However , the term " hooker " was used in print as early as 1845 , years before Hooker was a public figure , and is likely derived from the concentration of prostitutes around the shipyards and ferry terminal of the Corlear ' s Hook area of Manhattan in the early to middle 19th century , who came to be referred to as " hookers " . The prevalence of the Hooker legend may have been at least partly responsible for the popularity of the term . There is some evidence that an area in Washington , DC , known for prostitution during the Civil War , was referred to as " Hooker ' s Division " . The name was shortened to " The Division " when he spent time there after First Bull Run guarding D . C . from incursion . There is an equestrian statue of General Hooker outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston , and Hooker County in Nebraska is named for him .