Was McClellan (and the Union war effort) sabotaged for pure political reasons in Spring of 1862?

[SgtTB]

I am examining the events that frame the Seven Days Battles and Peninsula Campaign of 1862. Prior, you see the administration removing McDowell's command from McClellan under the auspices of supplementing weak DC defenses, something that McClellan is only informed of 2 days after he has arrived on the peninsula. Then you see McDowell not allowed to reenforce McClellan. (Reenforce is the wrong term, McDowell was to be a whole other pincer moving in, no?) Finally, on the other end, we see McDowell's army given to John Pope, who is aligned with hard line Republican policy fully, acting as a parallel independent command.

How is this just not blatant sabotage of one political faction by another? I don't believe there's an outright smoking gun in a telegram or letter, but the coincidences pile up.

 

[Rhea Cole]

This issue is entirely on McClellan. Lincoln was the President & the Commander in Chief. McClellan's conduct after he became supreme commander is what led to all of the actions mentioned. You have to work and play well with others, especially when you have a boss.

Lincoln was McClellan's boss. Period.

If Little Mac had included Lincoln into his confidence and planning, as say U.S. Grant did, then I'm sure Lincoln would have mostly left the chessboard alone.

Having McClellan tell Lincoln x and it end up being y or xy erodes confidence in your subordinate.

Seeing the President of the United States sitting in your drawing room and then having the audacity to walk past, say nothing, then go to bed.

Do you really think Little Mac earned any benefit of the doubt from the administration?

In fact, in reading McClellan's correspondence if he had any courage of character he MIGHT have rose against the government - he sure whined and threatened and wrote it enough in private correspondence.

The same thing that did not make him a great battlefield commander allowed him to, most assuredly, never undertake and sort of coup.

repman66 has pinpointed McClellan's missing element. McClellan's behavior is emblematic of a classic manager promoted beyond his ability. Recognizing his inability to cope with the challenge his was faced with, McClellan focused on things he could cope with.

That was why McClellan wasted so much of his time in self aggrandizement & blaming Lincoln for his personal shortcomings. Anybody who has been in business recognizes this behavior. He literally made up an enemy with overwhelming numbers that could not possibly be beaten. He could not help it. That was just the way his brain was wired.

Grant, of course, was everything that McClellan was not. He was not burdened with a lifelong need for gossip. Nor did he have a cohort of incompetents surrounding him telling him how brilliant he was. Out of the box, Grant had the gift of building his subordinates in the white heat of combat operations. The combat record of the Army of the Tennessee & the Army of the Potomac tells everything you need to know.

There was no magic to Grant as a commander. The multi pronged campaign that Grant ordered in the spring of 1864 was frustrated by the deadwood left over from McClellan's mismanagement. That is a sobering example of what would have happened if McClellan had not been relieved.

There is no evidence that unlike any number of officers that you, no doubt can name, who came from no military training to become superb commanders McClellan was never going to evolve into anything but what he was at the beginning.

 

[DanSBHawk]

That's cherry-picking. On the 8th May, Grant stated that rather than pursuing Lee, he was marching to the James to join up with Butler and thus besiege Richmond. He attempted to do exactly that. Look at what he does rather than what he says.

As I've said to you before, with complex data you need to analyse the totality of it. You shouldn't pick the bits that confirm your biases and declare them to be true, and dismiss those bits that contradict your biases. In this case Grant may have said several times "Lee's army is my objective point," but then what he actually did was something different. Thus we're left with the conundrum as to whether he changed his mind literally on day 1, or whether the whole thing was purely to make a show of saying what Lincoln wanted to hear...

No, actually it's cherry-picking on your part. You ignore Grant explicitly laying out the objective for the AotP in a crystal clear way, and instead, you cherry-pick elements of Grant's correspondence and misrepresent it as being the 'objective.'

What Grant and Meade did was exactly what Grant said - operate against Lee's army. And while the situation may have changed after Cold Harbor, it's clear that it was still all about defeating Lee's army. And when Richmond fell, Grant wasn't satisfied with merely occupying it. He chased down Lee's army and forced the surrender. Because it was always about taking out Lee's army.

I would recommend Gordon Rhea's books to you, but I know your failure to understand is deliberate on your part, and no amount of facts and real history is going to help you. You're too invested in believing your own fake history.

 

[Rhea Cole]

No, actually it's cherry-picking on your part. You ignore Grant explicitly laying out the objective for the AotP in a crystal clear way, and instead, you cherry-pick elements of Grant's correspondence and misrepresent it as being the 'objective.'

What Grant and Meade did was exactly what Grant said - operate against Lee's army. And while the situation may have changed after Cold Harbor, it's clear that it was still all about defeating Lee's army. And when Richmond fell, Grant wasn't satisfied with merely occupying it. He chased down Lee's army and forced the surrender. Because it was always about taking out Lee's army.

