Lee Did Lee Really Say This?

[Saphroneth]

How would a historian research this to determine the validity of this answer ? To whom did he make the statement?Was it in a question where he was given a list of generals which he had fought? When did he make the statement ,mental condition {he had suffered stokes} his,was he in any sought of mental duress {,aging process were clearity might have been affected} were there witness to testify or was this an interview by reported.and were there witnesses to this interview.Was this in a speech and is the speech in a achieves.?

The first thing to say when you get an answer like this is to look at what answers you might have expected and then see how unlikely this one is.

The list of enemy army generals Lee faced is pretty much:

McClellan
Pope
Burnside
Hooker
Meade
Grant

Of these, three of them (Hooker, Pope, Burnside) can be immediately disqualified; Lee beat them convincingly, often despite being significantly outnumbered, and they didn't manage to do the same in reverse. The other three (Grant, Meade, McClellan) are the short list, and I could see reasons why Lee might have said all three:

Grant, obviously, was the one who finally brought him to bay.
Meade fought Gettysburg and beat him, forcing his second invasion of the North to end.
McClellan inflicted on him the heaviest single day's casualties and forced him to end his first invasion of the North, and outmanoeuvred Lee twice.

Now, in all three of those cases there are also reasons why Lee might not have said them:

Grant regularly launched his units into bloody attacks on entrenched Confederate positions, giving Lee favourable conditions to fight; his army was very large compared to Lee and he proved unable to conduct regular approaches when given the opportunity.
Meade's victory was defensive, and Lee could claim that Meade's manoeuvering (e.g. Mine Run) was lacking.
For McClellan, Lee can point to his own victory in the Seven Days, plus the periods of McClellan's inactivity (though of course all three of the generals in this section have periods of inactivity).

 

[67th Tigers]

For McClellan, Lee can point to his own victory in the Seven Days, plus the periods of McClellan's inactivity (though of course all three of the generals in this section have periods of inactivity).

It's perhaps worth looking at Lee's experience based upon three factors:

1. Did he lose battles against a commander?
2. Did that commander threaten Richmond?
3. Was Lee able to detach major forces from his main body

If so then the really bad times are against McClellan, the Gettysburg encounter, and the last months vs Grant. Meade we can pretty much discount as a contender. The real question is did Lee recognise that he fought McClellan when the relative strengths of the two sides were equal or even favoured the rebels, and that by the end of 1864 Federal power meant he simply had no chance to win...

 

[Philip Leigh]

Did Robert E. Lee really say that the greatest Federal general was "McClellan by all odds?"

Maybe, maybe not.

http://studycivilwar.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/did-lee-say-this/

What do you think?

If Lee did not, John Singleton Mosby did. From Mosby's memoir:

"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."​

 

[Saruman]

The first thing to say when you get an answer like this is to look at what answers you might have expected and then see how unlikely this one is.

The list of enemy army generals Lee faced is pretty much:

McClellan
Pope
Burnside
Hooker
Meade
Grant

Of these, three of them (Hooker, Pope, Burnside) can be immediately disqualified; Lee beat them convincingly, often despite being significantly outnumbered, and they didn't manage to do the same in reverse. The other three (Grant, Meade, McClellan) are the short list, and I could see reasons why Lee might have said all three:

Grant, obviously, was the one who finally brought him to bay.
Meade fought Gettysburg and beat him, forcing his second invasion of the North to end.
McClellan inflicted on him the heaviest single day's casualties and forced him to end his first invasion of the North, and outmanoeuvred Lee twice.

Now, in all three of those cases there are also reasons why Lee might not have said them:

Grant regularly launched his units into bloody attacks on entrenched Confederate positions, giving Lee favourable conditions to fight; his army was very large compared to Lee and he proved unable to conduct regular approaches when given the opportunity.
Meade's victory was defensive, and Lee could claim that Meade's manoeuvering (e.g. Mine Run) was lacking.
For McClellan, Lee can point to his own victory in the Seven Days, plus the periods of McClellan's inactivity (though of course all three of the generals in this section have periods of inactivity).

