Major-General Joseph Hooker began his reorganization of the Army of the Potomac by issuing General Order Number 6. This declared that former commander Ambrose E. Burnside’s “Grand Division” structure was “impeding rather than facilitating the dispatch of its current business.” He therefore replaced it with a traditional nine-corps organization:
- Major-General John F. Reynolds commanded the First Corps
- Major-General Darius N. Couch commanded the Second Corps
- Major-General Daniel E. Sickles commanded the Third Corps
- Major-General George G. Meade commanded the Fifth Corps
- Major-General John Sedgwick commanded the Sixth Corps
- Major-General William F. “Baldy” Smith commanded the Ninth Corps
- Major-General Franz Sigel commanded the Eleventh Corps
- Major-General Henry W. Slocum commanded the Twelfth Corps
- Major-General George Stoneman commanded the new Cavalry Corps
The Fourth Corps was stationed at Fort Monroe, on the Virginia Peninsula between the York and James rivers, detached from the Army of the Potomac. The Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth corps were also detached. Hooker arranged for the Ninth Corps, which had been Burnside’s, to join the Fourth at Fort Monroe. He also arranged for Baldy Smith to command that corps; Smith had been one of the conspirators against Burnside, and Hooker did not want Smith to do the same to him.
For the first time, the Potomac army’s cavalry would be combined into a single unit; previously it had been scattered among the various divisions, brigades, and regiments, making it difficult for commanders to concentrate their horsemen against the swarming Confederate troopers. Stoneman would command the corps’ three divisions, in which were two brigades each. Hooker envisioned using Stoneman just as Robert E. Lee used Jeb Stuart in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Hooker did the opposite for the artillery, dispersing the batteries throughout the corps, divisions, and brigades as needed.
Regarding his staff, Hooker submitted a request to the War Department: “It will be a great happiness to me to have Brig. Gen. Stone ordered to report as chief of staff.” Charles P. Stone had been the first officer to defend Washington when the southern states began to secede. But then he had been blamed for the Federal disaster at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, and was subsequently imprisoned for alleged sympathy with the enemy.
Many believed that Stone had been falsely accused, and Hooker, who had known Stone for years, respected his abilities and wanted him to be reinstated. But Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton would have none of it. He replied that Hooker’s request would be deemed “not considered for the interests of the service.” Stone, who never had any formal charges levied against him while imprisoned for nearly six months, would continue to be banished.
Hooker instead selected Brigadier-General Daniel Butterfield for chief of staff. Butterfield’s father had founded the Butterfield Overland Mail Company, and Butterfield himself was best known for having composed the bugle call “Taps” at Harrison’s Landing in 1862. This song was a slight modification of the “Tattoo” composed by General Winfield Scott in 1835.
General Sickles, commanding the Third Corps, soon joined Butterfield as one of Hooker’s closest advisors. Statesman Charles Francis Adams alleged that “all three were men of blemished character.” General Meade seemed to agree, as he wrote to his wife of Hooker, “I do not like his entourage” because Butterfield and Sickles “are not the persons I should select as my intimates.”
Nevertheless, Hooker worked hard to improve the quality of life in the army. By this time, morale had sunk to a new low as the desertion rate reached 10 percent. Hooker responded by appointing inspectors-general who supervised improvements in sanitation, health care, food, clothing, shelter, and discipline.
Regarding food, Hooker declared, “My men shall be fed before I am fed, and before any of my officers are fed,” and then he went about enforcing it. Each company was required to have a designated cook, and fresh bread, meat, and vegetables were issued more often. A soldier observed:
“From the commissary came less whisky for the officers and better rations, including vegetables, for the men. Hospitals were renovated, new ones built, drunken surgeons discharged, sanitary supplies furnished, and the sick no longer left to suffer and die without proper care and attention. Officers and men who from incompetence or disability could be of no further use to the service were allowed to resign or were discharged, and those who were playing sick in the hospitals were sent to their regiments for duty.”
These new measures caused the rate of illness to plummet, and did much to diminish “all the more serious diseases to which troops in camp are liable, and especially those which depend upon neglect of sanitary precautions.”
In addition, Hooker cracked down on corruption in the quartermaster’s department, saw to it that soldiers received their back pay, and granted furloughs to discourage desertion. Bounties and cavalry patrols added more discouragement. These changes made such an improvement that Hooker was able to confidently write on February 6 that “desertions from this army are now at an end, or nearly so…”
Another morale booster proved to be Butterfield’s idea that all troops wear badges signifying the corps to which they belonged. This was similar to the “Kearny” patches that Major-General Philip Kearny had his men wear to better identify themselves during the Peninsula campaign. Each corps had its own badge shape, and the colors indicated the division numbers (i.e., red was the first division of the corps, white was the second, blue was the third, etc.). The badges were sewn onto the men’s caps, and they helped instill a new sense of pride in their fighting units.
Bibliography
- Catton, Bruce, The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1952.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Goolrick, William K., Rebels Resurgent: Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
- Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
- McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition), 1988.
- Sears, Stephen W., Chancellorsville. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books, (Kindle Edition), 1996.
- Sears, Stephen W., Lincoln’s Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books, (Kindle Edition), 2017.