I would recommend Gordon Rhea's books to you, but I know your failure to understand is deliberate on your part, and no amount of facts and real history is going to help you. You're too invested in believing your own fake history.

DanSBHawk has debunked the deliberate misrepresentation exactly.

Modern military historians call Grant's tactic "continuous contact." When contact was made with Lee's army there was no falling back to regroup as had been the A of the P's history. The wonderment expressed by veterans who realized that the sound of the wagons behind their lines at the Wilderness were headed southward, not backward speaks volumes.

The journal entries of individual soldiers tells all. When they moved forward they had a curious reaction. Delight is not an exaggeration. It was however, tempered by wonderment. Had the battle been a victory? It felt exactly like what they were accustomed to, but this was an entirely novel way to look at it. They had won… so that is what winning feels like.

Not only had Grant's tactics radically changed the way the A of the P operated, they revolutionized the morale of the soldiers in the ranks.

 

[SgtTB]

Hooker saved the army https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/hooker-takes-command.htm?utm_source=chatgpt.com as the Army of the Potomac was at "rock bottom" after the Mud March. Thousands of troops "voted" with their feet. Hooker reformed the Army and gave it the gravitas to fight (and win) the Civil War. The Mud March was the Army of the Potomac's valley forge.

He saved it from Burnsides errors. Hmm how did Burnside get promoted. Was there another more competent leader available?

Multiple wins against Lee is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Ryan

Its really not. McClellan clutched the Maryland campaign, he just didnt destroy the ANV. I would say Malvern Hill was a great win that got right to Lee's weakness, it was just done on a back footing. (A back footing that the admin would cement as a true reversal and 2 year loss of forward initiative.)

McClellan is held to such a higher standard, meanwhile we're praising Hooker for fixing the mistakes resulting from Radical Republican posturing against Mac to begin with. As with Pope as with Fremont.

 

[Belfoured]

Multiple wins against Lee is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Ryan

And that unfairly ignores his friend Porter's win at Hanover Court House on May 27 when Johnston was in command of the ANV. You know - the one McClellan crowed about as a "glorious victory" in which Porter used 12,000 troops to defeat a Confederate force less than half his strength, although Porter inflated it to 8,000 and McClellan, not to be outdone, inflated it to 13,000 at one point and 9,000 at another. And all that achieved through blundering tactics by Porter that at one point resulted in a Confederate force showing up to his rear. Probably more "sabotage" ...

 

[Belfoured]

He saved it from Burnsides errors. Hmm how did Burnside get promoted. Was there another more competent leader available?



Its really not. McClellan clutched the Maryland campaign, he just didnt destroy the ANV. I would say Malvern Hill was a great win that got right to Lee's weakness, it was just done on a back footing. (A back footing that the admin would cement as a true reversal and 2 year loss of forward initiative.)

McClellan is held to such a higher standard, meanwhile we're praising Hooker for fixing the mistakes resulting from Radical Republican posturing against Mac to begin with. As with Pope as with Fremont.

Finally, something we agree on - McClellan "clutched". Well done.

 

[67th Tigers]

No, actually it's cherry-picking on your part. You ignore Grant explicitly laying out the objective for the AotP in a crystal clear way, and instead, you cherry-pick elements of Grant's correspondence and misrepresent it as being the 'objective.'

That's a fascinating argument, admitting that Grant's own correspondence states he was trying to get to Richmond instead of "operating against Grant," but then insisting on ignoring it because it contradicts you. Something about cherry-picking you were talking about?

 

[atlantis]

The spring campaign of 1862 in Viriginia has the opposing commanders-McClellan and Johnston each at odds with their President.
Birds of a feather.

 

[atlantis]

Burnside could have prevailed at Fredericksburg if he had shifted his assault.

 

[Rhea Cole]

And that unfairly ignores his friend Porter's win at Hanover Court House on May 27 when Johnston was in command of the ANV. You know - the one McClellan crowed about as a "glorious victory" in which Porter used 12,000 troops to defeat a Confederate force less than half his strength, although Porter inflated it to 8,000 and McClellan, not to be outdone, inflated it to 13,000 at one point and 9,000 at another. And all that achieved through blundering tactics by Porter that at one point resulted in a Confederate force showing up to his rear. Probably more "sabotage" ...