Agree. Pope, Burnside and Hooker were easily defeated. Meade won on the defensive and was pretty lackluster in his efforts afterwards. Grant only faced Lee in the final years of the war, when the Army of Northern Virginia was exhausted and poorly supplied, Lee was suffering health problems, Jackson was dead, and Longstreet wounded for most of the time. McClellan faced Lee at the Army of Northern Virginia's prime with Jackson and Longstreet at the head of their respective corps.

 

[John S. Carter]

The first thing to say when you get an answer like this is to look at what answers you might have expected and then see how unlikely this one is.

The list of enemy army generals Lee faced is pretty much:

McClellan
Pope
Burnside
Hooker
Meade
Grant

Of these, three of them (Hooker, Pope, Burnside) can be immediately disqualified; Lee beat them convincingly, often despite being significantly outnumbered, and they didn't manage to do the same in reverse. The other three (Grant, Meade, McClellan) are the short list, and I could see reasons why Lee might have said all three:

Grant, obviously, was the one who finally brought him to bay.
Meade fought Gettysburg and beat him, forcing his second invasion of the North to end.
McClellan inflicted on him the heaviest single day's casualties and forced him to end his first invasion of the North, and outmanoeuvred Lee twice.

Now, in all three of those cases there are also reasons why Lee might not have said them:

Grant regularly launched his units into bloody attacks on entrenched Confederate positions, giving Lee favourable conditions to fight; his army was very large compared to Lee and he proved unable to conduct regular approaches when given the opportunity.
Meade's victory was defensive, and Lee could claim that Meade's manoeuvering (e.g. Mine Run) was lacking.
For McClellan, Lee can point to his own victory in the Seven Days, plus the periods of McClellan's inactivity (though of course all three of the generals in this section have periods of inactivity).

I would say McClellan but for the fact that Mc never proceeded to follow up with Lee after a battle,There was not a time that Little Mc did not have a army and better equipped one than the ANV,McClellan had a reserve that even if he lost men in a battle this reserve was large enough to keep Lee on the defensive .Grant at least successfully kept Lee on the defensive as around Petersburg,Grant army was larger due to the fact that the draft ,the enlistment of blacks,and Irish immigrants ,Lee had a limited source to select from.Then he could rely on the Western army of Sherman to keep the Southern army in the deep South busy due to its size and the intellegent command of Confederate troops.As to his bloody attacks ,to Grant these losses were acceptable for the Confederacy losse could not be replace. just as with the ending of POW exchanges.This would shorten then war as Lincoln desired.Three year of war with the South showing no indication, of surrendering ,Three years of following Lee from one battle to another horrible bloody field .Grant knew as did Sherman and Lincoln ,these losses would be the only method to bring the South {with Sherman and his Mongrel army}and Lee to finally admit this butchery must end,One last ,Meade did follow up after Gettysburg.,fate in some way allowed Lee to cross back over the river back into his battleground.

 

[Saphroneth]

I would say McClellan but for the fact that Mc never proceeded to follow up with Lee after a battle,There was not a time that Little Mc did not have a army and better equipped one than the ANV,McClellan had a reserve that even if he lost men in a battle this reserve was large enough to keep Lee on the defensive .

This actually isn't true.

Firstly, there absolutely is a time when McClellan's army isn't larger and better equipped than Lee's army, and that's the Seven Days (when McClellan's army is smaller); I think you could argue McClellan's army was worse equipped than Lee's army at and after Antietam, because there were serious supply issues for weeks afterwards.

As for following up with Lee after a battle, McClellan does. He follows up after South Mountain, and the result is Antietam; he follows up after Antietam, and the result is Shepherdstown (where his pursuit is stop-punched and he lacks the force available to cross the defended river). He's then functionally prevented from going after Lee in the Shenandoah Valley for a month by Halleck, and fired once he's moving again.

McClellan doesn't follow up after Mechanicsville, Gaines Mill, Savage's Station, Glendale and Malvern Hill because in all these cases "following up" would have led to the encirclement and destruction of some or all of his army. Once he's safe at Harrisons Landing he does make plans to resume the offensive, but his promised reinforcements are continually kept away and he's finally ordered to end the campaign over his protests.

 

[John S. Carter]

This actually isn't true.

