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Three volumes, the first two in the original blind-stamped cloth, vol. iii. in modern brown buckram. Ex library with old markings on the spines of the first two, white label on the spine of the third. Bindings are 9 x 6 inches. Library stamps on the end papers, texts generally clean. 756, 512, 659 pages. Vol. I. is good +, Vol. II. is fair only, Vol. III. is very good. 27th Congress, 3d Session, Senate Report No. 108. Part I. - Army of the Potomac; Part II. - Bull Run - Ball's Bluff; Part III. - Western Department, or Missouri-Miscellaneous.Early Union war losses and a lack of confidence in President Lincoln led Congress to form a committee to investigate the conduct of the war. The committee was critical of McClellan and other generals, and the chairman told Lincoln in no uncertain terms that McClellan should be fired. The committee sought scapegoats for military failures, and found them. The reports are full of testimonies from military commanders, and make an interesting primary source of information on the American Civil War."The committee s official findings were published in April 1863. They contained reports on Bull Run, Ball s Bluff, and Frémont s tenure as commander of the West; however, the most sensational portion of the committee s report centered on the operations of the Army of the Potomac, and they were designed to discredit Major General George McClellan as well as the clique of officers in the Army of the Potomac who supported McClellan."During the winter of 1862-1863, particularly after the disastrous Union defeat at Fredericksburg, committee members worried that supporters of the discredited McClellan had deliberately sabotaged Major General Ambrose Burnside, leading to the disastrous defeat of the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg. When President Lincoln replaced the hapless Burnside with Major General Joseph Hooker, committee members continued to believe that the McClellan clique was out to ruin Hooker. It was thus vitally important to discredit McClellan and those generals sympathetic to him."When the committee finally published its reports, it squarely placed most of the blame for the failure of Army of the Potomac operations on McClellan. Not only did the committee take issue with the philosophy of McClellan s Peninsula strategy, it also blamed him for the defeat of Major General John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run because McClellan had not reinforced Pope in a timely fashion. Turning to the battle of Fredericksburg, the committee put the blame squarely on McClellan loyalist, Major General William Buell Franklin, arguing that his failure to vigorously launch an attack on the Confederate right prevented Burnside s main assault on Marye s Heights which most military historians dismiss as ill-conceived and somewhat foolhardy from achieving the necessary traction to achieve a military victory. Indeed, the committee s final report reinforced the prejudice they took to their investigations. Military training and military science, particularly as demonstrated by West Point trained professionals, counted for little. In some respects, the committee acted as if such training was even a detriment to superior generalship. What really mattered was finding generals who wanted to end slavery and punish the South. These types of officers would invigorate the troops and achieve success on the battlefield." - Bruce Tap, The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, published online at Essential Civil War Curriculum dot com.
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