George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Major-General United States Army
George Gordon Meade, Ed.

The committee on the conduct of the war played so important a part at this period in the affairs of General Meade, and its action, injurious to his fair fame, and demoralizing to the army he commanded, so frequently forms the burden of the letters immediately following, that it is desirable to supply the basis upon which the statements in those letters were founded, and to add corroborative facts, unknown even to General Meade himself. The nation and posterity, as the highest earthly tribunals to which a man may appeal, shall judge whether, so far as General Meade is concerned, this arraignment is without just cause.

The joint committee was authorized by act of Congress in December, 1861. It was composed of three members of the Senate and four of the House of Representatives, and instructed to examine into the conduct of the war. It was continued through successive Congresses, until after the close of the war, nearly the same members as originally appointed serving throughout its whole existence—certainly the controlling members. The greatest number were selected from the dominant party, and from the extreme wing of that party.

The Army of the Potomac unfortunately furnished, through its proximity to the capital, a fine opportunity to the committee for the exercise of its peculiar theories as to the proper mode of conducting