Was McClellan largely responsible for the reverses the Union suffered up to sept 1862 - Page 5

milhistbuff1 · #41 11-30-2005, 12:39 AM

What was so dangerous about Hooker's plan? Surely Washington was adequately defended by this stage of the war. In contrast, if Hooker ordered a sortie into the Shenandoah while on the way to Richmond, it would severely damaged Lee's ability to maintain his army and compel a retreat. Lee would have no choice and probably prevent him from getting too far north or give him enough time to invest any northern city, if it came to that.
Respectfully,
Matt

CChartreux · #42 11-30-2005, 12:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by milhistbuff1

Lee had a similar style if I'm not mistaken. Was Lincoln so burnt by McClellan's insubordinate attitude that he refused to get actively involved? Surely as a former military vet himself, he understood the necessity of releasing the Harpers Ferry garrison, since he did so as soon as Hooker resigned.
Respectfully,
Matt

I agree with Admiral - I don't think Lincoln cared to meddle; he was aware that he didn't understand military tactics (and his vet service I think was really limited). He admitted to having to read and 'learn' about war-fighting when he was President.

On the other hand - and this could just be an erroneous perception on my part - I think people are loath to say anything 'bad' about Lincoln (in a way). I think Lincoln handled the situation as best he could, but I think he had a learning curve as well. Civilian-Military relationships are not easy (for obvious reasons); I think by the time Grant showed up (to his benefit), Lincoln had learned a thing or two about 'handling' generals. Of course, Grant hardly needed any supervision since he was rather capable of taking that army out for spin whenever he wanted to; Grant didn't have to work very hard to earn Lincoln's trust, indeed, he'd already proved his ability. To this end, I think Grant's arrival in Washington was the first time Lincoln could even half-way relax.

I want to learn more about Halleck because I have a hunch there's something going on there. I'm not sure what, just yet...but I wonder! I think with the Lee/Davis thing, Lee got along with Davis and he understood him (an example of a general who has the political astuteness required to deal with civilian leadership....to Lee's credit, I would say).

milhistbuff1 · #43 11-30-2005, 01:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CChartreux

I want to learn more about Halleck because I have a hunch there's something going on there. I'm not sure what, just yet...but I wonder! I think with the Lee/Davis thing, Lee got along with Davis and he understood him (an example of a general who has the political astuteness required to deal with civilian leadership....to Lee's credit, I would say).

Lee had the skills necessary to deal with Davis, Benjamin et al, but viewed the political side with an emotion that was less than fond. I believe Lee was quoted on a few occasions as effectively saying to CSA politicians you handle the political end and i'll handle the military end. Additionally I believe he said about a meeting with Davis that he had lost a great deal of time in "fruitless talk".

Concerning Halleck, why did Lincoln not extend the courtesy of stepping on halleck's tail to Hooker when he did exactly that for Grant later in the war? Especially since Fighting Joe served him so well as a corp commander both before and after C'ville.

Respectfully
Matt

ole · #44 11-30-2005, 03:13 AM

Quote:

I want to learn more about Halleck because I have a hunch there's something going on there. I'm not sure what, just yet...but I wonder! I think with the Lee/Davis thing, Lee got along with Davis and he understood him (an example of a general who has the political astuteness required to deal with civilian leadership....to Lee's credit, I would say).

From what I've derived, Halleck was one of those nit-pickers who we all love to hate, but whose nit-picking was a foundation of the orderly flow so necessary to coordinated movement and concerted action. He may have been the penultimate military administrator. A despicable personality at times, but contrarily a notable contributor to Union military success.

He was arguably one of those pieces of Lincoln's assembly of unlikely characters who, together forged an irresistable force.

Just a thought.
Ole

CChartreux · #45 11-30-2005, 07:37 PM

"Concerning Halleck, why did Lincoln not extend the courtesy of stepping on Halleck's tail to Hooker when he did exactly that for Grant later in the war? Especially since Fighting Joe served him so well as a corp commander both before and after C'ville." [milhistbuff1]

and

"Halleck was one of those nit-pickers who we all love to hate, but whose nit-picking was a foundation of the orderly flow so necessary to coordinated movement and concerted action. He may have been the penultimate military administrator. A despicable personality at times, but contrarily a notable contributor to Union military success." [ole]

Matt - concerning your comment vis-a-vis Hooker above...it actually sort of dove-tails into Ole's comment on Halleck....thus even as I was constructing this reply, I decided to put both quotes from your respective posts together.

First....while I'm 'new' to the Civil War, it has not been lost on me that there had to be a reason Lincoln kept Halleck around. Lincoln is certainly not dull enough to keep people around him that aren't 'useful' in some way; his handling of the whole Chase affair clearly demonstrates Lincoln's political agility. Thus begs the only logical conclusion as regards Halleck...and, Ole, I suspect you may have touched on it?

Didn't Marszalek (sp?) write a book recently on Halleck? Has anyone read it...and care to spill the beans on the Halleck mystery? I want to eventually get to it....after the 19 books that are slated in front of it (~sigh~so many Civil War books.....so little time...lament.....lament.....lament). Anyhoooo...Ole, this comment: "...orderly flow so necessary to coordinated movement and concerted action"...I didn't know that was a 'Halleck dividend', but if it's true, then Halleck's presence makes more sense.