Rosecrans' "…lots of marching & not much fighting…" campaign that drove Lee out of West Virginia comes to mind. I realize McClellan claimed all the credit, but it was Rosecrans that did the commanding. West Virginia seceding from Virginia was the result. Rosecrans absorbed the lesson from the piles of bodies left in front of the works at Corinth & Iuka. He never ordered a banzai charge like those that routinely cost the Army of Northern Virginia 1/3rd to 1/2 of the attackers. His capture & holding of Chattanooga was an existential strategic loss that the Confederacy could not survive. You have to ask yourself what a Rosecrans campaign in the spring of 1863 would have looked like.

 

[67th Tigers]

And that unfairly ignores his friend Porter's win at Hanover Court House on May 27 when Johnston was in command of the ANV. You know - the one McClellan crowed about as a "glorious victory" in which Porter used 12,000 troops to defeat a Confederate force less than half his strength, although Porter inflated it to 8,000 and McClellan, not to be outdone, inflated it to 13,000 at one point and 9,000 at another. And all that achieved through blundering tactics by Porter that at one point resulted in a Confederate force showing up to his rear. Probably more "sabotage" ...

The Army of the North consisted of 20 full regiments, a couple of battalions, 5-8 batteries and two regiments of cavalry.* It had been assembled to counter the threat McDowell's corps posed at Fredericksburg, and was organised into two divisions: Anderson's own (Anderson's, Field's and Gregg's brigades) and Branch's (based on Branch's brigade with extras; 7 infantry regiments and 2 batteries organised into 2 brigades, and a regiment of cavalry).

The fighting was mostly by a couple of Branch's regiments, acting as grand guards. The whole Army of the North became AP Hill's grand division at Half Sink that evening, having successfully moved to rejoin Johnston.

When Porter places Branch at 8,000 troops from NC, GA and VA, there were 8 full regiments from those states. Lane gives the strength of his 28th NC as 890 men. In a congratulatory message in late July, Branch placed the brigade at less than 4,000 that day. Johnston, writing in the Century, gives Branch 4,000 (or 5,000), and JR Anderson 9,000 or 10,000, or 13-15,000 total effective men (exclusive of the 2 cavalry regiments). This is in accord with McClellan's statement.

The fact that only three regiments of this force were engaged doesn't prevent it being effectively a small Corps de Armee. In fact, the "Army of the North" and Porter's 5th Corps and the the Advance Guard were two roughly equal forces.

The effect of forcing the "Army of the North" to retreat to the Chickahominy was to open communication between McDowell's Corps and Porter's Corps, and their cavalry pickets actually met. If McDowell had simply marched down as planned, then ultimately Richmond would probably have fallen. It would have enabled McClellan to keep a large force consisted of 1st and 5th Corps on the left bank and block Jackson's crossing of the Totopotomoy.

Ultimately, of course, yet again McDowell is ordered not to join McClellan...



* Order of Battle

Army of the North
BG JR Anderson

JR Anderson's Division

JR Andersons' Brigade

• 34th North Carolina
• 38th North Carolina
• 45th North Carolina
• 48th North Carolina
• 1st Louisiana Battalion
• Pee Dee Artillery (McIntosh's battery)

Field's Brigade

• 40th Virginia
• 55th Virginia
• 57th Virginia
• 60th Virginia
• 22nd Va Bn
• Purcell Artillery (Pegram's battery)

Gregg's Brigade

• 1st South Carolina
• 12th South Carolina
• 13th South Carolina
• 14th South Carolina
• 1st South Carolina Rifles
• Richmond Artillery (Crenshaw's Battery)

9th Virginia Cavalry
Divisional Arty (upto 3 btys)

Branch's oversized Brigade ("Division" in some accounts)

• 7th North Carolina
• 18th North Carolina
• 28th North Carolina
• 33rd North Carolina
• 37th North Carolina
• Branch artillery (Johnson's battery)
• 45th Georgia (attached)
• 12th North Carolina (attached, not the 20th as per wikipedia, see the 12th's regimental history)
• Latham's artillery battery (NC, attached)

4th Virginia Cavalry

 

[67th Tigers]

Rosecrans' "…lots of marching & not much fighting…" campaign that drove Lee out of West Virginia comes to mind. I realize McClellan claimed all the credit, but it was Rosecrans that did the commanding. West Virginia seceding from Virginia was the result.

This is confused.

McClellan commanded, and Rosecrans messed up a turning movement. Lee was not in command of the rebels at this time.

After McClellan was relieved, it fell on Rosecrans. Lee assumed command, and completely outgeneraled Rosecrans. Essentially, the existing status quo was maintained, with Lee unable to penetrate the defensive line McClellan set up, and Rosecrans unable to occupy the Kanawha Valley.

 

[JerryD]

Okay so we have moved onto "Okay, yes the campaign was undermined, but here's why it was good" lol.

