. Men and things I saw in civil war days . ral Hooker was then in the prime of manhood,with steel-blue eyes, sandy hair, and clear-cut features-well set-up, but not corpulent—about six feet high; sol-dierly in his bearing and movements, and the beau idealof a division commander. His talk was brilliant and in-cisive, and instinctively he impressed all who came incontact with him as an ofificer who knew zvhat to do andhow to do it, and confident of accomplishing it. I wellremember his first inspection of our brigade, and howthoroughlv he overhauled us. It was on a bright Sundaymorning in Decembe
. Men and things I saw in civil war days . ral Hooker was then in the prime of manhood,with steel-blue eyes, sandy hair, and clear-cut features-well set-up, but not corpulent—about six feet high; sol-dierly in his bearing and movements, and the beau idealof a division commander. His talk was brilliant and in-cisive, and instinctively he impressed all who came incontact with him as an ofificer who knew zvhat to do andhow to do it, and confident of accomplishing it. I wellremember his first inspection of our brigade, and howthoroughlv he overhauled us. It was on a bright Sundaymorning in December, 1861, at Rum Point, Md., op-posite the Confederate batteries at Cockpit Point, as he went through us, regiment by regiment,there did not seem to be a defect in a uniform or gun or 1knapsack or mule team, that his eagle eye did not de-tect, nor a well set-up officer or soldier that he did not Icompliment and praise. He was a West Pointer: he had distinguished himselfin Mexico; and it was fair to expect great things of him 52 .1. Gen. Joseph Hooker^ 1863. I Joseph Hooker in the future. The winter of 1861-62 he devoted to drilland discipline—everybody had to toe the mark—andto winning the confidence and affection of his officersand men; and it is safe to say, that when we landed on thePeninsula in the spring of 1862, there was no finer di-vision in the Army of the Potomac. It approved itselfat Williamsburg in May, where it received its baptismof fire.^ It distinguished itself at Fair Oaks in June,where it helped greatly to save the day. It marchedand fought like a Macedonian phalanx or a Roman le-gion, with bent brow and firm front, in the memorableSeven Days Battle from front of Richmond to JamesRiver, in June and July, 1862. Indeed, in all the Penin-sula campaign, there was no hard marching or heavyfighting that Hooker did not participate in, and every-body felt that, whatever else happened, his division atleast was sure to be bravely and skillfully
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectgenerals, bookyear189