Okay....getting back to Hooker....my sense is that ultimately Lincoln didn't really like Hooker. He somewhat reluctantly put him in charge of the AOP; but he was willing to take a risk on a guy with a big mouth. After all, just because you've got a big mouth and a lot of braggadocio doesn't mean you can't command an Army; to this end, I think Hooker's perfectly capable of commanding an army. It's just unfortunate that he gets in his own way too much. In my opinion, I think Grant in his memoirs said it best when he described Hooker as a very capable general....but not to be trusted. I confess, I find Hooker to be one of the greatest disappointments of the war only insofar as the potential, talent, and skill were genuinely there. Indeed, and along these lines but slightly differently oriented, from EWC's (Post #9; earlier in this thread): "Succeeding so well in this sphere, arguably his most important, contrasts so greatly with his failures in others." [ewc; #9]. While this comment is in reference to McClellan, I seem to find an affinity with its essence in regard to Hooker. I don't know...maybe that doesn't make any sense; it just seems like Hooker had so much to offer. (Obviously, this current opinion is likely to change over time as I get better educated; but that's my 'first impression' sense of the situation).

samgrant · #46 11-30-2005, 08:14 PM

Matt,

Halleck was made General in Chief of the US Army in July 1862, and held that post till March 1864 when Grant arrived in Washington to accept his promotion to Lieutenant General and General in Chief of the army.

Halleck became "chief of staff" to serve as an adviser and to act as the channel of communications between Grant and the Government.

So now, Grant outranked Halleck.

samgrant · #47 12-20-2005, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CChartreux

[Everyone - this is a really long post....you better go get something to drink, go to the bathroom, let the dog out....or something!

]

Okay….I’m going to try and spell this out as best as I can. The obvious caveat is that I am relatively new to the Civil War, so these are observations made on a ‘first impression’ basis only and have not the quality of a comprehensive and thorough analyses. As such, six months from now, I may very well find myself with a new set of opinions…which, of course, will again be subject to change an additional six months from then as well.

Let me start off by saying (perhaps a little emphatically) that I am not doubting that McClellan had limitations; I’m certain he did. What I find (presently) distasteful vis-à-vis McClellan is what I perceive to be the lack of thoughtful and careful consideration of what is, in reality, a situation with a lot of moving parts. This is further exacerbated by how history is distorted. What I mean by that (and in my opinion) is there’s a certain distortion that occurs (for the most part unconsciously) because we know the outcome of events of something (for example, William Shirer (Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) can call Neville Chamberlain an idiot in 1955, but he can’t do it in 1939. In 1955, Shirer knows the outcome of the war – and because he does know the outcome – he can look back from his perspective and see some ‘causal’ link with regard to the Chamberlain/Hitler element. Because Shirer already knows the outcome of events, it’s difficult to put himself in a frame of mind whereby he fully embraces the fact that Chamberlain had no idea what Hitler was about to do, how could he?) There’s a variety of examples of this sort of approach to something (9/11 might be the most recent). So, my point in all this, it that ‘understanding’ history is a slippery sort of thing and there are limitations built in to any pursuit of it….namely, if you know the outcome of events going into something, you’re going to have a tough time disabusing yourself of that knowledge and one risks being in possession of faulty cause-and-effect linkages (i.e., here’s the ‘effect’, now let’s go dig up some ‘causes’ that we can tie it to….forgetting for the moment, that at the actual time the event was occurring the participants could only work with what they specifically knew as the time).

Sorry to go on so long about that, but I felt that I should put that out there first because (in my opinion) that’s where the McClellan issue suffers a lack of some sort. I’ll grant that not all historians succumb to this ‘we already know the outcome of events analysis’, but it seems to me that the seductive essence of ‘cause-and-effect’ is almost irresistible as a means to put forward some point of view. And, while some of that stuff makes for interesting reading, it leaves the reader vacant of what the facts were at the time of the event in question (not the ‘facts’ that came out in post-war analysis and all the dots, so to speak, can be connected to form some sort of picture).

Okay….McClellan’s lack of action or slowness. There seems to me anyway (and another example of what I was getting at above) a sort of unspoken, or at least unconscious, thought process that would suggest: war starts…..hordes of armies come blazing out of the closet where they were (evidently) hidden for years…..just waiting for this cataclysmic war to begin. I know we don’t ‘literally’ think this, but why is that we apparently expect McClellan to launch a blitzkrieg on Virginia within a few months? Moreover, has anyone done a comprehensive analysis of exactly what McClellan would have conceivably been able to do given the situation? It seems to me that the country (both of them, but more so the Union) spends a certain amount of time in denial about the reality of the war (i.e., the war is only going to last 90 days, etc., and so forth). The incredible scope of the Civil War (while readily apparent to us today) is not resident in people’s minds at the time of its genesis. Indeed, Sherman (on a near psychic level) is the only one who senses the impending doom and the enormity of the conflict. The sense of urgency we seem to require from McClellan exists because we can see today that lack of action in the beginning of the war had unfortunate consequences; but at the time, the reluctance to act is a byproduct (in my opinion) of a more systemic problem.

