The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War: A Reassessment

THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR: A Reassessment Hans L. Trefousse Over one hundred years have passed since Congress established the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. Fiercely attacked when it first began to take testimony, the committee has generally been treated critically ever since. Contemporaries called it a "sort of Aulic Council" and characterized it as "a mischievous organization which assumed dictatorial powers." More recent observers have made similar charges. They have accused it of having "arrogated the right to make affirmative decisions," have criticized it for wielding "inquisitorial powers," and have charged it with the loss "of thousands of lives" because of unwarranted interference with the military.1 Since it was largely dominated by Radicals whose historiographical standing soon reached a nadir, the committee has generally been considered a terrible handicap to Lincoln, a vicious engine of political persecution, and a dangerous precedent for congressional interference. Not even William W. Pierson's perceptive article on the subject in 1918 reversed this trend of thought, and no further important work was done in the field until the appearance of T. Harry Williams' doctoral dissertation in 1937. In this excellent survey, supplemented by an article two years later, the author stressed the differences between Lincoln and the committee and its importance as a propaganda agency, themes which prevailed in his subsequent book, Lincoln and the Radicals. Nevertheless, the overall view of the committee as a dangerous meddler persisted, and when Senator Harry S. Truman commenced a congressional investigation during World War II, he made a deliberate effort to avoid the alleged errors of his predecessors. Having been influenced by Douglas Southall Freeman, he believed that the Civil 1 William Henry Hurlbert, General McClellan and the Conduct of the War ( New York, 1864), pp. 160-162; Ben Perley Poore, Perley's Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis (Philadelphia, 1886), II, 103; George Fort Milton, Abraham Lincoln and the Fifth Column (New York, 1942), p. 36; J. G. Randall, The Civil War and Reconstruction (Boston, 1937), p. 370; Edward Channing, A History of the United States (New York, 1925), VI, 400. 6 CI VIL WAR HIS TO R Y War body had been "of material assistance to the Confederacy."2 Thus had the traditional view been fully accepted. What was the true role of the committee? What, if any, contributions did it make to the final success of the national cause? Was it really as unscrupulous as some observers have thought? Were its methods actually those of an inquisition, a court of the star chamber? And did it possess die vast powers that have been ascribed to it? These questions all seem to merit re-examination. When die Joint Committee was established on December 10, 1861, it was empowered "to inquire into die conduct of die present war." Consisting of three members of the Senate and four Representatives, it could "send for persons and papers, and sit during the sessions of either House of Congress." After 1864, it was also given power to investigate war contracts and expenditures, and from time to time Congress commissioned it to conduct specific examinations of various subjects .3 As has been repeatedly pointed out, the committee was cosponsored by Radicals and conservatives, but because the chairman and the leading members were Radicals, it was soon identified with the extremist branch of the Republican party and became its principal agency of pressure and propaganda.4 As a legislative committee, however, it never possessed executive powers; while it could make recommendations and suggestions, it could not, by itself, appoint or dismiss officers of the armed forces. That the committee took its work seriously is beyond doubt. Its chairman , Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, was an old antislavery leader who had tilted many a lance in the Senate with the defenders of the peculiar institution. Famous for his courage as well as his sarcasm, he was in2 William W. Pierson, Jr., "The Committee on the Conduct of the Civil War," American Historical Review, XXIII (1918), 550-576; Allan Nevins, The War for the Union: The Improvised War, 1861-1862 ( New York, 1959), p. 387 n.; T. Harry Williams, "The Committee on the...