THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
day of the battle, standing on the porch of the Chancellor house, he was struck by a wooden pillar as it fell, knocked down by a cannon ball. For an hour he was senseless, and then recovered. But before and after the accident his mental operations seemed to be equally loose and confused. I have spoken of some curious psychological puzzles presented by the conduct of some commanders in this battle. There was Hooker, “Fighting Joe,” literally spoiling for the conflict, and having successfully initiated an emphatically offensive campaign, suddenly losing all his enterprise and dash, as soon as he came into the presence of the enemy, and dropping into a tame defensive which utterly dampened the morale of his army. On the 2d of May, he warned Slocum and Howard of Jackson's dangerous movement on our right flank, and then, on the very same evening, he indulged in the preposterous delusion that Lee and Jackson were retreating on a road parallel to our front; on the 3d of May, he permitted himself to be pounded by the Confederates wherever they chose, from one position into another, and to be literally cooped up in his entrenchments by a greatly inferior force without making any effort to bring into action some 35,000 to 40,000 men of his own who had hardly fired a shot, and stood substantially idle all the time; and finally, he knew nothing better than to recross the Rappahannock and to say that, really, he had not fought any battle because one-half of his army had not been under fire—although he had lost over 17,000 men.
There has been much speculation as to whether those who accused General Hooker of having been intoxicated during the battle of Chancellorsville, were right or wrong. The weight of the testimony of competent witnesses is strongly against this theory. It is asserted, on the other hand, that he was accustomed to the consumption of a certain quantity of whiskey every day;
[ 430 ]
