#general mcclellan

Good evening, young man, thank you kindly for paying me a visit.

Since you are a student of the late War of the Rebellion, I am sure you know that I served under General McClellan. Though we operated in different theaters of the War, I was aware of his actions as Commanding General at the time. I admire the concern he had for the welfare of his men.

If I may speak with you confidentially (I trust that this will not get out to the press, I trust you to respect my confidence)...I loathe to speak ill of one who is not present, or one who is present for that matter, however, if I may speak candidly, I believe that General McClellan possessed an overabundance of caution at times. However, I do not blame him for being fooled by the so-called "Quaker guns". From a distance, that is a genuine mistake, one that anyone could have made in his position. His overestimation of the strength of Confederate forces, however, I do not see so lightly. I believe that one's beliefs should be alterable when presented with sufficient evidence, and that an Officer should be able to accurately estimate the strength of the opponent. I also find General McClellan's unkind conduct towards our late Commander-in-Chief, President Lincoln, to be most unbecoming of an Officer, though I may be biased by the grief that still hangs heavy over my head regarding our departed Commander. Furthermore, it is my personal conviction that an Officer should not be a politician. I consider it unbecoming, and I believe that the one does inherently interfere with the other.

All in all, I believe General McClellan to be a good and noble man, but a political Officer. I do my best to see the good in all people, and I believe it is Unchristian to judge (lest ye be judged), and I believe General McClellan was genuinely frightened for his men and wished not to see them go to harm, which is a most noble sentiment, but unpracticable in a war.

Oh god, where to start.  So basically, when the South seceded, most of the best generals went with them, like Lee, and 8 out of the 9 military academies were in the south.  So the the first two years of the war, a lot of the best generals left for the South and the new Union guys had to scramble and figure out what they were doing.  So you just have a lot of amateur mistakes or frankly incompetent decisions, like General Burnside picking the battle place wrong, incompetent battle plans or horrific communication errors.   

The biggest issue for them though is that they utterly misunderstood how to win the War.  The idea in the first two years of the war was that to defeat the South, you had to not antagonize them, because most Southerners were thought to be unionists just being lead by a radical Secessionist cabal.  So rather than attack Southern Infrastructure, wipe out armies or critically destroy slavery, the Union officers opted to try to defeat the confederate armies without actually killing that many of them or wiping them out.  Basically they were trying to do the military equivalent of knocking a sword out of a guy’s hand without killing him and hoping that his buddies all decide to give up.  So the early Union response was super...hesitant.  This was especially because they assigned as the leader of their top army, General McClellan, a pro slavery northern democrat who had a weird aversion to...fighting battles.  

McClellan is a really weird example because he totally got it into his head that hte Confederates had like twice the forces they actually had at multiple points in the war for some reason.   So like, Lee at one points invades Maryland, which is a massively risky plan, he could be cut off from his supply lines and get surrounded in Union territory, and he can’t live off the land like he used too.  One of his generals takes the super secret battle plans and uses them as a sandwich napkin and then throws it in the trash.  The union spies find these plans.  So McClellan outnumbers Lee almost 3 to one, his troops are better fed, better equipped, better rested, in their own territory, with ample reinforcements arriving, local support and he had access to lee’s battle plans.  And yet he is so weirdly hesitant that he doesn’t recall attack and lee is able to get away, and turn a certain defeat into a draw.   Its notable that Lee almost lost his entire army (and likely the war) while fighting less than 3/4th of McClellan’s army.  So just a weird lack of aggression, and that was a trait shared by most of the early Union generals. 

Oh, most definitely Lincoln. I think Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address is not only the greatest speech in American history, but one of the best pieces of writing done by any American ever. But just reading Lincoln's letters -- even mundane letters that he wrote to associates or friends -- shows how remarkable of a communicator he was. If we're being honest, it's often a pain in the ass reading a lot of stuff from the 18th and 19th Centuries because of how formal everyone was, but Lincoln's unique background and self-education helps cut through a lot of that and just gets to the point effectively and memorably. His letters to General McClellan imploring McClellan to stop being so cautious and to actually fight are incredible. My favorite is this telegram to General McClellan from October 24, 1862:

"I have just read your despatch about sore tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?"

May 16, 1862, President Lincoln confers with Gen. Charles S. Hamilton recently relieved of command by Gen. McClellan, for reason that he is "not fit to command a Division." [Source: The Lincoln Log] Hamilton was a career army officer, served in the Mexican War, and began his Civil War service as Col. 3rd Wisc. At the outset of the Peninsula Campaign, Hamilton commanded the 3rd Division, III Corps and led this division during the Siege of Yorktown.

The way McClellan proceeded by entrenching led to some criticism among officers like Hooker, Kearney, and others, who had fought in the faultlessly planned and resolutely executed campaign in Mexico; and Gen. Hamilton did not like the way men were worn out in the trenches in the summer heat. Before the siege fairly began, he saw an opportunity to carry the enemy's position in his front, and his plan met the hearty approval of Hooker and other generals. Gen. Hamilton suggested it to McClellan and asked permission to make the assault. This request, it seems, gave McClellan offense, and on the 30th of April he relieved Hamilton of his command, giving it to Gen. Phil. Kearney. [Source: History of the Third Wisconsin https://3rdwisconsin.com/charles-s-hamilton-colonel/ ] If the Wisconsin historian is correct, this is hardly insubordination. 

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