ABSTRACT
The informed historical consensus was that the hectoring and intriguing of the committee had compromised Lincoln's policies. The moderate and merciful president had found himself attacked from all sides by a vindictive, bloodthirsty, and uncompromising group of Radicals, for whom the Joint Committee was their standard bearer. Thus far, the attention devoted by historians to the Joint Committee was almost unanimously unfavorable. Some writers had attempted to justify the activities of its members, but these had been drowned out by the chorus of disdain. The massive demands of the world wars of the twentieth century and the onerous burdens of global responsibilities during the Cold War all served to illustrate how discussion of the Joint Committee's role during the Civil War opened up wider discussion of a basic theme in American civil-military relations, or vice versa. The Joint Committee was a significant example of Congress asserting its authority in wartime.