Firstly, there absolutely is a time when McClellan's army isn't larger and better equipped than Lee's army, and that's the Seven Days (when McClellan's army is smaller); I think you could argue McClellan's army was worse equipped than Lee's army at and after Antietam, because there were serious supply issues for weeks afterwards.

As for following up with Lee after a battle, McClellan does. He follows up after South Mountain, and the result is Antietam; he follows up after Antietam, and the result is Shepherdstown (where his pursuit is stop-punched and he lacks the force available to cross the defended river). He's then functionally prevented from going after Lee in the Shenandoah Valley for a month by Halleck, and fired once he's moving again.

McClellan doesn't follow up after Mechanicsville, Gaines Mill, Savage's Station, Glendale and Malvern Hill because in all these cases "following up" would have led to the encirclement and destruction of some or all of his army. Once he's safe at Harrisons Landing he does make plans to resume the offensive, but his promised reinforcements are continually kept away and he's finally ordered to end the campaign over his protests.

Why does McClellan have such a reputation of being a general who Lincoln could not persuade to continue to press Lee after a battle and who he released from command twice.Why did McClellan receive such a bad reputation from Lincoln's administration as a Union Napoleon. and as a inepte general who would not risk what it took for victory as with Grant?.Was there any politics involved in his evaluation by the administration?.Is it true that the reason his soldiers loved him is that he would not put them in any situation which may cause them a loss or a large death total. If he had not been so hostile to Lincoln or egotistic would he had remained in command?.Did Lincoln know of his political leaning as to slavery and the war?He was always demanding more troops or ordinance when Lincoln would seem to think he had what he needed,or was that Halleck?Reminds of a British generals who always needed more soldiers to fight a small colonial rebel army or a British general who also would not attack till he knew he had forces larger than the German general.Why has historians for so long written of Mc.as this metrotic general? Why has the military historian ,at least till recently. written him as this third rate general? Know of honest bios on Little Mc,?

 

[Saphroneth]

Why does McClellan have such a reputation of being a general who Lincoln could not persuade to continue to press Lee after a battle and who he released from command twice.

Because historians are presented with the choice of blaming Lincoln or McClellan for the way the war did not end in 1862, and they choose McClellan to blame.

Why did McClellan receive such a bad reputation from Lincoln's administration as a Union Napoleon. and as a inepte general who would not risk what it took for victory as with Grant?

Because Lincoln did not understand warfare and thought he did. He thought it was just an easy thing of going straight towards the enemy and fighting them - he actually spoke approvingly of the slaughter at Fredericksburg!

Was there any politics involved in his evaluation by the administration?

Yep. McClellan was a War Democrat, and just after the November midterms there was a big purge of them.

Is it true that the reason his soldiers loved him is that he would not put them in any situation which may cause them a loss or a large death total.

His soldiers appear to have loved him because he wouldn't do that to them without good reason. McClellan was certainly willing to put his soldiers into nasty situations - he after all was the attacker at Antietam which saw the bloodiest day of American military history - but he wouldn't throw them against prepared defences without good reason.

If he had not been so hostile to Lincoln or egotistic would he had remained in command?.Did Lincoln know of his political leaning as to slavery and the war?

It's hard to say about the first one, but I suspect not. As for the second one, yes, Lincoln knew that McClellan's preferred solution was not to officially end slavery but instead to just forcibly purchase every slave in an entire state and free the lot.

He was always demanding more troops or ordinance when Lincoln would seem to think he had what he needed,or was that Halleck?

What kept happening - and this happens in April, May, June and July - is that McClellan is promised a certain number of troops by Lincoln, and Lincoln agrees that McClellan needs those troops, and then Lincoln or Halleck doesn't send the troops.
In September and October it's instead vital supplies.

Why has historians for so long written of Mc.as this metrotic general? Why has the military historian ,at least till recently. written him as this third rate general? Know of honest bios on Little Mc,?

The essential problem is that errors have polluted the historiography. There are four main sources of them:

The first set of sources is 1864 election propaganda. A lot of the usual falsehoods about McClellan come from this period, like the idea he was on a gunboat during the fighting at Malvern Hill (which is a conflation of two different days - he was on a gunboat when the fighting started at Glendale, the day before).

