Joseph Hooker: California Hay, Army Reforms and a Cannonball Concussion

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Joseph Hooker, born in Massachusetts in 1814, graduated 29th of 50 at West Point and won three brevets in the Mexican War, then alienated Winfield Scott by testifying for Gideon Pillow in 1848. In Gold Rush California he bought up hay and sold it to the Army at a 100 percent markup; prosecutor Henry Halleck had the evidence, but no rule forbade it, and Hooker resigned. Broke and failing at farming in Sonoma, he borrowed $1,000 to go east in 1861, wrote directly to Lincoln after First Bull Run, and won a general's commission. He opened the fighting at Antietam, criticized McClellan and Burnside, and in 1863 received command of the Army of the Potomac with Lincoln's famous letter about dictators.

Hooker then rebuilt the army with fresh bread and desiccated vegetables, baths, a furlough lottery, corps badges, and the Bureau of Military Information. At Chancellorsville, after Lee divided his army and Jackson struck his flank, a solid shot hit the pillar Hooker was leaning on, knocking him unconscious; he refused to give up command. He resigned just before Gettysburg, fought at Lookout Mountain, and quit again in 1864 when Sherman promoted Oliver Howard over him.

Women in Mexico reportedly called him the handsome captain.
He asked for disgraced General Charles Stone as his chief of staff, a request the government denied.
Darius Couch requested a transfer rather than serve under Hooker again after Chancellorsville.
The nickname Fighting Joe came from a newspaper dispatch that dropped a dash, and Lee mocked him as Mr. F. J. Hooker.
The slang term hooker appears in print by 1845 and is tied to Corlears Hook in Manhattan, not to him.

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