Lincoln and Little Mac
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln personified the title "Commander-in-Chief" largely because, until Ulysses Grant came along, Lincoln had a hard time finding a general he could have confidence in. Perhaps his strangest general of all was George McLellan, a whiz kid and an egotist, who often showed his President little respect, who always overestimated the size of his enemy, but who was loved by his men (though not enough to give him their vote in the 1864 election.)
On November 1, 1861, Winfield Scott retired and McClellan became general-in-chief of all the Union armies. The president expressed his concern about mantle of responsibility he was placing on the 34 year old's shoulders, but McClellan's response was "I can do it all."
Lincoln, as well as many other became increasingly impatient with McClellan's slowness to attack the Confederate forces who were camped near Washington. Union defeats at the Battle of Ball's Bluff near Leesburg in October added to the frustration and damaged confidence in McClellan. In December, 1861, Congress formed a Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, which became a thorn in the side of many generals throughout the war, accusing them of incompetence and, in some cases, treason. McClellan was called as the first witness on December 23, but he contracted typhoid fever and could not attend. Instead, his subordinate officers testified, and their candid admissions that they had no knowledge of specific strategies for advancing against the Confederates raised many calls for McClellan to be fired.
McClellan further damaged his reputation by his insulting insubordination to his commander-in-chief. He he had known Lincoln before the war as a lawyer for the Illinois Central, as referred to him in private correspondence as "nothing more than a well-meaning baboon", a "gorilla", and "ever unworthy of ... his high position."
On November 13, 1861, after McClellan failed to respond to several requests from Lincoln to visit him at the White House, Lincoln went to see the general at McClellan's house, but McClellan made him wait for 30 minutes, before a servant told Lincoln that the general had gone to bed and could not see him.
On January 10, Lincoln met with his top generals (McClellan did not attend) and directed them to formulate a plan of attack. He expressed his consternation with General McClellan, saying: "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time."
On January 12, 1862, McClellan was summoned to the White House, where the Cabinet demanded to hear his war plans. For the first time, he revealed his intentions to transport the Army of the Potomac by ship to Urbanna, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River, outflanking the Confederate forces near Washington, and proceeding 50 miles (80 km) overland to capture Richmond. He refused to give any specific details of the proposed campaign, even to his friend, newly appointed War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton. On January 27, Lincoln issued an order that required all of his armies to begin offensive operations by February 22, Washington's birthday. On January 31, he issued an order for the Army of the Potomac to move overland to attack the Confederates at Manassas Junction and Centreville. McClellan immediately replied with a 22-page letter objecting in detail to the president's plan and advocating instead his Urbanna plan. This was the first written instance of the plan's details being presented to the president. Although Lincoln believed his plan was superior, he was relieved that McClellan finally agreed to begin moving, and reluctantly approved.
On March 8, doubting McClellan's resolve and frustrated by the general's procrastination, Lincoln again called a council of war at the White House in which McClellan's subordinates were asked about their confidence in the Urbanna plan. They expressed their confidence to varying degrees. After the meeting, Lincoln issued another order, naming specific officers as corps commanders to report to McClellan.
The Confederate forces under General Joseph E. Johnston withdrew from their positions before Washington, which nullified the Urbanna strategy. McClellan was criticized in the press and the Congress when it was discovered that Johnston's forces had not only slipped away unnoticed, but had for months fooled the Union Army through the use of logs painted black to appear as cannons, nicknamed Quaker Guns. The Congress's joint committee visited the abandoned Confederate lines and radical Republicans introduced a resolution demanding the dismissal of McClellan, but it was narrowly defeated.
But on March 11, 1862, Lincoln removed McClellan as general-in-chief, leaving him in command of only the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln, Stanton, and a group of officers called the "War Board" directed the strategic actions of the Union armies that spring. McClellan commented that this was a conspiracy "to secure the failure of the approaching campaign."
McClellan continued to believe intelligence reports that credited the Confederates with two or three times the men they actually had. McClellan learned that Johnston had withdrawn up the Peninsula towards Williamsburg. McClellan then had to give chase without any benefit of the heavy artillery.
McClellan's army cautiously inched towards Richmond over the next three weeks, coming to within four miles of it. On May 31, as McClellan planned an assault on Richmond, his army was surprised by a Confederate attack. Johnston saw that the Union army was split in half by the rain-swollen Chickahominy River and hoped to defeat it in detail at Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. McClellan was unable to command the army personally because of a recurrence of malarial fever, but his subordinates were able to repel the attacks. Nevertheless, McClellan received criticism from Washington for not counterattacking, which some believed could have opened the city of Richmond to capture. McClellan spent the next three weeks repositioning his troops and waiting for promised reinforcements, losing valuable time as Lee continued to strengthen Richmond's defenses.
