December 2017
Civil War News
The Source By Michael K. Shaffer
Report on the Conduct of the War
Broadfoot’s set of Report of Conduct of War. “I hold it to be our bounden duty, impressed upon us by our positions here, to keep an anxious, watchful eye over all the executive agents who are carrying on the war at the direction of the people, whom we represent and whom we are bound to protect in relation to this matter.” The words of Maine Senator William Pitt Fessenden were spoken in support of a proposal in the Senate to form a committee to investigate the conduct of the war. On the eve of the Federal defeat at First Manassas/Bull Run, and the more recent debacle at Ball’s Bluff, anxious politicians sought to conduct oversight of the war’s management. Receiving approval from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the measure, creating the Committee on the Conduct of the War, passed Dec. 10, 1861. Over the next four years, the members would meet on 272 occasions. Often, they held their meetings in Washington; as circumstances dictated, members, or their designated representatives, traveled into the field to conduct interviews and examine battlefields. Ohio Senator Benjamin Wade chaired the committee, with Zachariah Chandler of Michigan and Tennessee’s Andrew Johnson also representing the Senate. The House of Representatives received four seats, and selected John Covode from Penn., Daniel
Gooch of Mass., Indiana’s George Julian, and Moses Odell of N.Y. All the members except Chandler practiced law before the election to their respective seats. The radical element of the Republican Party benefitted. Wade, Chandler, Julian, and Covode carried their banner and pressed for a more vigorous prosecution of the war. They strongly questioned Maj. Gens. George McClellan, George Meade, and others, who did not, in the eyes of the committee, display an aggressive nature on the field of battle. As the war progressed, and new members replaced others, the investigations went on. Historian William Pierson suggested, “…by 1864 it was an anti-administration organization.” Tossing aside the political agendas involved, and the continuing debate on the effectiveness of the committee, their work resulted in over 5,000 pages of reports, testimonies, and documentary appendices. The initial investigations focused on the Army of the Potomac as a whole; researchers can find this information in volume one of the reprint set. The committee then turned to Bull Run and Ball’s Bluff, volume two, to better understand how the Federal army could have experienced such setbacks. The third volume focuses on the Department of the West. Topics explored include Frémont’s activities in Missouri; the Hatteras Inlet Expedition; Port Royal; Burnside’s N.C. Expedition; Fort Donelson; Capture of New Orleans; the Invasion of New Mexico; March 1862 Battle of Winchester; and the Battle of Hampton Roads. Reports about wounded soldiers, prisoners, and paymasters round out the volume.
Report from heavy ordnance tests.
Major Generals Joe Hooker and George Meade submitted reports at the request of the committee. The respective activities of each officer during the war, along with an investigation into the Battle of Petersburg, reside in volume four. The next installment in the set contains details and testimony on the Red River Expedition, Fort Fisher, and a comprehensive report on heavy ordnance. Volume six offers Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s account of his surrender negotiations with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. Other topics include a report on the ‘Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,’ an investigation into government ice contracts, and a study of Rosecrans’s various campaigns. Findings from an investigation into the Department of Arkansas follow, then reports on the Battle of Cedar Mountain, prisoner exchanges, and operations against Charleston. Statements on the Department of the Gulf, trade regulations, and the treatment of prisoners—North and South— complete volume six. Sherman and Maj. Gen. George Thomas’s reports fill volume seven. The final installment contains accounts covering a range of topics from Maj. Gens. John Pope, John G. Foster, Alfred Pleasonton, and Phil Sheridan. Readers can also peruse a statement entitled ‘Subject at Exchange,’ from Maj. Gen. Ethan Allen Hitchcock. This volume concludes with a report from Brig. Gen. James Ricketts, and communication from, and a memorial of, William Wiard. Wiard provided the committee with an analysis on the Dahlgren, Rodman, and Parrott guns. Differing from the previous sections, volume eight contains several maps of various regions under the committee’s study. Those seeking printed copies of the set can obtain them from Broadfoot Publishing, at http:// w w w. b r o a d f o o t p u b l i s h i n g . com. Broadfoot reprinted the eight-volume set, 1998-2000, and provided a useful index. Remember to check WorldCat http://www.worldcat.org for help in finding the collection in a local library. A few websites contain digitized versions of individual reports, and the United
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States Senate offers an overview of the committee at https:// www.senate.gov/artandhistory/ history/common/investigations/ JointCommittee_ConductofWar. htm. The staff at Virginia Tech, through their ‘Essential Civil War Curriculum’ section, delivers an informative summary and links to online versions of the various parts of the Report on the Conduct of the War. These sites allow users to view pages in multiple formats, conduct searches and print the results. In composing the introduction to the index for the Broadfoot set, historian Gary Gallagher noted, “It is no exaggeration to state that few published sources so clearly illuminate the often chaotic process by which the United States struggled to
manage an event of cataclysmic proportions.” Consult this resource for insightful reports from officers not found elsewhere, and continued good luck in researching the Civil War! Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, and instructor, who remains a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and the Georgia Association of Historians. Readers may contact him at mkscdr11@gmail.com, or to request speaking engagements via his website www.civilwarhistorian.net. Follow Michael on Facebook www.facebook.com/ michael.k.shaffer and Twitter @ michaelkshaffer.
Sherman testimony sample.
Cedar Mountain map from volume eight.