The second set of sources is the Lost Cause, which argued that every Union general had had massive advantages, Lee had been a wizard to beat everyone until Grant, and Grant had simply crushed him under massive numerical superiority. This involved distorting the numbers at all the battles, and while most of the distortions got caught it wasn't done for McClellan - so the Lost Cause numbers were allowed to stand, creating the false impression that McClellan's army was much bigger than it was.
(Walter H. Taylor, for example, calculated Lee's strength at Antietam by explicitly assuming that Lee got no reinforcements whatsoever after Second Bull Run - which ignores several entire divisions for a start.)

The third set of sources is the group of authors who followed the concept of "Lincoln finds a general", which was the idea that the main problem the North had with winning the war was the psychology of the generals. This pretty much discarded the actual numbers in favour of arguing that only Grant had the willpower to actually fight, an absurdity on the face of it when you consider that McClellan must therefore have somehow reached the outskirts of Richmond through the power of pacifism.

And the final set of sources is, basically, Stephen Sears. Sears is a popular historian, but he's not a good historian - he's been caught out on several occasions actually inventing evidence, or lying about it, or distorting it, and usually in the service of making McClellan look bad.


The reason for the third and fourth set of errors appears to simply be that McClellan has become a caricature. People (for historians are people) have become invested in the idea that he sucks.

 

[67th Tigers]

Why has historians for so long written of Mc.as this metrotic general? Why has the military historian ,at least till recently. written him as this third rate general? Know of honest bios on Little Mc,?

For a long time there was genuine debate. Republicans wrote their anti-McClellan screeds, and Democrats wrote defences. It is notable for the men that actually fought the war usually came down on McClellan's side unless they were extremely partisan.

Emory Upton is a good example; he was a solid Republican who developed extremely anti-McClellan opinions in 1864 which he held until he came to write his history of the war. When he examined the documents now entering the public domain detailing Stanton's sabotage of McClellan he completely did an about face on the matter, and reached the same conclusions that McClellan did about the operations of 1862.

After the original burst of partisanship, scholars largely came down on McClellan's side. The big historians of the era, James Garfield Randall and William Starr Myers were very pro-McClellan and anti-Stanton. Hence when T. Harry Williams published "Lincoln and the Radicals" in 1941, it was very balanced and by modern standards very pro-McClellan (although later he revised his ideas somewhat).

The rise of "Anti-McClellanism" really starts with Kenneth Powers Williams. He essentially endorsed the "On To Richmond" philosophy of the Radicals and believed the two great generals of the war were Pope and Grant, and that Stanton and the JCCW could do no wrong. He slated everyone else in an effort to promote this idea. No academic press would touch his work with a barge-pole, it was unscholarly and unballanced, but read like an accessible novel. He eventually got a British publisher, Macmillan, to publish it for the British market where there was less scrutiny. Then we come to Bruce Catton.

Catton was not a historian but rather a journalist. Hence he didn't read the dense scholarly tomes, but he did read KP Williams. His first few books are basically KP Williams' thesis repackaged. Now, Catton actually improved and moved a bit away from this in later works, but the underlying basis of KP Williams' thesis remained. Catton's work was, of course, wildly popular and effectively rewrote the popular narrative. A few scholars broke out of the KP Williams narrative, but went nowhere.

In the early 1970's, Joseph Harsh wrote that the three books one needed to read to understand McClellan were:

Gen. Peter Mitchie's "General McClellan" (out of copyright and viewable)
William Starr Myers' "A study in personality, General George Brinton McClellan" (no online edition)
Warren Hassler's "General George B. McClellan: Shield of the Union" (no online edition available)

 

[Belfoured]

For a long time there was genuine debate. Republicans wrote their anti-McClellan screeds, and Democrats wrote defences. It is notable for the men that actually fought the war usually came down on McClellan's side unless they were extremely partisan.

Emory Upton is a good example; he was a solid Republican who developed extremely anti-McClellan opinions in 1864 which he held until he came to write his history of the war. When he examined the documents now entering the public domain detailing Stanton's sabotage of McClellan he completely did an about face on the matter, and reached the same conclusions that McClellan did about the operations of 1862.

