As a result of criticism and debate over military defeats such as that at Ball's Bluff, the United States Senate called for the establishment of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. In a vote of 33-3, the approval of this committee paved the way for a series of investigations and interrogations which were uneven, though useful, in terms of resulting reports.
Along the southern Atlantic coast, plantation owners burnt their cotton crops to prevent confiscation by the Union. Seizing every opportunity to enlarge upon the significance of such acts and the threats posed by the anticipated Union advance, the Charleston "Courier" asserted that by destroying the cotton, planters prevented the North from enjoying "the extensive spoils with which they have feasted their imagination, and the obtainment of which was one of their chief objects."
Missouri remained the scene of brief and minor encounters between the Union and the Confederacy. Union Mills, Missouri, witnessed skirmishing and in the Indian Territory, pro-South forces made up largely of Indians pushed pro-Union Creek Indians out of the vicinity of Chusto-Talasah, or Bird Creek, later to be known as Tulsa, Oklahoma.