Monday Morning History Lesson

Whenever I read about the Civil War Amieable always says, “I can tell you who won.”

So it may be a little early for this, but I can’t help beginning to put the Paul Wulff era in its historical context as its end seems all but inevitable. As a history buff, I am constantly comparing contemporary events to the monumental historical occurrences that have shaped our times. For example, just the other day I compared Amieable’s and my repeated attempts to find a good local grocery store to the search for a Northwest Passage. While we failed to find the one single store that meets all our needs, our adventures did yield many other important discoveries. See how that works? Those of you familiar with this exercise will understand that this means comparing Coach Wulff to an appropriate Civil War general, right? Dear readers, let me tell you… we have a match! Let me introduce you to General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker.

General “Fighting Joe” Hooker – Hero? Scapegoat? Blundering Dolt? It’s complicated.

Read on for more…

General Hooker begged and bartered his way into a commission at the start of the Civil War, but quickly established himself as a competent combat leader in a number of engagements where he commanded large units, but not as large as an entire army. By 1863 the monstrous Union Army of the Potomac was in disarray losing one battle after another to the smaller, outgunned, outmanned Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E Lee. President Lincoln lost patience with his General, Ambrose Burnside and replaced him with the up-and-coming General Joe Hooker. There was a lot of contention associated with this move and people openly grumbled about whether this guy was ready for the big time, but General Hooker was not scared of the task ahead of him and despite being up against the most formidable General on the planet at the time he said:

“God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none.”

WHOA, those is fightin words! Of course, before he could unleash this merciless destruction on Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, “Fightin Joe” had a lot of work to do off the battlefield. Sound familiar? Basically he inherited an army that was doing none of the little things in training, logistics, and organization that it took to be ready when it was time to lineup and face the enemy. Under Hooker, everything about the Army of the Potomac was re-vamped, from training for both officers and men, to the food and sanitation in their camps, and even the hospitals. Before long morale was up, discipline was restored, desertions were down and the Army of the Potomac was a lean, mean fighting machine.

But of course, all the off field improvements in the world wouldn’t matter unless they resulted in a good ‘ol fashioned whoopin laid down on the Rebs, and after years of humiliating defeats, the Northerners were getting restless. So this shiny new army marched off after Bobby Lee and a showdown to prove they were, as their general promised, a force to be reckoned with. They marched right on down to a place called Chancellorsville and this is what happened…

Burying the Union dead at Chancellorsville.

The Union was left with lots of questions to answer and even more holes to dig for all their dead. There is no doubt that the Army that faced Lee at Chancellorsville was much improved over the army he had spent the previous years beating like a drum and it took perhaps his most masterful strategizing of his career to win a decisive victory. But that was little comfort to the Union who had been promised big results and once again found themselves retreating from Confederate territory and leaving a lot of their soldiers behind as fertilizer.

Chancellorsville spelled the beginning of the end for Joe Hooker and before long he was sacked just like his predocessor and replaced with General Meade. Well it turns out that a little over two weeks into his new job General Meade took the army that Fightin’ Joe had worked so hard to whip into shape, and accidently ran into Robert E Lee at a little town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg. What happened next has a lot to do with why you and I don’t need a passport to travel to Atlanta today. For the first time the Army of Northern Virginia ran into an Army of the Potomac that stood its ground and fought like Honey Badgers with rabies. Unable to break the Union lines and after the particularly spectacular failure of Pickett’s Charge, the Army of Northern Virginia was forced to high tail it back where they came from and they spent the rest of the war in retreat. What a fortuitous turn of events for General Meade! This virtual nobody, just two weeks into the job was now and forever the General who finally beat Lee! I’m sure Fightin’ Joe was more than a little perturbed.

So you can probably understand why I think Paul Wulff is the Cougar Nations Fightin’ Joe Hooker. The parallels are almost uncanny. Wulff inherited a team that was rotten from the inside out and he proceeded to completely revamp it off the field, from strength training and nutrition, to recruiting, discipline and academics. However when the time came for all these improvements to come together and result in victory, he just wasn’t able to pull it off. In an environment where patience is non-existent, and the time for results is long overdue, you just aren’t going to get credit for anything but the end result. That’s too bad, because I believe somebody is going to get credit for success that is the result of Wulff’s hard work. I just hope we can recognize that we are in a very different place than we were in 2008 and it took a lot of blood sweat and tears to get here… sacrifices that are now likely to go un-credited.