At the end of June, Lee began a series of attack, known as the Seven Days Battles, that had significant impact on McClellan's nerve. The surprise appearance of Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson's troops in the battle convinced McClellan that he was even more significantly outnumbered than he had assumed. He reported to Washington that he faced 200,000 Confederates, but there were actually 85,000. Lee continued his offensive while McClellan played a passive role, taking no initiative. He kept two thirds of his army out of action, fooled by General Jeb Magruder's theatrical diversionary tactics. He decided to withdraw his army to a safer base on the James River that was under control of the Union Navy.
In a telegram to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, reporting on these events, McClellan blamed the Lincoln administration for his poor progress. "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army." Lincoln never saw that inflammatory statement (at least at that time) because it was censored by the War Department telegrapher.
McClellan continued to irritate Lincoln by continuous call for reinforcements and by writing a lengthy letter in which he offered strategic and political advice for the war, continuing his opposition to abolition or seizure of slaves as a tactic. He concluded by suggesting that he be restored as general-in-chief, but Lincoln responded by naming Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck to the post without consulting, or even informing, McClellan. Lincoln and Stanton also offered command of the Army of the Potomac to Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, who refused the job.
After the Union defeat at Second Bull Run, Lincoln reluctantly called upon McLellan again because he realized that McClellan was a strong organizer and a skilled trainer of troops, able to recombine the units of Pope's army with the Army of the Potomac faster than anyone. On September 2, 1862 (149 years ago today), Lincoln named McClellan to command "the fortifications of Washington, and all the troops for the defense of the capital." Lincoln's Cabinet protested in a petition to the president signed by most of them which read: "our deliberate opinion that, at this time, it is not safe to entrust to Major General McClellan the command of any Army of the United States." Lincoln said that it was like "curing the bite with the hair of the dog." But Lincoln told his secretary, John Hay, "We must use what tools we have. There is no man in the Army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops of ours into shape half as well as he. If he can't fight himself, he excels in making others ready to fight."
When Robert E. Lee launched his Maryland Campaign on September 4, his plan was to arouse pro-Southern sympathy in the slave state of Maryland. McClellan's began his pursuit of Lee's army on September 5. Lee tried to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. This was a risky move for a smaller army, but Lee was counting on his knowledge of McClellan, of whom he said "He is an able general but a very cautious one. His army is in a very demoralized and chaotic condition, and will not be prepared for offensive operations—or he will not think it so—for three or four weeks. Before that time I hope to be on the Susquehanna."
McClellan received a miraculous break when Union soldiers accidentally found a copy of Lee's orders dividing his army, wrapped around a package of cigars in an abandoned camp. They delivered the order to McClellan's headquarters at which time McLellan was heard to exclaim "Now I know what to do! Here is a paper with which if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home." He telegraphed President Lincoln: "I have the whole rebel force in front of me, but I am confident, and no time shall be lost. I think Lee has made a gross mistake, and that he will be severely punished for it. I have all the plans of the rebels, and will catch them in their own trap if my men are equal to the emergency. ... Will send you trophies.". Despite this, McClellan delayed his attack for 18 hours, during which time Lee received intelligence that McClellan knew of his plans. In the Battle of South Mountain, McClellan's army was able to punch through the defended passes that separated them from Lee, but also gave Lee enough time to concentrate many of his men at Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Union army reached Antietam Creek, to the east of Sharpsburg, on the evening of September 15. A planned attack on September 16 was put off because of early morning fog, allowing Lee to prepare his defenses with an army less than half the size of McClellan's.
The Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, was the single bloodiest day in American military history. Despite significant advantages in manpower, McClellan was unwilling to employ his ample reserve forces. According to historian James M. McPherson, the two corps McClellan kept in reserve were larger than Lee's entire force. The reason for McClellan's reluctance was that, as in previous battles, he was convinced he was outnumbered. Following heavy casualties on both sides, Lee retreated back to Virginia. McClellan wired to Washington, "Our victory was complete. The enemy is driven back into Virginia."
Lincoln saw things differently. He was disappointed that McClellan and his superior force had not crushed Lee, who was fighting with a smaller army with its back to the Potomac River. When McClellan failed to pursue Lee aggressively after Antietam, Lincoln ordered that he be removed from command on November 5. Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside assumed command of the Army of the Potomac on November 7. McClellan wrote to his wife, "Those in whose judgment I rely tell me that I fought the battle splendidly and that it was a masterpiece of art. ... I feel I have done all that can be asked in twice saving the country. ... I feel some little pride in having, with a beaten & demoralized army, defeated Lee so utterly. ... Well, one of these days history will I trust do me justice."
The two men would meet again, in the election of 1864, when McClellan was nominated as the Democratic Party candidate. By then military success by Union forces in the fall of 1864 doomed McClellan's candidacy. Lincoln won the election handily, with 212 Electoral College votes to 21.For all his popularity with the troops, McClellan failed to secure their support and the military vote went to Lincoln nearly 3-1. Lincoln's share of the vote in the Army of the Potomac was 70%.
