McClellan: A Career of Success and of Failure
We encounter people in life who look impressive on the surface but are very different underneath; these people may be masters of their craft, but they are horrible to those around them. However, breaking the façade often discredits whatever good the person did. One such example is American Civil War general George B. McClellan. On the surface, McClellan looked like a capable army leader before the war with his battlefield and management experience. However, his personality overshadowed what little good he did on and off the battlefield.
George Brinton McClellan was born on December 3rd, 1826, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. McClellan came from elite stock; his father was a prominent doctor, his mother came from a prominent local family, and his great-grandfather served in the American Revolution. McClellan excelled at school so much that he entered the University of Pennsylvania at age 13. However, McClellan—seeking a soldier’s life—transferred to West Point in 1842. McClellan absorbed many of the views of his Southern classmates like A.P Hill, J. E. B. Stuart, and Thomas Jackson at the academy. McClellan graduated in July 1846 as a second lieutenant, second in his class, and immediately became embroiled in the Mexican-American War. He was promoted twice in September 1847 for his actions during the Mexico City campaign. The war taught McClellan to distrust anyone lacking military experience since they would, more likely than not, interfere with the fighting. McClellan returned to West Point after the war to teach engineering, but he eventually found peacetime life boring and sought out interesting work– from surveying Texas’ waterways to secretly scouting the defenses of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. In 1855, McClellan went to Europe to observe the Crimean War. McClellan left the army in January 1857 upon completing his report to work as a railroad executive. He supported conservative Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas during the 1860 election, but Douglas lost to Abraham Lincoln. McClellan considered himself far superior to Lincoln and constantly belittled him in various personal writings. Despite his distaste for the new president, McClellan sided with the Union since he believed Secession was illegal. (Sears, 1998, 1-60, 65-67). McClellan would quickly prove his worth.
McClellan began the war by training Ohio’s volunteers for battle. He had little patience for slowness from Washington D.C. to the attritional strategy devised by his boss—Commanding General Winfield Scott. McClellan championed an aggressive strategy, but Scott rejected it. In May, McClellan marched his forces into northwestern Virginia (modern West Virginia) to protect the rail lines leading to D.C. His first battle against the Confederates happened that July; his hesitancy and complex plans almost allowed the Confederate forces to escape had it not been for the initiative of his subordinates. McClellan assumed they, not his abilities, were to blame for the near disaster. That same month, Union forces lost the first major battle of the war at Bull Run; Lincoln ordered McClellan to D.C. to reform the surviving units into a new army. That August, the Army of the Potomac was born. McClellan spent the next several months training the new army; that October, it lost a minor skirmish at Ball's Bluff to the Confederates. The defeat shook the government’s confidence in McClellan. In November, Scott retired due to his age, and McClellan became the new Commanding General due to his credentials. He spent the end of 1861 streamlining the military bureaucracy while deflecting criticism for his inaction. In the early winter of 1862, McClellan showed Lincoln his plans to win the war: McClellan would land on the Virginia coast and then march onto Richmond. Lincoln, desperate to satisfy the public’s demand for action, reluctantly supported the plan. However, McClellan’s plan changed based on circumstances. In early April, McClellan began his operation on the Virginia Peninsula (Sears, 68-102, 125-139; Quarstein, 2018). However, his plan began unraveling from the day he started the campaign.
The first setback to McClellan’s grand plan was the weather; spring rains turned the dirt roads on the peninsula into mud slowing the Potomac Army’s march north. The army then encountered Confederate forces at Yorktown. McClellan, based on faulty intelligence confirming his assumption the Potomac army was outnumbered, ordered his forces to dig in. The Confederates spent the next month distracting McClellan until the Army of Northern Virginia under General Joseph E. Johnston arrived. That May, Johnston pulled back, and McClellan chased him up to Richmond; he then split his forces across the swampy Chickahominy River to protect his supply lines. Johnston used the opportunity to attack the smaller Union force on the river’s southern bank near Seven Pines. Johnston was injured in the battle and was replaced by Robert E Lee. The battle, while inconclusive, gave Lee the initiative to drive McClellan away from Richmond. McClellan, assuming he was outnumbered, withdrew his forces back to D.C. in early August. His decision destroyed Northern morale and Lincoln’s trust in him; McClellan didn’t help himself by sending a letter to Lincoln about how he thought the war should be waged (Quarstein, 2018; Hearn, 2012, 113-166). However, McClellan would get one more chance to prove himself…and it would cost him his job.
