In the first full biography of Lieutenant General John McAllister
Schofield (1831-1906), Donald B. Connelly examines the career of
one of the leading commanders in the western theater during the
Civil War. In doing so, Connelly illuminates the role of politics
in the formulation of military policy, during both war and peace,
in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Connelly relates how Schofield, as a department commander during
the war, had to cope with contending political factions that sought
to shape military and civil policies. Following the war, Schofield
occupied every senior position in the army--including secretary of
war and commanding general of the army--and became a leading
champion of army reform and professionalism. He was the first
senior officer to recognize that professionalism would come not
from the separation of politics and the military but from the
army's accommodation of politics and the often contentious American
constitutional system.
Seen through the lens of Schofield's extensive military career, the
history of American civil-military relations has seldom involved
conflict between the military and civil authority, Connelly argues.
The central question has never been whether to have civilian
control but rather which civilians have a say in the formulation
and execution of policy.