On November 1, 1861, Winfield Scott retired and McClellan became general-in-chief of all the Union armies. The president expressed his concern about mantle of responsibility he was placing on the 34 year old's shoulders, but McClellan's response was "I can do it all."
Lincoln, as well as many other became increasingly impatient with McClellan's slowness to attack the Confederate forces who were camped near Washington. Union defeats at the Battle of Ball's Bluff near Leesburg in October added to the frustration and damaged confidence in McClellan. In December, 1861, Congress formed a Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, which became a thorn in the side of many generals throughout the war, accusing them of incompetence and, in some cases, treason. McClellan was called as the first witness on December 23, but he contracted typhoid fever and could not attend. Instead, his subordinate officers testified, and their candid admissions that they had no knowledge of specific strategies for advancing against the Confederates raised many calls for McClellan to be fired.
McClellan further damaged his reputation by his insulting insubordination to his commander-in-chief. He he had known Lincoln before the war as a lawyer for the Illinois Central, as referred to him in private correspondence as "nothing more than a well-meaning baboon", a "gorilla", and "ever unworthy of ... his high position."
On November 13, 1861, after McClellan failed to respond to several requests from Lincoln to visit him at the White House, Lincoln went to see the general at McClellan's house, but McClellan made him wait for 30 minutes, before a servant told Lincoln that the general had gone to bed and could not see him.
On January 10, Lincoln met with his top generals (McClellan did not attend) and directed them to formulate a plan of attack. He expressed his consternation with General McClellan, saying: "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time."
On January 12, 1862, McClellan was summoned to the White House, where the Cabinet demanded to hear his war plans. For the first time, he revealed his intentions to transport the Army of the Potomac by ship to Urbanna, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River, outflanking the Confederate forces near Washington, and proceeding 50 miles (80 km) overland to capture Richmond. He refused to give any specific details of the proposed campaign, even to his friend, newly appointed War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton. On January 27, Lincoln issued an order that required all of his armies to begin offensive operations by February 22, Washington's birthday. On January 31, he issued an order for the Army of the Potomac to move overland to attack the Confederates at Manassas Junction and Centreville. McClellan immediately replied with a 22-page letter objecting in detail to the president's plan and advocating instead his Urbanna plan. This was the first written instance of the plan's details being presented to the president. Although Lincoln believed his plan was superior, he was relieved that McClellan finally agreed to begin moving, and reluctantly approved.
On March 8, doubting McClellan's resolve and frustrated by the general's procrastination, Lincoln again called a council of war at the White House in which McClellan's subordinates were asked about their confidence in the Urbanna plan. They expressed their confidence to varying degrees. After the meeting, Lincoln issued another order, naming specific officers as corps commanders to report to McClellan.
The Confederate forces under General Joseph E. Johnston withdrew from their positions before Washington, which nullified the Urbanna strategy. McClellan was criticized in the press and the Congress when it was discovered that Johnston's forces had not only slipped away unnoticed, but had for months fooled the Union Army through the use of logs painted black to appear as cannons, nicknamed Quaker Guns. The Congress's joint committee visited the abandoned Confederate lines and radical Republicans introduced a resolution demanding the dismissal of McClellan, but it was narrowly defeated.
But on March 11, 1862, Lincoln removed McClellan as general-in-chief, leaving him in command of only the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln, Stanton, and a group of officers called the "War Board" directed the strategic actions of the Union armies that spring. McClellan commented that this was a conspiracy "to secure the failure of the approaching campaign."
McClellan continued to believe intelligence reports that credited the Confederates with two or three times the men they actually had. McClellan learned that Johnston had withdrawn up the Peninsula towards Williamsburg. McClellan then had to give chase without any benefit of the heavy artillery.
McClellan's army cautiously inched towards Richmond over the next three weeks, coming to within four miles of it. On May 31, as McClellan planned an assault on Richmond, his army was surprised by a Confederate attack. Johnston saw that the Union army was split in half by the rain-swollen Chickahominy River and hoped to defeat it in detail at Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. McClellan was unable to command the army personally because of a recurrence of malarial fever, but his subordinates were able to repel the attacks. Nevertheless, McClellan received criticism from Washington for not counterattacking, which some believed could have opened the city of Richmond to capture. McClellan spent the next three weeks repositioning his troops and waiting for promised reinforcements, losing valuable time as Lee continued to strengthen Richmond's defenses.
