"Political generals" are one of the favorite targets of Civil War buffs. Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis named prominent political leaders as generals to help rally their constituents and appease certain interests.

Some of these politicians were actually fairly solid commanders -- Frank Blair, John Logan, James Garfield and the woefully underrated John McClernand come to mind for the North, while John C. Breckingridge, who had been James Buchanan’s vice president, Richard Taylor and Thomas Hindman were all competent Confederate political generals.

But most politicians in uniform were disasters in command. Political generals routinely appear on almost every list of the most incompetent Civil War commanders -- Nathaniel Banks, Ben Butler, John Fremont, Dan Sickles, Felix Zollicoffer, John Floyd, Gideon Pillow.

The late conservative scholar M.E. Bradford may have had a point that the war was lengthened and the lives of many Union soldiers wasted since the Lincoln administration often seemed more concerned with ensuring that its generals had the correct political beliefs rather than actual ability. Henry Halleck, the military theorist who was Lincoln’s chief of staff, said that giving politicians command was “little better than murder.”

Political generals were on my mind this week when the state Department of Veterans Affairs offered a first glimpse of the initial inductees for the new state Veterans Hall of Fame. Some of the names that were being floated included more than 20 former governors -- including a host of Gilded Age governors who had served in the Confederate army -- and Gov. Rick Scott who served 29 months in the Navy. Scott, to his credit, struck his name from the list.

On Friday, after a mini storm of controversy, the Scott administration retreated and the state Department of VA -- led by Scott's former chief of staff Mike Prendergast -- went back to the drawing board. The Cabinet was set to look at the first inductees on Tuesday, but that vote will now be pushed back.

The list drew heavy fire from Democratic Senate Leader Pro Tempore Arthenia Joyner of Tampa, one of the leading liberals in the Legislature, who took aim at the list for having too many white males and some who fought for the Confederacy to boot. But conservatives should also have problems with the first draft of the list.

It’s a troubling sign that a Republican administration, led by a governor who based his campaign on the fact that he is a businessman and not a politician, was all set to honor men who are, on the whole, better known for their political offices instead of their military service. Some of the former governors on the initial list should be honored -- for example, Edward Perry. Despite being struck with typhoid fever during the Gettysburg campaign when his Florida Brigade fought gallantly and suffered heavy losses, Perry, governor from 1885 through 1889, was a solid brigade commander for the Confederacy who had a knack for being wounded.

But other former governors served in the military with honor, if not distinction. While critics have focused on Abraham K. Allison being included on the list since he was jailed during Reconstruction for harassing African-Americans, most of his service to the Confederacy was in political offices and not as a soldier, despite his brief service in the Second Seminole War.

It’s puzzling that Henry Laurens Mitchell, who resigned his post as attorney general in 1861 to fight for the South, was included on the initial list. In 1863, during the middle of the war,  Mitchell left the army and headed right back into politics. Madison Starke Perry, who was governor from 1857 until 1861, was also included despite the fact that he also resigned from the Confederate service in 1863, though he was in poor health and would die before the end of the war.