I think in terms of how we think about the Civil War today, we lose sight of the fact that the Civil War is a war so far beyond the scope of anything the country or the army had ever experienced and it provides a backdrop (if you will) to fully understanding the difficulty of moving from point A to point B…especially logistically and geographically. Moreover, the army doesn’t really know how to fight this war; it’s never faced a war of this magnitude ever (not even close to it). McClellan is often given credit for ‘organizing and training’ troops, but it’s said (or so it seems to me) in a way that is almost somewhat dismissive and as though it were nothing more than a segue into the long list of things McClellan did wrong. But, do we even really fully consider what this means? This isn’t bootcamp with a couple guys getting their hair cut and learning how to march and fire a gun with all the accoutrements of a standing army. This is 90,000 volunteers showing up and having absolutely no idea what they’re going to be doing. It’s one thing to organize and train some little cadre of 500 enthusiastic guys ready to die for their country….it’s quite another to take on 90,000 of them. The organizational and leadership skills required for something like this is nearly unimaginable; and while McClellan is given credit for this, I don’t think the credit is emphatic enough given the size of this undertaking….it’s huge! It takes a long time to build an army from scratch, especially when the degree of the conflict isn’t really fully understood yet. Moving an army is even harder. It seems to me that we forget the geographic size of the theatre of engagement. Most European countries are the size of states in the United States and while the existence of trains will make moving around somewhat easier, the vast expanse of land on which these armies will fight is basically ‘untamed’ wilderness. I don’t know, it just seems to me that the logistics of the Civil War are nearly unfathomable and I have no idea how anyone (no matter how brilliant) could have had clear enough vision of the ‘big picture’ at the time (i.e., they really don’t know how to fight this war yet).

Pursuing this ‘organizing and training’ the army thing even further, it seems to me that here we arrive at what might be deemed as a conflict within McClellan himself. There’s a couple of attending points to this, so let me get through them as best I can. Unlike most other generals, McClellan did not ‘inherit’ his army….he built it himself (Lee took over Johnston’s army, he didn’t ‘build’ it). And, while probably all generals (well, except for maybe a few) ‘loved’ their soldiers, McClellan’s emotional attachment to his army includes a ‘pride of ownership’ element not apparent in any of the other general/army relationships. It seems to me that McClellan is accused of having a fear of failure….but is that really it? A man facing a hail of bullets and certain death is indeed an act of valor, but having to order that man to face that hail of bullets and certain death is a darkish kind of courage on a profound level. I cannot imagine the searing emotional trauma of sending a man to his death, but knowing, all the while, that it must be done. Obviously some are able to do it better than others, but that McClellan built his army with his own hands would seem to lend itself to an even more poignant and tragic emotional dilemma….he must now kill it. McClellan loved his soldiers and his soldiers loved him…..making it all the more difficult to put them in harm’s way. This isn’t an excuse, it’s just an observation (on my part) that McClellan’s emotional affinity with his army is unappreciated and largely ignored.

In addition, however, to whatever emotional attachment McClellan might have had towards his army is the proximity of the Peninsula Campaign to Shiloh. Here’s what I mean: In my mind, the Civil War really doesn’t get started until Shiloh. After months of not really understanding the gravity of this conflict (i.e., looks like it’s gonna go for longer than 90 days there!), collecting soldiers (clothing them and arming them), and what amounts to a cake-walk (by comparison) at Manassas…..Shiloh literally stuns the nation (both of them) and shakes it out of its dream-like state. This is now a ‘real’ war and Shiloh delivers up the casualty list to prove it (indeed, Grant lost his job over it). Both sides were completely unprepared for blood-letting of that magnitude. To us today, Shiloh is whatever it is….just another exciting battle to add to the list; but for those people back then, Shiloh is horrifying. The Peninsula Campaign will take place shortly after Shiloh….is it any wonder then that McClellan (fully aware of the national outrage regarding Shiloh) informs President Lincoln that he has no intention of paying for victory in a currency of blood on the level of Shiloh? Indeed, McClellan gives himself away when he so much as admits he’s unwilling to incur the casualties required.

Well, I’ve probably gone on long enough for now. Again, I’m not suggesting that McClellan isn’t guilty of some bumbling (Antietam is nothing short of bizarre). What I’m proposing is that (in my observation) criticism of McClellan isn’t measured against what circumstances and realities he was contending with at the time (or, at best, certainly a wider-angled lens perspective); the criticism of McClellan seems built around what he should have done in light of the fact that we know the outcome of events. To this end, McClellan becomes an easy target and I don’t know that there’s been an even-handed and fair assessment of McClellan within the context of his immediate circumstances.

I’d be interested in what others have to say about this; I know this is a long post, so thanks for listening. In the end, I think McClellan loved his army too much and that may very well be an overly romantic sentiment. But I can’t help wondering how things might have been different if he’d simply taken command of an already existing army that already had its own sense of identity.

Ahh... CC, Maybe you just fell hard for that handsome mug!