Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
You don't think McClellan at least respected the chain of command. I think the problem was McClellan not particularly liking his superiors than any lack of respect for the fact that they were his superiors.
When McClellan was relieved, he obeyed. Reluctantly and with ill-grace, but he obeyed. This is the minimum that should be expected of him, and he met this standard.
Many of his other actions are disrespectful or questionable. Perhaps this is because he saw Lincoln and Stanton as lawyers who had been employed by the RR line he was a big-wig in before the war. Perhaps it was because he was naturally arrogant Perhaps something else. All that is certain is that McClellan had a long record of a haughty attitude and an inflated sense of his place in things.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Although this thread has turned into a McClellan analysis, it still works because "duty and honor" can be loosely attached. Besides, it's great to have a McClellan defender on board!
We've now heard again that wars should be run by military men. The concept is as old as the rock as a weapon, but wars are an extension of diplomatic relations. (I think that was Jomini's contention, if not Clausewitz's as well.) McC generalled with his own versions of diplomacy in his inflated mind.
Military men are the most qualified to wage war, but not to determine its desired outcome. Lincoln wanted the Confederate armies to throw in the towel or otherwise be disassembled. McClellan apparently wanted to bring the Confederacy to a bargaining table. The two concepts are at odds. Guess who wins?
McClellan had his good points (mostly administrative), but when it came to conducting a battle or a campaign, his heart and mind were elsewhere. He clearly blew the Penninsula Campaign and accidently inflicted grave damage on Lee's forces during the Seven Days (in the end, he lost even while winning). He clearly mismanaged the Maryland Campaign as well. The AoNV ought to have been crushed in the hills around Sharpsburg, but McC fed his overwhelming force into Lee's grinder a piece at a time. Again: not to win, but to not lose.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Actually I tend to think that McClellan is 'ok' - but for 'Lee' McClellan probably takes Richmond. We have to remember that no Union general, Grant included, really looked 'good' against Lee.
As folks who have read this forum know, I'm a little bit of a McClellan defender too. Mainly because:
1. He made the defeated Army believe in itself again, and put the stamp of his personality on it.
2. McClellan would have never pulled a Fredericksburg, or even a 2nd Bull Run, and the point of the Pennisula campaign was to avoid the difficulties that Hooker, then Grant ran into going Overland.
McClellan gets the brickbats(in my book), because I actually don't think he did such a great job organizing the army.
1. He didn't organize an effective cavalry arm. That was Hooker's doing.
2. He kept a 7 corps structure, combining them for battle into Grand Divisions and so forth. It was an unwieldy, clumsy organization. Lee organized the ANV into 2, then 3 big corps.
3. McClellan, as someone noted, was cautious, but he also created a cautious culture of officers who often didn't show much initiative and moved very slowly as well. This culture reinforced McClellan's own tendency to hesitate. The Army of the Potomac moved sluggishly for Grant too, and his plans were sometimes foiled by his army's inability to execute them in a timely way. In the final chase after Lee toward Appommatox, its significant that Grant wanted Sheridan, a non AoP general to run the pursuit.
On the political side, McClellan was an instrument of a elected government. It wasn't up to him to make policy or hinder a policy that the president had decided on. If he had kept fighting on the Pennisula, instead of retreating, Lincoln would have backed him as he did Grant.
Although this thread has turned into a McClellan analysis, it still works because "duty and honor" can be loosely attached. Besides, it's great to have a McClellan defender on board!
Mac gets a lot of bad press because of his politics, not he achievements which were many. His duty, as he explained, was to restore the Union, not get mixed up in the niggar question, and a revolution that tore the constition to shreds in respect of property ownership and due process.
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We've now heard again that wars should be run by military men. The concept is as old as the rock as a weapon, but wars are an extension of diplomatic relations. (I think that was Jomini's contention, if not Clausewitz's as well.) McC generalled with his own versions of diplomacy in his inflated mind.
Your thinking of Clwtz dictum that war is an extension of politcs by other means.http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/ECHEVAR/ECHJFQ.htm but my comment was not on that per se, but on the fact that Lincoln and stanton intervened, and failled, when had they not, the war may have ended in 62, because they thought it a done deal and could safley interfere, not like in Stalins case where he though he knew better than the mil officers, but like in Stalins case, both learnt to leave tyhe job to those trained to do it and not seek to gain political advantage by grabbing the reins at the wrong time.
