This Day in Civil War History (McClellan, ‘”Young Napoleon,” Named Union Commander)

November 1, 1861—The greatest American professional soldier of the first half of the 19^th century was replaced by a onetime protégé who had begun to bewilder and bother his old boss. Worn down by a lifetime of labor, Winfield Scott, who had led armies in the War of 1812 and the Seminole Wars, then had influenced an entire new generation of future Civil War leaders on both sides during the Mexican War, had his retirement accepted by the administration of Abraham Lincoln, which then immediately named as his replacement George Brinton McClellan (pictured).

The contrast between the departing and incoming generals, at least in the minds of the media, could not have been more stark, and worked entirely to the advantage of the considerably younger and more vigorous “Little Mac.” At 75, Scott seemed old and washed-up, more than fulfilling the expectations created by his nickname, “Old Fuss and Feathers.” At 35, McClellan was hailed as the victor in the one area in the eastern theater of operations where Union forces had so far bested the Confederates: West Virginia. Goodbye, yesterday's superannuated hero. Hello, tomorrow's genius.

Unfortunately, appearances were as deceiving then as they are now. For the next year, McClellan would tantalize and, ultimately, vex the Lincoln administration--first displaying superb organizational and motivational skills, then engaging in insubordination and, fatally, what the incredibly tolerant President eventually concluded was a case of “the slows.”

McClellan’s career constitutes a warning to beware of military or political messiahs. He seemed on the fast track to success--graduating second in his West Point class, receiving two promotions as an engineer officer while on Scott’s staff in Mexico, being chosen by the Army to observe the Crimean War. His rise had been as meteoric in the civilian (chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad, then president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad) as in the military realm.

Minor victories in what soon became West Virginia in the first half of 1861 stood out as specks of light in a very dark area of operations for the North. The Battle of Bull Run had frightened everyone out of their wits. Even McClellan’s harshest critics have nothing bad to say about his subseuqenunstinting work in organizing and training the Army of the Potomac in the aftermath of that debacle--actions that saved the nation’s morale at a dangerous time.

But already, trouble was surrounding “Little Mac”:

* It was rumored--correctly--that his success in West Virginia had nothing to do with him. At the Battle of Rich Mountain in July 1861, it was William Rosecrans rather than McClellan who conceived the maneuvers that won the battle--just as it was Rosecrans who, at the height of the fighting, continued to victory, even when McClellan, hearing the sounds of battle far off, was so convinced of a loss that he refused to reinforce his subordinate.

* He was believing his hype as the “Young Napoleon.” Height--and, perhaps, that habit of sticking his hand in his uniform that you see in the accompanying photo--might have had more to do with this than anything else. But, as Lincoln pressed him to take the fighting to the Confederacy--something other generals (including U.S. Grant in the West) were already doing--McClellan conceived of the idea of a Napoleonic “grand army” to move toward Richmond. But, as Williamson Murray noted in a MHQ article called “What Took the North So Long?”, Napoleonic set-piece tactics were about to be rendered obsolete by new weaponry that lengthened killing ranges by 300 to 400 yards--and dramatically increased the carnage. No, it wasn’t Napoleonic tactics that would secure victory, but a Napoleonic mindset of energy and daring. The cautious-to-a-fault McClellan didn’t possess these latter attributes.

* McClellan’s barely concealed contempt for Lincoln put him on a collision course with the President. When he wasn’t offering advice that was not his business to give on Lincoln’s actions in dealing with the South, McClellan was privately telling friends that the President was “a well-meaning baboon.” At one point, when the President came to visit him, the commander, who had been out at a military wedding, did not bother even to greet the President, but went straight to bed. Lincoln, normally willing to abide nearly anything from a general so long as he produced victory, grew increasingly tired of his commander’s arrogance and excuses.

* McClellan was scoffing at eminently sane advice from Scott. When the old general had raised some practical objections to McClellan's original plans for marching on Richmond, "Little Mac" heaped scorn on his well-meaning mentor's "Anaconda Plan" for squeezing the life out of the Confederacy. Of course, this was the strategy that, when implemented by Grant and Sherman, won the war for the Union.

* McClellan was overly susceptible to faulty military intelligence he wanted badly to believe. Those assessments, provided by Allan Pinkerton (founder of the legendary American detective agency), wildly overestimated the enemy. They not only delayed McClellan from taking his army into the field, but, on the few occasions when he had finally screwed up his courage to do so, convinced him to let the initiative lapse when victory could still have been his.

* McClellan’s failure of nerve led to extraordinary vacillations during campaigns. In June 1862, toward the end of his Seven Days campaign against Richmond, McClellan fired off a set of amazing telegrams to his civilian commander--first claiming that he battled under “great inferiority in numbers,” then stating he was beginning “to think we are invincible,” then griping again about facing “vastly superior numbers,” and concluding that “You have done your best to sacrifice this army.” So shocking was this last statement that the supervisor of military telegrams in Washington took it upon himself to delete it, thereby ensuring McClellan a couple of months more of continued employment that he didn’t deserve.

* McClellan's lack of decisiveness led him to squander the greatest opportunity for cutting the Confederacy to pieces early on. When Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland on his first of two invasions of the North, McClellan had a golden opportunity to cut him to pieces when he received Special Orders No. 191--what became famous to history as the Confederate commander's "Lost Order." McClellan had what commanders dream of getting just before battle: an indication of the foe's placement of troops, movements, and ultimate objective. Better yet, Lee had no idea McClellan knew all of this. Moreover, "Little Mac" knew it, boasting to a subordinate that the coming battle would be reminiscent of Napoleon's 1796 victory at Castiglione.  But instead of annihilating the Army of Northern Virginia, McClellan only fought it to a bloody draw at Antietam, having forfeited his chance at glory by moving his troops with insufficient speed for four days. At the height of the battle, which caused the greatest loss of American military casualties on a single day, McClellan still withheld divisions from the attack.

Roughly a year after his appointment, Lincoln relieved McClellan of command. Still, for the comparatively short time he had as comander,  McClellan had affected the Army of the Potomac for the rest of the war. On the one hand, he had provided his beloved troops with the intensive training they needed to match their enthusiasm. But historian Joseph B. Mitchell delivered an even more devastating summary of his many faults as strategist and commander:

"McClellan set such a poor example--multiple excuses, timidity, lack of appreciation of the value of time, caution, and apprehension--that his army never completely recovered from the effects of his leadership until the very last days of the war when General Grant was in charge of its operations."