from general officers. There are also transcripts of testimony and accounting records regarding the military administration of Alexandria, Virginia. One of the most colorful series of committee hearings followed the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, when Union Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles, a former Representative, accused Maj. Gen. George G. Meade of mismanaging the battle, planning to retreat from Gettysburg before his victory there, and failing to pursue and defeat Robert E. Lee's army as it retreated. It was mostly a self-serving effort on the part of Sickles, who was trying to deflect criticism from his own disastrous role in the battle. Bill Hyde notes that the committee's report on Gettysburg was edited by Wade in ways that were unfavorable to Meade, and the evidence was even distorted. The report was "a powerful propaganda weapon" (p. 381), but the committee's power had waned by the time that the final testimony, that of William T. Sherman, was taken on May 22, 1865. After the end of the war that it was investigating, the committee ceased to exist after the last testimony, and its final reports were published shortly thereafter. The later Joint Committee on Reconstruction represented a similar attempt to check executive power by the Radical Republicans. Members 37th Congress The committee's original Senate members were selected by Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin. House members were selected by Speaker of the House Galusha Grow. 38th Congress In January 1864, committee chairman Wade introduced a resolution broadening the committee's powers to include the oversight of military contracts. Both the House and Senate passed similar resolutions by mid-January. Reports The committee took testimony from witnesses, mostly Union Army officers, in private sessions often without a quorum of members. The committee had been active for over a year before its first report was published in 1863. 1863 The committee's first report was issued in three parts. Part 1 covered the Army of the Potomac. Part 2 covered the Union's 1861 Eastern Theater losses at First Bull Run and at Ball's Bluff. Part 3 covered the war's Western Theater. 1864 The 1864 report had two parts. The first presented reports and testimony taken involving the alleged Confederate mistreatment of United States Colored Troops soldiers after their surrender at Fort Pillow. The second part related to the condition of returned Union soldiers after their imprisonment in Confederate prisoner-of-war camps. 1865 The 1865 report was more comprehensive than those first