United States Congress Joint Committee On The Conduct of The War - Legacy

Legacy

Tap shows that Radical republicans challenged Lincoln's role as commander-in-chief through the Joint Committee. During the 37th and 38th Congresses, it investigated every aspect of Union military operations, with special attention to finding the men guilty of military defeats. They assumed an inevitable Union victory, and failure seemed to them to indicate evil motivations or personal failures. They were skeptical of military science and especially the graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point, many of alumni of which were leaders of the enemy army. They much preferred political generals with a known political record. Some committee suggested that West Pointers who engaged in strategic maneuver were cowardly or even disloyal. It ended up endorsing incompetent but politically correct generals. Tap finds, "the committee's investigations, its leaks to the press, and its use of secret testimony to discredit generals such as McClellan certainly were instrumental in creating hostility between the army's West Point officers and the nation's civilian leaders." Finally, because of its collective ignorance of military science and preference for the heroic saber charge, "the committee tended to reinforce the unrealistic and simplistic notions of warfare that prevailed in the popular mind," writes Tap.

The Committee on the Conduct of the War is considered to be among the harshest congressional investigating committees in history; Gershman says it conducted witch hunts rather than fair inquiries. Senator Harry S. Truman cited this committee's style as an example he did not want to follow in leading the "Truman Committee", which investigated military appropriations during World War II. Truman stated that he did not want to second guess war strategy. His committee succeeded in demonstrating government waste and inefficiency in order to assist the war effort.