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ARISTOTLE IN BLUE AND BRAID: General John M. Schofield's Essays on Reconstruction Edited by James E. Sefton Largely because of sheer will power on the part of Middle Period historians, April 1865 has been thought of as ushering in the era of "Reconstruction ," or as it was more aptly called at the time, "restoration." Of course, the process of restoring southerners to their loyalty and southern states to their normal federal relations had begun early in the conflict. The guidelines, both constitutional and practical, had been ha2y during the war; and although the surrender of Lee altered one major element of the problem, it did little to clarify basic philosophical questions. Everyone had a plan. Some—like the speeches of Senator Charles Sumner—were abstruse treatises which juxtaposed quotations from Roman sages with makeshift constitutional law. Some—like the editorials in northern papers—were sprightly commentaries on what others had suggested. Some—like the letters President Andrew Johnson received from common citizens—were emotional outbursts onto which some rudimentary suggestions for action had been grafted. Between 1865 and 1867 confusion in the national councils over reconstruction reached its highest point with the protracted struggle for hegemony between Johnson and Congress. The political rhetoric of howto -do-it and the political action of who-should-do-it increased both in volume and intensity. As would be expected, political figures filled reams of paper on the subject. However, the army officers who as agents of the federal government were administering Reconstruction in the South wrote much less than historians would wish. Their expressions were usually confined to infrequent letters to friends or fellow officers, and to brief chapters in memoirs. For this reason the two essays by General John M. Schofield, printed here in their entirety for the first time, are unique. Schofield was a West Pointer, class of 1853, whose military career brought him various honors. He began his wartime service as an officer in the 1st Missouri Artillery and chief of staff to General Nathaniel Lyon. The winter of 1861 saw him achieve flag rank in the Volunteers, and for the first years of the war his service was largely in Missouri. He commanded the Army of the Ohio under Sherman during most of 1864 and found himself commanding the Department of North Carolina 45 46CIVIL WAR HISTORY at the time of the surrender. He remained in North Carolina for two months and then, following detached service elsewhere, returned to the South as an occupation commander in the summer of 1866. His new duty station was Richmond, where he remained until called to Washington in the summer of 1868 to be Secretary of War. His later posts included the commands at San Francisco and St. Louis, and the superintendency of West Point. In 1892 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his part in the 1861 engagement at Wilson's Creek. He retired as Lieutenant General in 1895, having served as Commanding General of the Army under Presidents Harrison and Cleveland .1 As a Reconstruction commander Schofield was a "moderate." Hc seemed to know how to be authoritative yet not authoritarian, decisive yet not despotic. Congressional policy as set forth in the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 left a good deal to the discretion of commanding generals. Schofield's methods in carrying out that policy evoked less resistance and contumely than did those employed for the same purpose by Philip Sheridan and John Pope in the deep South. Probably the most striking action of Schofield's tenure in Virginia was his refusal in 1868 to appropriate funds for an election to ratify the new state constitution. Congress had authorized the election but had not provided the money, thus leaving the state treasury, which was under Schofield's control, as the only possible source of revenue. Schofield considered the document a very poor piece of work and declined to spend the people's money on an election. He therefore threw the matter back into the lap of Congress, which, when it finally acted, followed Schofield's suggestions .2 The essays reprinted here were not the earliest expression of Schofield 's views on restoration. In May 1865 a letter to...

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