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.