When we last saw Gentle Annie, she was leaving the courtroom in the arms of a man she claimed to be her first husband, David Kellogg. She had just secured a divorce from James Etheridge.
Who was this person selling themselves as David Kellogg? That will probably never be fully determined; however, two years later, Annie married again, this time to the Union veteran Charles E. Hooks. Hooks, like his new wife, and unlike her previous two husbands, was a legitimate Civil War hero. He had enlisted in the 7th Connecticut Infantry right as it was mustered in the late summer of 1861, then headed south. For his first year there, his duties were not too exciting. That would change on June 16, 1861, when the regiment and five others were ordered to attack Charleston, South Carolina. In what became known as the Battle of Secessionville, the Union Army was stopped, and was forced to retreat from James Island, just south of the city.
During the attack, Hooks was wounded and captured. While later sources disagree on which limb he lost, all agreed that he had lost an arm or a leg in the fight. He returned north, and was discharged early the following year. He would later rejoin the army, in the Veteran Reserve Corps.
When the two married, both were working for the US government, she at the Treasury, he as a watchman at the Navy Yard. Unfortunately, rules at the time forbade two members of the same family from working for the state, and so Annie lost her job. While there were some attempts over the next ten years to get her job back, they failed. However, in 1887, she was granted a pension of 25 dollars a month, though even this did not come without a fight, requiring Hooks to write an acerbic letter stating that not only had she never received the pay that she should have, but she had been forced to spend her own money to keep herself going while working to help the troops.
During this time, both Hooks were active in the Grand Army of the Republic, meeting with old comrades-in-arms to relive the old days. They lived in a small house on Capitol Hill, at 115 Sixth Street SE. Charles Hooks would die in 1910, allowing Annie Hooks to resume her job at the Treasury. She would have to give that job up after a year or two, due to health issues. She would pass away on January 23, 1913, and be buried next to her husband in Arlington Cemetery.
The story does not quite end here, because “gentle” Annie again showed another side of her character in her will. Along with a number of bequests, both to people and organizations, ranging from $100 to $600, as well as the residue to be left to the Sacred Heart Church, she added:
Since the death of my dear husband, I have been obliged to live alone and care for myself as best I can. My sister, nieces and nephews hereinafter named in this Item have never visited me or shown me any kindness or consideration, and therefore do not deserve any consideration and cannot expect anything at my hands, and therefore, in evidence of the fact that at the date of this my Will I am mindful of their existence, I make the following bequests unto them, namely:
There followed five names, each of whom was to receive “the sum of One Dollar ($1.)”