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  • John M. Schofield and the Politics of Generalship
  • David J. Fitzpatrick
John M. Schofield and the Politics of Generalship. By Donald B. Connelly. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8078-3007-9. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xiv, 471. $49.95.

In the introduction to John M. Schofield and the Politics of Generalship, Don Connelly tells the reader that he hopes the book "will contribute to a greater understanding of the dynamics of American civil-military relations" (p. xiii). The book accomplishes this, and much more.

For those for whom the Civil War consists simply of a series of battles and campaigns that ultimately led to Union victory, John Schofield's sudden appearance as an army commander in Sherman's Atlanta campaign seems inexplicable. A relatively junior officer (West Point, 1853) with little prior combat experience, Schofield's promotion can be explained only by the political connections he developed while serving in Missouri early in the conflict. There, as Connelly makes clear, Schofield found himself battered by politicians and by his fellow officers regarding how to handle the state's deep divisions. Those who wanted to prosecute a "hard war" found Schofield to be a Confederate sympathizer; those who advocated leniency thought him far too harsh. But his success in Missouri can be measured by those who were impressed by his accomplishments there: Lincoln, Halleck, Grant, and Sherman, among others. This taste of political battle, Connelly argues, served Schofield well in the postwar Army.

The chapters that address Schofield's contributions to the campaigns of 1864 and 1865 break little new ground, but they tell their stories well and they lay a foundation for Connelly's subsequent efforts to explain Schofield's place in the Army's intramural politics. Connelly's great contribution is his treatment of Schofield's postwar career and of his efforts to straddle the precarious line between the military and the political. As the military commander in Reconstruction Virginia, Schofield found himself in a situation not unlike that he had weathered in Missouri. As Secretary of War, Connelly argues, Schofield found himself in "a unique and delicate position," due both to the fact that he was an active duty officer and to the residue of the Johnson impeachment (p. 208). As Superintendent of West Point (Schofield later referred to his decision to accept the position as "the mistake of my life"), he suffered fallout from his service on the review board that recommended Fitz John Porter's court martial conviction be overturned, and was roundly criticized for mishandling the investigation and subsequent court martial conviction of the academy's only black cadet, Johnson Whittaker. Through all of these tribulations, Connelly argues, Schofield learned vital political lessons he put to use when he rose to commanding general.

Schofield was only too aware of the trouble his predecessors in that position, [End Page 534] especially William T. Sherman, had had with politicians and with the bureaus. Schofield, too, had similar problems, but Connelly effectively argues that the experiences of the previous twenty-five years had shown him how to walk the political tightrope that allowed him to achieve important reforms that were precursors to those of Elihu Root. Connelly's concluding passage, however, is the book's most important. Reflecting on a speech that Schofield gave at West Point's graduation in 1892, Connelly contends that the general's words "should remind us that while an army deeply involved in politics is dangerous, so is one completely segregated from the values, institutions, and people of the nation" (p. 341). Food for thought today, to be certain.

John M. Schofield and the Politics of Generalship contains some minor yet annoying errors of fact. For example, President Andrew Johnson did not veto the Fourteenth Amendment (p. 191) and Emory Upton died in 1881, not 1882 (p. 290). Nevertheless, this is an excellent work, one deserving of the attention of anyone desirous of understanding both Schofield's career and the army's transformation between 1865 and 1900.

David J. Fitzpatrick
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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