After the original burst of partisanship, scholars largely came down on McClellan's side. The big historians of the era, James Garfield Randall and William Starr Myers were very pro-McClellan and anti-Stanton. Hence when T. Harry Williams published "Lincoln and the Radicals" in 1941, it was very balanced and by modern standards very pro-McClellan (although later he revised his ideas somewhat).

The rise of "Anti-McClellanism" really starts with Kenneth Powers Williams. He essentially endorsed the "On To Richmond" philosophy of the Radicals and believed the two great generals of the war were Pope and Grant, and that Stanton and the JCCW could do no wrong. He slated everyone else in an effort to promote this idea. No academic press would touch his work with a barge-pole, it was unscholarly and unballanced, but read like an accessible novel. He eventually got a British publisher, Macmillan, to publish it for the British market where there was less scrutiny. Then we come to Bruce Catton.

Catton was not a historian but rather a journalist. Hence he didn't read the dense scholarly tomes, but he did read KP Williams. His first few books are basically KP Williams' thesis repackaged. Now, Catton actually improved and moved a bit away from this in later works, but the underlying basis of KP Williams' thesis remained. Catton's work was, of course, wildly popular and effectively rewrote the popular narrative. A few scholars broke out of the KP Williams narrative, but went nowhere.

In the early 1970's, Joseph Harsh wrote that the three books one needed to read to understand McClellan were:

Gen. Peter Mitchie's "General McClellan" (out of copyright and viewable)
William Starr Myers' "A study in personality, General George Brinton McClellan" (no online edition)
Warren Hassler's "General George B. McClellan: Shield of the Union" (no online edition available)

Interesting. Mitchie is the guy who materially distorted the transcription of some of Upton's correspondence - including Upton's critique of Army of the Potomac leadership.

 

[John S. Carter]

For a long time there was genuine debate. Republicans wrote their anti-McClellan screeds, and Democrats wrote defences. It is notable for the men that actually fought the war usually came down on McClellan's side unless they were extremely partisan.

Emory Upton is a good example; he was a solid Republican who developed extremely anti-McClellan opinions in 1864 which he held until he came to write his history of the war. When he examined the documents now entering the public domain detailing Stanton's sabotage of McClellan he completely did an about face on the matter, and reached the same conclusions that McClellan did about the operations of 1862.

After the original burst of partisanship, scholars largely came down on McClellan's side. The big historians of the era, James Garfield Randall and William Starr Myers were very pro-McClellan and anti-Stanton. Hence when T. Harry Williams published "Lincoln and the Radicals" in 1941, it was very balanced and by modern standards very pro-McClellan (although later he revised his ideas somewhat).

The rise of "Anti-McClellanism" really starts with Kenneth Powers Williams. He essentially endorsed the "On To Richmond" philosophy of the Radicals and believed the two great generals of the war were Pope and Grant, and that Stanton and the JCCW could do no wrong. He slated everyone else in an effort to promote this idea. No academic press would touch his work with a barge-pole, it was unscholarly and unballanced, but read like an accessible novel. He eventually got a British publisher, Macmillan, to publish it for the British market where there was less scrutiny. Then we come to Bruce Catton.

Catton was not a historian but rather a journalist. Hence he didn't read the dense scholarly tomes, but he did read KP Williams. His first few books are basically KP Williams' thesis repackaged. Now, Catton actually improved and moved a bit away from this in later works, but the underlying basis of KP Williams' thesis remained. Catton's work was, of course, wildly popular and effectively rewrote the popular narrative. A few scholars broke out of the KP Williams narrative, but went nowhere.

In the early 1970's, Joseph Harsh wrote that the three books one needed to read to understand McClellan were:

Gen. Peter Mitchie's "General McClellan" (out of copyright and viewable)
William Starr Myers' "A study in personality, General George Brinton McClellan" (no online edition)
Warren Hassler's "General George B. McClellan: Shield of the Union" (no online edition available)

Well if Mr,Williams considers Pope a great general it would be interesting to know what his thought were on Buell and Burnside. Then we students of the war should consider the time a book was written and the prejudice of the author ,even if he is a historian of notiarity ?May I suggest that there is one interesting series on NEXFLIX on the beginning to the start the war of the abolitionist movement ,simple to remember =ABOLITIONIST.It renders what may be considered a fair opinion of their effect on their movement against slavery and even the women's movement .

