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 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 it's way north thru Kentucky with the intension of attacking Cincinnati to interrupt it's shipping capability. The Union Central Command learned of their plan and decided a temporary pontoon bridge would facilitate a more rapid and easier supply of troops and goods required by the Union Army in the fighting in the south.
General Joseph Hooker was assigned to achieve this important vital effort to help preserve the Union in the Civil War. Hooker drank a lot and ran a loose Headquarters.