At the end of June, Lee began a series of attack, known as the Seven Days Battles, that had significant impact on McClellan's nerve. The surprise appearance of Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson's troops in the battle convinced McClellan that he was even more significantly outnumbered than he had assumed. He reported to Washington that he faced 200,000 Confederates, but there were actually 85,000. Lee continued his offensive while McClellan played a passive role, taking no initiative. He kept two thirds of his army out of action, fooled by General Jeb Magruder's theatrical diversionary tactics. He decided to withdraw his army to a safer base on the James River that was under control of the Union Navy.
In a telegram to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, reporting on these events, McClellan blamed the Lincoln administration for his poor progress. "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army." Lincoln never saw that inflammatory statement (at least at that time) because it was censored by the War Department telegrapher.
McClellan continued to irritate Lincoln by continuous call for reinforcements and by writing a lengthy letter in which he offered strategic and political advice for the war, continuing his opposition to abolition or seizure of slaves as a tactic. He concluded by suggesting that he be restored as general-in-chief, but Lincoln responded by naming Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck to the post without consulting, or even informing, McClellan. Lincoln and Stanton also offered command of the Army of the Potomac to Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, who refused the job.
After the Union defeat at Second Bull Run, Lincoln reluctantly called upon McLellan again because he realized that McClellan was a strong organizer and a skilled trainer of troops, able to recombine the units of Pope's army with the Army of the Potomac faster than anyone. On September 2, 1862 (149 years ago today), Lincoln named McClellan to command "the fortifications of Washington, and all the troops for the defense of the capital." Lincoln's Cabinet protested in a petition to the president signed by most of them which read: "our deliberate opinion that, at this time, it is not safe to entrust to Major General McClellan the command of any Army of the United States." Lincoln said that it was like "curing the bite with the hair of the dog." But Lincoln told his secretary, John Hay, "We must use what tools we have. There is no man in the Army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops of ours into shape half as well as he. If he can't fight himself, he excels in making others ready to fight."
When Robert E. Lee launched his Maryland Campaign on September 4, his plan was to arouse pro-Southern sympathy in the slave state of Maryland. McClellan's began his pursuit of Lee's army on September 5. Lee tried to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. This was a risky move for a smaller army, but Lee was counting on his knowledge of McClellan, of whom he said "He is an able general but a very cautious one. His army is in a very demoralized and chaotic condition, and will not be prepared for offensive operations—or he will not think it so—for three or four weeks. Before that time I hope to be on the Susquehanna."
McClellan received a miraculous break when Union soldiers accidentally found a copy of Lee's orders dividing his army, wrapped around a package of cigars in an abandoned camp. They delivered the order to McClellan's headquarters at which time McLellan was heard to exclaim "Now I know what to do! Here is a paper with which if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home." He telegraphed President Lincoln: "I have the whole rebel force in front of me, but I am confident, and no time shall be lost. I think Lee has made a gross mistake, and that he will be severely punished for it. I have all the plans of the rebels, and will catch them in their own trap if my men are equal to the emergency. ... Will send you trophies.". Despite this, McClellan delayed his attack for 18 hours, during which time Lee received intelligence that McClellan knew of his plans. In the Battle of South Mountain, McClellan's army was able to punch through the defended passes that separated them from Lee, but also gave Lee enough time to concentrate many of his men at Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Union army reached Antietam Creek, to the east of Sharpsburg, on the evening of September 15. A planned attack on September 16 was put off because of early morning fog, allowing Lee to prepare his defenses with an army less than half the size of McClellan's.
The Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, was the single bloodiest day in American military history. Despite significant advantages in manpower, McClellan was unwilling to employ his ample reserve forces. According to historian James M. McPherson, the two corps McClellan kept in reserve were larger than Lee's entire force. The reason for McClellan's reluctance was that, as in previous battles, he was convinced he was outnumbered. Following heavy casualties on both sides, Lee retreated back to Virginia. McClellan wired to Washington, "Our victory was complete. The enemy is driven back into Virginia."
Lincoln saw things differently. He was disappointed that McClellan and his superior force had not crushed Lee, who was fighting with a smaller army with its back to the Potomac River. When McClellan failed to pursue Lee aggressively after Antietam, Lincoln ordered that he be removed from command on November 5. Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside assumed command of the Army of the Potomac on November 7. McClellan wrote to his wife, "Those in whose judgment I rely tell me that I fought the battle splendidly and that it was a masterpiece of art. ... I feel I have done all that can be asked in twice saving the country. ... I feel some little pride in having, with a beaten & demoralized army, defeated Lee so utterly. ... Well, one of these days history will I trust do me justice."
The two men would meet again, in the election of 1864, when McClellan was nominated as the Democratic Party candidate. By then military success by Union forces in the fall of 1864 doomed McClellan's candidacy. Lincoln won the election handily, with 212 Electoral College votes to 21.For all his popularity with the troops, McClellan failed to secure their support and the military vote went to Lincoln nearly 3-1. Lincoln's share of the vote in the Army of the Potomac was 70%.