 

[John S. Carter]

Because historians are presented with the choice of blaming Lincoln or McClellan for the way the war did not end in 1862, and they choose McClellan to blame.


Because Lincoln did not understand warfare and thought he did. He thought it was just an easy thing of going straight towards the enemy and fighting them - he actually spoke approvingly of the slaughter at Fredericksburg!


Yep. McClellan was a War Democrat, and just after the November midterms there was a big purge of them.


His soldiers appear to have loved him because he wouldn't do that to them without good reason. McClellan was certainly willing to put his soldiers into nasty situations - he after all was the attacker at Antietam which saw the bloodiest day of American military history - but he wouldn't throw them against prepared defences without good reason.


It's hard to say about the first one, but I suspect not. As for the second one, yes, Lincoln knew that McClellan's preferred solution was not to officially end slavery but instead to just forcibly purchase every slave in an entire state and free the lot.


What kept happening - and this happens in April, May, June and July - is that McClellan is promised a certain number of troops by Lincoln, and Lincoln agrees that McClellan needs those troops, and then Lincoln or Halleck doesn't send the troops.
In September and October it's instead vital supplies.


The essential problem is that errors have polluted the historiography. There are four main sources of them:

The first set of sources is 1864 election propaganda. A lot of the usual falsehoods about McClellan come from this period, like the idea he was on a gunboat during the fighting at Malvern Hill (which is a conflation of two different days - he was on a gunboat when the fighting started at Glendale, the day before).

The second set of sources is the Lost Cause, which argued that every Union general had had massive advantages, Lee had been a wizard to beat everyone until Grant, and Grant had simply crushed him under massive numerical superiority. This involved distorting the numbers at all the battles, and while most of the distortions got caught it wasn't done for McClellan - so the Lost Cause numbers were allowed to stand, creating the false impression that McClellan's army was much bigger than it was.
(Walter H. Taylor, for example, calculated Lee's strength at Antietam by explicitly assuming that Lee got no reinforcements whatsoever after Second Bull Run - which ignores several entire divisions for a start.)

The third set of sources is the group of authors who followed the concept of "Lincoln finds a general", which was the idea that the main problem the North had with winning the war was the psychology of the generals. This pretty much discarded the actual numbers in favour of arguing that only Grant had the willpower to actually fight, an absurdity on the face of it when you consider that McClellan must therefore have somehow reached the outskirts of Richmond through the power of pacifism.

And the final set of sources is, basically, Stephen Sears. Sears is a popular historian, but he's not a good historian - he's been caught out on several occasions actually inventing evidence, or lying about it, or distorting it, and usually in the service of making McClellan look bad.


The reason for the third and fourth set of errors appears to simply be that McClellan has become a caricature. People (for historians are people) have become invested in the idea that he sucks.

Thank you for these answers .There is one more question not just on Mc. but on the generals who followed.The fact that when they were defeated they always recrossed the river back to Washington while with Grant would remain in the field and maintain contact with the ANV.Is that another myth of Grant's idol worshipers and if they did return why? Sorry one more-no one has explained why Lincoln or Stanton recalled McClellan a second time,esp, with the amount of hostility between the administration ,and the Radical Rep.?

 

[John S. Carter]

If Lee did not, John Singleton Mosby did. From Mosby's memoir:

"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."​

Its like a general manager and coach builds a team but due to the fact that certain parts of the overall strategy has not achieved the victories that the owner desires.He fires them brings in a manger and coach who alters the strategy to achieve victory that the owners has desired.But the coach who built the team receives no credit.This may require going through several coaches before he is able to bring in that right coach;but again the original coach who built that team is still remembered as a inepte coach.

 

[Saphroneth]

Thank you for these answers .There is one more question not just on Mc. but on the generals who followed.The fact that when they were defeated they always recrossed the river back to Washington while with Grant would remain in the field and maintain contact with the ANV.Is that another myth of Grant's idol worshipers and if they did return why?

