The War within the Union High Command: Politics and the Generalship during the Civil War (review)

By broadening the conceptual framework in which generalship is typically assessed, Thomas J. Goss effectively argues in The War within the Union High Command that the clash between professional (West Point) and political (amateur) generals represented a larger struggle over the very definition of effective generalship and the evolution of professionalism in the U.S. Army officer corps. In an effort to redefine the evaluation of Civil War generalship to include command performances above the operational levels, Goss argues that the Lincoln administration had different expectations for political generals and that they should be assessed within the context assigned them. Thus, whether Americans at the time fully understood the proper context in which to judge their Union generals, Goss would like us to reconsider their historic context, which might cause us to arrive at different conclusions about Civil War generalship.

Goss does a fine job of exploring the nature and definition of generalship in the Union and the role of professional and political generals in the Civil War. He analyzes the relationship between these generals and how the Northern populace came to perceive their abilities both positive and negative. He provides an insightful discussion of the role of military knowledge in the mid-nineteenth century, the need for political generals and regular officers in the war, the test of battle, and the politics of command. He identifies how and why Americans came to embrace the West Pointers like U. S. Grant and William T. Sherman as the commanders most likely to bring about Union victory, in part because they disassociated themselves from the policy issues too often connected to political generals.

In a final chapter Goss contends that the "demise of political generals in the upper ranks of the Union army demonstrated the triumph of the regulars' definition of generalship" (199). He also correctly argues that the "stereotypes of the Civil War generals may simply have reflected a division in public opinion over the nature of expertise, as American society wrestled with a transition from a faith in egalitarianism, the practical application of universal values, and individually based client relationship to an acceptance of emerging specialization, professional association, and occupational autonomy" (200). Here, Goss provides a point of departure for studying generalship itself,and had he expanded on the relationship between what the Northern populace came to believe about their highest-ranking commanders and what they were being told, for example, by the press, his work would have added something even more significant to Civil War scholarship.

Goss challenges the view that success should be measured only on the battlefield by demonstrating the significance of the overall context in which the war was fought. For Goss, political generals played vital roles in the war in helping sustain the overall political goals associated with winning the war as well as those involved in keeping the Republican party in power. By examining these generals in a broader context, and rejecting what was an unfair comparison of professional and political generals stemming purely from the battlefield yardstick, Goss revises opinion of a number of generals who have been popular targets for criticism—Benjamin Butler, Nathaniel Banks, and even Franz Sigel.

To measure Civil War generalship, Goss combines the long-term political and military goals of the Union government and the assigned roles of political generals in this national strategy. Only when one considers the social, ethnic, political, cultural,and military significance of generals in the overall scheme of the war can one fully consider the ultimate success or failure of generals. Would that Americans in the North during the Civil War considered these larger implications when assigning negative epitaphs to certain commanders, historians might not have to do it for them.

For a subject that has received a wealth of attention over the last century, Goss has managed to add something new and engaging by producing thoughtful...