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Military men are the most qualified to wage war, but not to determine its desired outcome. Lincoln wanted the Confederate armies to throw in the towel or otherwise be disassembled. McClellan apparently wanted to bring the Confederacy to a bargaining table. The two concepts are at odds. Guess who wins?
Mac famously dicated to POTUS about what the war was for and over, and how it was to be prosecuted, just as famously Lincoln attempted to use the mil to do as he thought best, in resposne, the end result was a failure to end the war in 62, so nobody one, and evryone lost more therin.
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McClellan had his good points (mostly administrative), but when it came to conducting a battle or a campaign, his heart and mind were elsewhere.
simply unsurportable by the evidence.
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He clearly blew the Penninsula Campaign and accidently inflicted grave damage on Lee's forces during the Seven Days (in the end, he lost even while winning).
The 7 days was lost when Stanton ended the reinfourcemnt flow and Linclon detatched 40k that would have made TTJ flank approach an imposobility.
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He clearly mismanaged the Maryland Campaign as well.
Yet took control of a routed mismanged patchwork and put into the field and won the campaign in 6 weeks, ie acted fatster than even Lee though possible and faster than any other US gen officer.
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The AoNV ought to have been crushed in the hills around Sharpsburg, but McC fed his overwhelming force into Lee's grinder a piece at a time. Again: not to win, but to not lose.
If you have another battle in which a higher % of the Union forces are engaged, and the CS losses a higher % of manpower, then you can find fault, otherwise your point falls flat, for no one could crush an Army in the field, not even Hoods twin defeats and retreat in winter over barren terrian could contrive such a result.
How sure are you for instance that an attack en echelon was not intended?.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
On the political side, McClellan was an instrument of a elected government. It wasn't up to him to make policy or hinder a policy that the president had decided on. If he had kept fighting on the Pennisula, instead of retreating, Lincoln would have backed him as he did Grant.
ill just pick up on the last, Mac duty was to uphold the constition, and where he and POTUS disagreed was what that ment Mac had to do, follow Rep party directions of what the war was to achive, or what the constition required its mil officers to do.
Lastly Abe ordered Mac to save the Army on the Penn, not to attack with it, ounce things went south, so as to speak.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Not quite getting your first paragraph Hanny. McClellan didn't want any form of emancipation. It wasn't up to him. He needed to concentrate on defeating the Confederates.
McClellan was already retreating during the 7 days battle. It's hard to imagine Grant or Thomas, or Lee that matter, doing the same under the same circumstances.
Not quite getting your first paragraph Hanny. McClellan didn't want any form of emancipation. It wasn't up to him. He needed to concentrate on defeating the Confederates.
McClellan was already retreating during the 7 days battle. It's hard to imagine Grant or Thomas, or Lee that matter, doing the same under the same circumstances.
Macs duty and obligation via oath, was to uphold the Constition, not POTUS intpretation of it, hence the vast gulf between the kind of war lincoln was being edged towards fighting, by JCCTW and the radicals of his own party, being a dioamteric oposite of what Mac understood his duty and oath required of him. When he wrote to fiends to help him dodge the niggar question, it was because that politcal influence was dicating mil policy, or attemting to do so and would do so when he was removed.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Macs duty and obligation via oath, was to uphold the Constition, not POTUS intpretation of it, hence the vast gulf between the kind of war lincoln was being edged towards fighting, by JCCTW and the radicals of his own party, being a dioamteric oposite of what Mac understood his duty and oath required of him. When he wrote to fiends to help him dodge the niggar question, it was because that politcal influence was dicating mil policy, or attemting to do so and would do so when he was removed.
Hanny, in the US military tradition, generals do not make policy. If McClellan felt he disagreed strongly with Lincoln's policy, he could voice his objections through the chain of command and he could resign in protest; either would be highly proper.
What McClellan would be wrong to do is to try to obstruct the implementation of the President's policy. While there are lots of grey areas in practice, any direct interference or obstruction by McClellan is clearly insubordination to his Commander-in-Chief. Carried to an extreme, it could become a criminal act.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
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