Okay, so here's the thing about that: it's not a myth, but the significance of it is overblown.

There was no occasion when McClellan was defeated and then retreated his army north. It simply doesn't happen.
Pope's army was routed so badly it had to fall back into the Washington defences.
Burnside, Hooker and Meade all got beaten to the extent that there was no viable way to advance further (every route they could keep going was blocked by, well, Lee's army, usually dug in) and so they fell back to get back into good supply.
Grant at the Wilderness was almost beaten in the same way, but was not quite. That meant that he wasn't blocked in - IIRC there was one of his corps that was below the Wilderness Run - and because of this Grant could keep advancing to Fredericksburg and regain supply.

What this means is that Grant getting past the Wilderness was an achievement by strength of arms (his army is not blocked off) rather than strength of will; if Grant had been blocked off like Hooker, Burnside or Meade had been then he probably would have pulled back to recuperate as well.


Once the Wilderness is over then Grant always has a route to manoeuvre around the flank.

 

[Saphroneth]

Sorry one more-no one has explained why Lincoln or Stanton recalled McClellan a second time,esp, with the amount of hostility between the administration ,and the Radical Rep.?

Since I'm not sure of the meaning you had for "recalled", I'm going to assume that you mean "fired" in this case.

Stanton wanted McClellan gone; this is pretty hard to dispute.
Lincoln seems to have believed that McClellan was conspiring against the government (which by the way was totally false); it's incredible but it seems to be the case. But the other factor is that in the midterms the Republicans lost a lot of seats, which meant that the margin by which Lincoln could control Congress was less than the number of Radicals.
This suddenly gave the Radicals enormous power; they could demand that they got their way, or block all legislation, because any legislation needed Radical votes to succeed. It's probably not a coincidence that suddenly lots of Democrats got purged.

He fires them brings in a manger and coach who alters the strategy to achieve victory that the owners has desired.But the coach who built the team receives no credit.This may require going through several coaches before he is able to bring in that right coach;but again the original coach who built that team is still remembered as a inepte coach.

The other issue is if we equate manpower/supplies/support to, well, money (because it doesn't make any sense to talk about a football team with twice the number of players as their opponents). If the new manager and coach has two or three times the funding, while their opponents are running dry on funds, of course it's going to be easier to bring victory!

 

[DanSBHawk]

There are two, or more, sides to every story. A lot of McClellan's side is being presented here by his fans. I would recommend that people read widely. McClellan did much to earn his unimpressive reputation, and was certainly not innocent in the difficult relationship with the White House.

 

[67th Tigers]

The fact that when they were defeated they always recrossed the river back to Washington while with Grant would remain in the field and maintain contact with the ANV.Is that another myth of Grant's idol worshipers and if they did return why?

You ask an interesting question. Crossing the Rappahanock was very difficult. Burnside tried, but was blocked by a fortified position on the far side. Hooker took over and tried to go around said position but he got bottled up. You only need to look at the topographic map to know that once Hooker was driven back over the Plum Run his campaign was over.

For Grant's drive, it only got through by the literal skin of his teeth. Lee had managed to keep the 5th, 6th and 9th Corps north of Wilderness Run, and if he'd have managed to knock the 2nd Corps back (which was arguably what Longstreet was in the process of doing when he was hit) then he could have blocked Grant and Grant's campaign would have gone the way of Hooker's. If Lee had one more division or a bit more luck, or Grant one or two less divisions or a bit less luck, then the campaign is a failure.

Of course, it wasn't a failure, but analysis of what nearly went wrong isn't inappropriate. As it was, Hancock held the door open long enough for the AoP to move through it. Once the Federal Army is in communication with supplies landing at Port Royal, Va it can sustain itself south of the Rappahanock.

 

[John S. Carter]

Since I'm not sure of the meaning you had for "recalled", I'm going to assume that you mean "fired" in this case.

Stanton wanted McClellan gone; this is pretty hard to dispute.
Lincoln seems to have believed that McClellan was conspiring against the government (which by the way was totally false); it's incredible but it seems to be the case. But the other factor is that in the midterms the Republicans lost a lot of seats, which meant that the margin by which Lincoln could control Congress was less than the number of Radicals.
This suddenly gave the Radicals enormous power; they could demand that they got their way, or block all legislation, because any legislation needed Radical votes to succeed. It's probably not a coincidence that suddenly lots of Democrats got purged.