Lee went on the offensive after McClellan left the peninsula; he won the Second Battle of Bull Run in late August and invaded Maryland. Lee then divided his force in two; one went off to capture Harper’s Ferry while the other headed towards South Mountain. McClellan’s questionable intelligence network found out Lee’s plans in early September, but he was slow on moving the Potomac Army. The resulting battle at South Mountain gave Lee’s forces time to consolidate behind Antietam Creek. The night before the battle, McClellan individually briefed his corps commanders about their role in his grand plan to encircle Lee; that plan fell apart due to poor coordination, McClellan’s hesitancy to bring up reserves, and the arrival of the missing half of Lee’s army near the end of the battle. That night Lee’s army slipped away; the Potomac Army was in no shape to go after them. The ambiguous outcome was perfect for Lincoln: McClellan succeeded enough for him to begin implementing the Emancipation Proclamation; ironically, the document that changed the Union’s war goal was brought about by a man who didn't want the conflict to be about slavery. McClellan also performed poorly enough to lose his job; his refusal to chase Lee in the month after the battle only solidified his fate. Lincoln fired McClellan after the November 1862 midterms (Sears, 270-317, Hearn, 185-205). The two would face each other again in 1864 on the battlefield of politics.
As the Potomac Army battled Lee throughout 1863 and 1864, Lincoln battled for his political life. Radical Republicans—Republicans who were die-hard anti-slavery—hated Lincoln’s “slowness' ' on the war; it didn’t help that some of his cabinet members considered running for the Republican nomination. Lincoln also worried about Copperhead Democrats—northern Democrats who supported peace with the Confederates at all costs. Thankfully, Union battlefield successes and his political skills secured him the party’s nomination in the summer of 1864. Meanwhile, the Democrats made McClellan their candidate. However, McClellan wanted to keep fighting to preserve the Union, which went against the Copperheads. Just after the Democratic convention, the Union made massive gains against the Confederates on all fronts. Those gains got Lincoln reelected in a landslide that November and secured his party’s control of Congress (Sears, 372-385; Balsamo, 2001, 181-199). McClellan spent the postwar years working various engineering jobs while occasionally traveling through Europe. McClellan reentered politics during the contentious 1876 presidential election. The following year the New Jersey Democrats nominated him as their candidate for governor; McClellan wasn’t consulted about running, but he accepted and won; he spent his tenure reforming the state’s National Guard and lowering taxes. McClellan died from a heart attack on October 29th, 1885. McClellan assumed history would vindicate his Civil War actions (Sears, 387-402). Sadly, for him at least, that’s not the case.
McClellan’s organizing and managerial abilities could've made him a great military advisor. However, he frequently failed as a battlefield leader, from overestimating the Confederates’ strength to overlooking his own shortcomings to making overly complex plans. However, McClellan did three good things during the war. The first was to show future Potomac Army commanders not to go beyond their or the force’s capabilities. The second good McClellan did was set the conditions for the Emancipation Proclamation with his results at Antietam. The final good McClellan did was prepare the Potomac Army so that, when it received proper leadership, it would be an effective fighting force. Ultimately, McClellan failed to win the war during his short tenure leading the Potomac Army, but he did help set the force up for victory in the long term…all it needed was the right leader.
Works Cited
Balsamo, L. T. (2001). ““We Cannot Have Free Government without Elections”: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1864.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1998-), 94(2), 181–199. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40193361.
Hearn, C.G. (2012). Lincoln and McClellan at War. Louisiana State University Press. https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/book/19174
Quarstein, J V. (2018). The Peninsula Campaign. American Battlefield Trust. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/peninsula-campaign-0.
Sears, S. W. (1999). George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/lib/asulib-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3305893.
