General Burnside was relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac, and was succeeded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker on January 24th. The announcement of Hooker's appointment was hailed with delight by the officers and men of our (Birney's) division, where his valor and ability were well known. He was one of the original division commanders of our (3d) corps. We looked on him as a man of the same stamp as the former commander of our division, the lamented Kearny. The divisions of Hooker and Kearny had fought side by side on the Peninsula and second Bull Run campaigns, where they acquired renown and honor. The appointment of Hooker was soon marked by an improvement in the commissary department and in the drill and discipline of the army.
Soon after the battle of Fredericksburg certain evil-disposed newspapers and persons at the North were loud in their assertions that the Army of the Potomac was tired of the war, and demoralized, and circulated reports derogatory to the character of that army. To confute such reports, and to denounce those with whom they originated, a meeting of the officers and men of the 57th was held on February 26th, at which resolutions were adopted denouncing as false the calumnious reports circulated concerning the army. One of the resolutions declared that the 57th would sustain the government in the future as in the past, a resolution which was made good in the following December by three-fourths of the regiment re-enlisting for three years. Our regiment was the first to adopt resolutions of this nature which were ordered to be published in the newspapers in the counties in which the regiment was raised. Our example was followed by many of the regiments of the army.
Camp Pitcher, with its many pleasant and some unpleasant associations, was abandoned on March 4th, when we moved about four miles and laid out a new camp about a mile from the Potomac creek bridge.
On the same day our regiment was reassigned to the First Brigade, commanded by Colonel Collis, who was succeeded a few days afterward by Gen. Charles K. Graham. The brigade consisted of the following named Pennsylvania regiments: 57th, Colonel Sides; 63d, Colonel Kirkwood; 68th, Colonel Tippen; 105th, Colonel McKnight; 114th, Colonel Collis; and 141st, Colonel Madill. Lieut-Colonel Sides, formerly captain of Company A, of the 57th, returned to the regiment on the field at Fredericksburg, and took command after Colonel Campbell was wounded. The latter had been promoted brigadier general, and when able for duty was assigned to the Army of the Northwest, where the Indians of Minnesota and Dakota were on the warpath and committing great depredations. Campbell had wished to be assigned to a command in the Army of the Potomac, and did not like to be sent West. About this time a friend of writer, J. T. Chase, of Titusville, Pa., met Campbell in Harrisburg, and reported him as saying: "The rebels tried their damnedest to kill me at Fair Oaks and Fredericksburg, and now I'm to be sent out West to be scalped by the Indians." The 57th were much attached to Campbell and nothing would have pleased them more than to serve in a brigade commanded by him.