Only Those Generals who Gain Successes

The story

In January 1863, Lincoln gave Joseph Hooker command of the Army of the Potomac in a letter that almost sounds like a banker stating an account. He first lists Hooker’s demonstrated qualities of bravery, skill, confidence, ambition “within reasonable bounds.” Then he lists his shortcomings: that Hooker had worked against his previous commander and had been heard saying the army and the government needed a dictator. In his truly unique way, Lincoln succinctly provided both a reprimand and some guidance: “Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.”

How we see it through leadership economics

By January 1863, Lincoln had already been through two commanders of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan had spent more than a year building and training the army, but he was reluctant to commit it to battle. After McClellan, Burnside was given charge of the army, and his frontal attack at Fredericksburg that December cost more than twelve thousand men. Lincoln was looking for a general who would be willing to attack, but who would also take prudent risks. Based on the information he had, Hooker appeared to be that general. He had fought well at Antietam and at Fredericksburg, and the newspapers had taken to calling him “Fighting Joe.” He had, however, become a vocal critic. He argued with Burnside against the Fredericksburg plan, and afterward went on to tell what seems to have been everyone who would listen that the plan had been a mistake. He said as much to newspaper reporters and to a congressional committee, and somewhere in that period he was heard to say that the army and the government both needed a dictator.

Lincoln knew all of this and even said so in his letter. The lines quoted above are the core of the message, but two others help fill out the picture. Lincoln tells Hooker that the spirit of criticizing commanders, which Hooker had helped spread through the army, “will now turn upon you,” and that neither Hooker nor Napoleon could get any good out of an army in that condition. He then closes with an instruction that touches on both imprudent risks as well as timidity: “beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.”

The letter tells Hooker plainly what Lincoln wants from him, and it connects that request to what Hooker wants for himself. Hooker wanted the command, and now he had it. He wanted his criticism of Burnside taken seriously, and Lincoln does take it seriously, though not in the way Hooker would have liked: he calls it a great wrong to an honorable officer and gives Hooker the command in spite of it. He wanted a say in how the war was run, and Lincoln tells him how a general earns that right: he must win. The sentence about the dictatorship does not scold Hooker’s ambition or ask him to give it up. Instead, it shows him that everything he is after runs through the same act Lincoln needs from him, which is to fight and win.

This is how we understand the problem of Motivation. Motivating someone begins with understanding what that person is pursuing in life and what they believe is valuable. Lincoln did not try to change Hooker, and he did not offer a reward beyond the command Hooker already had or threaten to take it away. Instead, he described the man accurately (strengths and faults together) and then showed him that his own ambitions and the country’s needs pointed in the same direction. That is why the letter is both a reprimand and a vote of confidence at the same time, and it may be why Hooker, by one account, said that he loved the man who wrote it.

A quote we’re thinking about

Faithful are the wounds of a friend.

Proverbs 27:6, King James Version