Originally aired on September 05, 1997 - In part 158 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson describes the Union defeat at Ball’s Bluff, which was just up the Potomac from Washington, as a debacle. The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War established to investigate the matter fared no better than the Union troops did on that battlefield.
#158 – The Joint Committee
Congressional committees have dominated the news of late. That is not unusual, but it does call to mind a committee in another time, one characteristically full of bluster and short on accomplishment.
On October 21, 1861, a sizeable Union force crossed the Potomac River at Leesburg, Virginia. This Federal reconnaissance walked straight into an ambush atop Ball’s Bluff. Confederates drove them down the steep hill and into the muddy waters of the river. Over 200 Federal soldiers were killed or drowned. Another 700 were captured. Among the dead was Colonel Edward Baker. A Republican Senator from Oregon and close friend of Abraham Lincoln.
What happened at Ball’s Bluff was of little military consequence, but it was a humiliating debacle. It happened just up the Potomac from Washington and it came only three months after Union forces had been routed in battle at Manassas. When someone hinted that possible collusion might have been involved at Ball’s Bluff an indignant Congress raised the red flag of possible treason inside the Federal armies.
In December, 1861, the Congress established a joint committee to investigate what it called “The Conduct of the Present War” especially the twin disasters at Ball’s Bluff and Manassas. This was no ordinary committee, not even by Congressional standards. Radical Republicans dominated the membership of three Senators and four Congressmen. The chairman was Ohio Senator Benjamin Wade, a no nonsense legislator who hated slavery and everything associated with it. Wade had come to Washington in the 1850s with a musket under his arm and an open challenge to duel with any poor slaver who was of a mind to argue.
The Joint Committee on the conduct of the war had broad powers and relentless determination. Like such committees before and after it this one was high on asking questions and expressing opinions and low on implementing calm and common sense solutions. Its activities were both positive and negative with the later much the weightier.
To its credit the committee investigated medical services, illegal trade, war contracts that seemed out of line. It worked for more honesty and efficiency in the North’s prosecution of the war. On the other hand, the Joint Committee often had the appearance of a Spanish Inquisition. It picked at and sometimes persecuted Democratic generals and any other officials unfriendly to the agenda of the radical Republican faction in Congress.
The Committee intensified political tensions inside the Union army close to Washington. That happened to be the Army of the Potomac. The North’s premier fighting force. One historian summarized the joint committee this way: “Call them emancipationists, radicals, or radical Republicans all of the words apply. They believe in immediate and uncompensated emancipation.”
They were radicals in that they bluntly favored the revolutionary struggle which Lincoln wanted to avert and they were Republicans of intense partisanship working night and day to win political advantage for themselves and their party. Their motives were mixed but their goal was clear. They wanted immediate action and they believed that this could come only from generals who felt as they felt.
General Charles P. Stone a Massachusetts Democrat became the scapegoat for Ball’s Bluff. He was imprisoned for six months without even a military inquiry. By the time Stone was released and exonerated his military career was shattered.
There were others who felt the cancerous hand of this out of control committee. For the remainder of the Civil War the committee members were visibly spreading fear and working with clumsy ruthlessness and undying energy.
Lincoln was able to manage the committee with a bit of finesse, but it took time and while it did so the committee meddled and interfered. As might be expected its contributions to the nation and to history were as momentary as they were minute.
