Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/137

 between you and me was all owing to Howard's riding away from his command.” “General,” I answered—I fear somewhat coldly—“I do not see what Howard's riding away could have had to do with our quarrel.” Some other guest intervening, there our conversation stopped.

General Hooker proved himself a brilliant corps commander on many a battlefield. His “battle above the clouds,” although by no means the hardest of his fights, has won a shining place in history. His competency as a commander of a large army was very seriously put in doubt by his amazing failure at Chancellorsville. It was in a large measure the infirmities of his character that stood in his way, impeding, if not altogether preventing, hearty co-operation between him and his comrades. He had, deservedly, the reputation of an envious critic and backbiter, running down other persons' merit to extol his own. He did not spare the best. In a curious letter of December, 1863, addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, in which he gave a somewhat sarcastic account of what he considered an insidious attempt by Grant to deprive him of his due part in the battle of Missionary Ridge, to the advantage of Sherman, he said of that general: “Sherman is an energetic and active officer, but in my judgment is as infirm as Burnside. He will never be successful. Please remember what I tell you.” The feeling called forth by such things among the high officers of the army can well be imagined. When in September, 1863, General Slocum, as commander of the Twelfth Corps, being put under the orders of General Hooker, protested against the arrangement on the ground that “he had no confidence in General Hooker as an officer, and no respect for him as a man,” he spoke the mind of many of his comrades. Subsequently, on Sherman's “march to the sea,” Hooker found himself compelled to ask to be relieved