The other issue is if we equate manpower/supplies/support to, well, money (because it doesn't make any sense to talk about a football team with twice the number of players as their opponents). If the new manager and coach has two or three times the funding, while their opponents are running dry on funds, of course it's going to be easier to bring victory!

Lincoln was a political wizard knowing what to do when to do it,Being able to evaluate the temperment of the political movement at certain times.Man of principals yet ambition would appear to be the guiding force.The one factor that seems to that he was willing to sacrifice when later he would use this as a means of achieving that what he really wanted as in his deals he made as a young politician inILhen with Mc. he may not have any reason to recall him but to placate those in key positions he did,As he did with the issue of slavery he waited not so much for a victory,cause Antietam was more a draw than a victory,as the movement towards anti slavery increases. and a need for new recruits to fill Union ranks were needed,and with free blacks ready to fill those rank and slaves in the South learning that Master Lincoln had freed them. these are facts of Lincoln's wizardry/mastery in politics.The only thing that separates the Lincoln the politician from the moral/principal man which he came at the end is his realization that to end what had brought about this horrific events /slavery that it had to be legal so his pushing for the 13th amendment makes him a statesman and not a ambitious politician.THEN if Mc. had taken Richmond what followed would be ?Mc. would have been President in 1864 ,Lincoln could return to Springfield.The nation would not be marked by Union and Confederate cemeteries. Grant would not have been President .Sherman and Sheridan would what? Johnson would have died a alcoholic,The South would not have had to endure Reconstruction.Then prehabs it was fate that Little Mc did not take Richmond,Now the discussion can be what would President McClellan have done with the Proclamation or with slavery in general.Remember he thought of himself as a Napoleon ,SERIES ON NETFLIX called ABOLIONIST very interesting and honest.

 

[Saphroneth]

As he did with the issue of slavery he waited not so much for a victory,cause Antietam was more a draw than a victory,as the movement towards anti slavery increases.

It was certainly seen as a victory at the time, or at least the Maryland Campaign as a whole was. Antietam draws all the attention because of the bloodshed, but South Mountain was what made it so that Lee's Maryland Campaign had to end and end soon (unless that is McClellan asked too much of his army and gave Lee an opportunity to reverse the situation).

Lee invades the north, McClellan goes out and attacks him, lots of bloodshed, after a day or so Lee retreats. It's kind of like a reverse Chancellorsville, actually, and nobody calls Chancellorsville a draw. (May 4 and 5 at Chancellorsville is September 18 at Antietam - the invader remains in position for a day or two before pulling back over the river overnight, frustrating their opponent's planned follow-up stroke.)

 

[John S. Carter]

It was certainly seen as a victory at the time, or at least the Maryland Campaign as a whole was. Antietam draws all the attention because of the bloodshed, but South Mountain was what made it so that Lee's Maryland Campaign had to end and end soon (unless that is McClellan asked too much of his army and gave Lee an opportunity to reverse the situation).

Lee invades the north, McClellan goes out and attacks him, lots of bloodshed, after a day or so Lee retreats. It's kind of like a reverse Chancellorsville, actually, and nobody calls Chancellorsville a draw. (May 4 and 5 at Chancellorsville is September 18 at Antietam - the invader remains in position for a day or two before pulling back over the river overnight, frustrating their opponent's planned follow-up stroke.)

It would still be that Lincoln did not have the military ,except for that brief time in the hometown milta,knowledge to understand military tactics.The difficulty between him and Mc is AL was a political man looking at war as a politician and Mc was a commanding officer dealing from the military needs and tactics .If Mc had just been the commander and not so Montgomeryish { British general WWll} and been more of a aggressive general then would he have kept his command,?Then the fact that Lincoln was continuous criticizing Mc. would not give your general a felling of support personally or with military needs ,If McClellan was as Lee stated then may we dare to say that Lincoln's actions were rash and politically made as to Little Mc. and maybe to Meade ?