Hooker's Bridge

Hooker's Bridge

Hooker's Bridge is a Civil War historical fiction novel based on fact about building a pontoon bridge across the Ohio River in Cincinnati. Prior to the Civil War there was no bridge over the river at Cincinnati, which was the 7th largest city in the country then. It was the major food processing, manufacturing center and transportation hub in the mid-west. Products from the western states came in by canal boats and railroads. The product was then off-loaded onto wagons and taken to be transferred onto steamboats that took it right across the river to Kentucky to again be put back onto wagons and taken and loaded onto trains to be sent south and east to support the Union Army war effort. This was very time consuming and a bottleneck.

The Confederate Army was marching and fighting its way north thru Kentucky with the intention of attacking Cincinnati to interrupt its shipping capability. The Union Central Command learned of their plan and decided a temporary pontoon bridge would facilitate a more rapid and easier shipping procedure to supply troops and goods required by the Union Army in the fighting in the south.

Union General Joseph Hooker was assigned to the Northern Department Headquarters as Commander in Cincinnati to oversee the building of the bridge and the setting up of a defensive position to repel any attack effort by the rebels. General Hooker had been very successful in his command positions. He got along quite well with his staff and men but he was rather critical of his commanders. There were complaints he drank too much and his Headquarters were rather loose and undisciplined. This novel tells the story of the building of the bridge and the multiple characters and how they fit together in achieving building the bridge and living life in this very interesting time in the history of our country that resulted in a most important achievement in helping to preserve the Union.