I've read elsewhere that when Lee was asked who he thought was the best Union general, he answered McClellan.
Therefore, I googled Pepper:
cache of
http://www.teenja.com/p/articles/mi_...8/pg_11?pi=tnj
(59.) George Whitfield Pepper, Under Three Flags: or, The Story of My Life as Preacher, Captain in the Army, Chaplain, Consul, with Speeches and Interviews, by the Reverend George W. Pepper (Cincinnati: Curtis & Jennings, 1899), 333. pepper's ethnic bias and the strange circumstances of the supposed interview (Pepper claimed to have visited Lee's home, unannounced, as Sherman's army marched north through Richmond) combine to cast serious doubt on the authenticity of the Lee quotation. An examination of major sources reveals no statements by Lee on the Irish Brigade or Generals Cleburne and Meagher. Excerpts from this interview nonetheless have been included in popular and scholarly works, including biographies of Meagher and Cleburne and several treatments of the Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg. See Athearn, Thomas Francis Meagher, 121; Barry, John Boyle O'Reilly, 36; Irving A. Buck, Cleburne and His Command (Dayton, Ohio: Morningside Bookshop, 1992), 294; Hernon, Celts, Catholics, and Copperheads, 18; Craig L. Symonds, Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997), 158.
After the war General Lee was asked who was the best Union general he had fought against His answer was, "McClellan by all odds."
-from:
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/...cfm?pageid=595
On the other hand, who actually made the 'at all odds' quote?:
(10) In 1867 John Singleton Mosby, was interviewed in the Philadelphia Post about the merits of the different generals in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Whom do you consider the ablest General on the Federal side?" "McClellan, by all odds. I think he is the only man on the Federal side who could have organized the army as it was. Grant had, of course, more successes in the field in the latter part of the war, but Grant only came in to reap the benefits of McClellan's previous efforts. At the same time, I do not wish to disparage General Grant, for he has many abilities, but if Grant had commanded during the first years of the war, we would have gained our independence. Grant's policy of attacking would have been a blessing to us, for we lost more by inaction than we would have lost in battle. After the first Manassas the army took a sort of 'dry rot', and we lost more men by camp diseases than we would have by fighting."
-from:
http://web311.********.net/USAgrantU.htm
and:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-.../1007768/posts
Then again:
Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee
by Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
Mr. Cassius Lee was my father's first cousin. They had been children
together, schoolmates in boyhood, and lifelong friends and neighbours.
He was my father's trusted adviser in all business matters, and in
him he had the greatest confidence. Mr. Cazenove Lee, of Washington,
D. C., his son, has kindly furnished me with some of his recollections
of this visit, which I give in his own words:
"It is greatly to be regretted that an accurate and full account of
this visit was not preserved, for the conversations during those
two or three days were most interesting and would have filled a
volume. It was the review of a lifetime by two old men. It is believed
that General Lee never talked after the war with as little reserve
as on this occasion. Only my father and two of his boys were present.
I can remember his telling my father of meeting Mr. Leary, their old
teacher at the Alexandria Academy, during his late visit to the
South, which recalled many incidents of their school life. They talked
of the war, and he told of the delay of Jackson in getting on
McClellan's flank, causing the fight at Mechanicsville, which fight
he said was unexpected, but was necessary to prevent McClellan from
entering Richmond, from the front of which most of the troops had been
moved. He thought that if Jackson had been at Gettysburg he would
have gained a victory, 'for' said he, 'Jackson would have held the
heights which Ewell took on the first day.' He said that Ewell was
a fine officer, but would never take the responsibility of exceeding
his orders, and having been ordered to Gettysburg, he would not go
****her and hold the heights beyond the town. I asked him which of
the Federal generals he considered the greatest, and he answered
most emphatically 'McClellan by all odds.' He was asked why he did
not come to Washington after second Manassas.
"'Because,' he replied, 'my men had nothing to eat,' and pointing
to Fort Wade, in the rear of our home, he said, 'I could not tell my
men to take that fort when they had had nothing to eat for three days.
I went to Maryland to feed my army.'
- from:
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoun.../chapter23.htm
The exact reply, from both Lee and Mosby?: "McClellan, by all odds."? - not out of the realm of possibility!
OK, I'm done on this quandry, because if Shelby Foote wrote it, I'm prepared to believe it (I'll trust his research):
"Five years after .... he (McClellan) received what was perhaps his finest professional compliment, and received it from the man who had occupied the best of all possible positions from which to formulate a judgement. Asked then who was the ablest Federal general he had opposed thoughout the war, Robert E. Lee replied without hesitation: "McClellan, by all odds."
- pg. 757, Vol. 1, Civil War A Narrative
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An Interview With General Lee 
An Interview With General Lee 
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