“A Brain the Size of a Hickory Nut”: Joe Hooker’s views about Ambrose Burnside – Darin Wipperman

Join the Antietam Institute on June 22 for returning speaker and author, Darin Wipperman. In addition to his Confederate opponents, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s nickname of “Fighting Joe” applied to his relationships with many of his fellow Northern generals. Perhaps no Union officer felt the scorn of Hooker more than Ambrose Burnside. This presentation focuses on their schisms during the Maryland campaign, as illustrated in multiple battle reports. The notes Hooker left on his unfinished Antietam report – in his papers at the Huntington Library in California – offer especially negative thoughts of Burnside, sometimes at the expense of the truth. Fredericksburg and Burnside’s final weeks of army command in early 1863 brought his relationship with Fighting Joe to its lowest ebb. Late in life, Hooker declared Burnside had “a brain the size of the hickory nut.”
Darin Wipperman’s first two books on the Civil War discussed the histories of the First and Ninth Corps. His most recent book, Thunderbolt to the Rebels: The United States Sharpshooters in the Civil War, was released in February 2025. Darin completed nearly 17 years of service in the federal government, then moved to northern New Hampshire, where he was a reporter and editor for weekly newspapers. This 2026 presentation will be Darin’s seventh for the Summer Lecture Series in Sharpsburg. Darin’s biography of Joseph Hooker, the first new book to cover the general’s entire life published in more than eighty years, will be released later in 2026. He lives with his wife on a large forested parcel in northern New Hampshire.
Come join leading historians and scholars as they discuss intriguing topics about their latest works and research on the Maryland Campaign and the Civil War during the Antietam Institute’s Civil War Summer Lecture Series. See the complete 2026 schedule. These indoor programs are held in McKinley Hall at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Monday evenings at 7:00 p.m. The church is located at 209W Main Street with a small parking area off the alley.