Or the Joe Hooker entrance to the Massachusetts State House, anyways. In a further illustration of the descent of the US into PC madness, MA State Rep. Michelle DuBois (D-Plymouth) is calling for the removal of a sign designating one entrance of the State House as the General Hooker Entrance because it is an “affront ‘to women’s dignity.'”
Oh please. Fightin’ Joe’s last name has been a source of much tittering over the years. (Tittering–can I say that? Or will that trigger Mizz DuBois too?) Some have claimed that his name inspired the slang for “prostitute” but that has long been disproven. Yes, Joe’s moral character was rather dubious, but hardly that bad.
Why did Massachusetts honor Hooker with a statue, and emblazon the entrance to the State House facing said statue with his name? Well, Hooker’s Civil War record was largely creditable, with a few exceptions. He was a very solid division and corps commander, both in the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the Cumberland. His rejuvenation, reorganization, and reform of the Army of the Potomac after the disaster and deep demoralization of the Burnside era was truly remarkable, and laid the foundation for the Army’s eventual triumph.
Hooker’s initial moves in the Chancellorsville Campaign were excellent, and seriously wrong-footed Lee. Then, as Hooker himself said, Joe Hooker “lost confidence in Joe Hooker.” Rather than pushing out of The Wilderness, he stopped his advance and left the initiative to Lee. Lee launched Jackson against Hooker’s right flank, which Oliver Otis “Uh-oh” Howard failed to post properly. Even after Jackson’s stunning flank attack, Hooker could have prevailed, but he made some fatal errors (notably ordering Sickles to withdraw from Hazel Grove, thereby gifting the Confederates with an artillery position that dominated the Union lines, and then withdrawing from an extremely strong position that Lee could not have possibly driven him from) and eventually slunk away from the battlefield.
Ironically, given the location of his statue, Hooker’s biggest flaw was politics. He was an inveterate schemer who attempted to advance himself by pulling down his superiors, in part by saying nasty things about them to politicians.
But all in all, Hooker’s accomplishments were not undeserving of memorialization by his native state. Who else would Massachusetts so honor? Its other sons who reached army command–Ben Butler and Nathaniel P. Banks–were serial disasters as commanders, and only reached and retained their elevated positions because they were prominent Massachusetts politicians. For all his flaws, Hooker far outshone them. (The other Civil War general to have a statue on the State House grounds, Charles Devens, was a rather undistinguished division commander–including ironically in Howard’s XI Corps at Chancellorsville–whose post-war career that culminated in his service as Attorney General in the Hayes administration was actually much more impressive than his war service.)
But service and achievement in America’s greatest historical episode is irrelevant to twits (that’s with an “i”, people) like Rep. DuBois. Their sensitive feelings must come first, history be damned.
This is yet another example of iconoclasm as an assertion of power by those with an agenda. Hooker fought against slavery, and was indeed closely aligned with the Radical Republicans. Perhaps that was merely political opportunism on Hooker’s part, but it definitely went against the grain in the high command of the Army of the Potomac, which was adamantly opposed to waging war on slavery. You’d think that would win Joe some plaudits from Mizz DuBois–but no! His name is an affront to her dignity, and what’s more important than that?
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