LOL.....ok, I can see you are having issues with reading comprehension. When did I say anything remotely close to that? Never. In fact, in a prior post here to you I pointed out Lincoln was probably wrong to hold back McDowell. The point I am making, consistently, is that yes, Lincoln undermined McClellan, but it had nothing to do with political reasons and everything to do with what Lincoln thought was best.

You seem to see Lincoln undermined McClellan, and then leap to the most ridiculous interpretation of why.

 

[JerryD]

Not really. They deemed that the Confederates couldn't retake Manassas, and refused to say if troops in the Valley counted, but their determination of troops lacking was based on the Washington garrison itself being less than 30,000 strong.





Firstly - if Stanton found "mistakes", then cite those mistakes being pointed out before 1st Corps was removed. It is my understanding that no such mistakes were found before 1st Corps was removed.

The issue of troops in the Valley being too far away to be effective was not used as part of the argument to remove 1st Corps, and nor should it have been. If the troops in the Valley are too far away, then move them - McClellan left more than 25,000 men in the covering force, and if the problem is that it was decided that troops in the Valley don't count for the covering force, move them to Manassas.

As an aside, McClellan counted Blenker because that was where Blenker was going to be moved to, and because he had secured the option to retain Blenker unless Blenker was not needed. Also, it's not "19,000" troops not existing or double counted - instead, 7,780 men are double counted and troops who are en route but have not yet arrived are counted where they will be once they have arrived; as those troops arrive, Blenker will be moved from Manassas to the Valley and then finally released to Fremont if the situation is secure without him.

Secondly, though - and the reason why I say that Lincoln was fooled - is what was subsequently done with those troops. There is no way whatsoever that Washington is more secure like this:

Actual configuration in May
View attachment 581984

Than like this:

McClellan's defence scheme, actual numbers, no new troops counted, no Blenker
View attachment 581985
(Note: this discounts all the new troops scheduled to arrive, some 9,000 of them, and also removes Blenker. It is the smallest possible amount under McClellan's scheme. Any smaller than this and you're not counting troops which were already present.)


So - what about the actual configuration as of May meets the requirements, in a way that McClellan's defence scheme does not?

I think you are wrong on the timing. From my source it says Stanton told Lincoln in early April and then McClellan was informed on April 16.

And I think you are also wrong about how the troops in the Valley were not seen as part of the defense of DC. There was also a concern that many of the troops were basically raw recruits.

The point being that it seems Lincoln had very legitimate reasons for thinking Mac had played fast and loose with his numbers, especially when you consider the phantom 19,000 troops and the fact that McClellan just left a memo of troop strengths and never walked through his dispositions with Lincoln and got his sign off beforehand. This was a critical condition and Mac knew Lincoln was concerned about it. Anyone with half a brain would want to sit down with Lincoln and show him what was being done in order to ease his mind and get his approval.

I also fail to see why you seem to think troops in the Valley could be moved to defend DC, but apparently troops in Fredericksburg could not. The truth being, troops in Fredericksburg are ideally located to defend against a raid originating from Richmond, and could be quickly brought back to DC from Acquia. So that whole part of your argument makes no sense. Do you have the opinion of any professional military men that troops in Fredericksburg can't defend DC, or is that your your rationale to try to defend Little Mac? I think we know the answer to that.

 

[JerryD]

Another analogy. When I'm advising a school committee, board of selectmen, City Council, Mayor, etc I do not tell them what their policy decisions should be. That's what they were elected to do. I tell them what is and is not open to them under the law. If they make a policy decision I implement it under the law. Of course, there are some lawyers who do see themselves as the "additional member" of the board. They're the ones who eventually get in trouble and end up with justifiably po'd clients.

McClellan was the military version of Lt. Briggs in Magnum Force - clueless as to his own "limitations".

I always told the lawyers who worked under me, "Our job is not to say no. Its to find a way to get to yes".

 

[JerryD]

Multiple wins against Lee is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Ryan

I'm gonna step up and defend Mac here. Yes, he was a seriously flawed human who had to be replaced because he was not a team player. But the fact is in the field he did face off against Lee twice and at a minimum fought him to a tactical draw twice. In fact, many of the individual battles of the Seven Days were victories, especially Malvern Hill. And in concept, the Peninsula Campaign was brilliant. So give the man his due. And as I have said before, we should not just ignore how the men in the ranks viewed him and the loyalty he inspired with a lot of generals who I respect. That says a lot, IMO. He could handle an army and just might have been the best commander the AOP ever had (Since Grant was never in the role of Commander of the AOP).

 

[JerryD]

That's a fascinating argument, admitting that Grant's own correspondence states he was trying to get to Richmond instead of "operating against Grant," but then insisting on ignoring it because it contradicts you. Something about cherry-picking you were talking about?

Not sure why you can't comprehend that Grant was using Richmond as the anvil upon which he would hammer Lee. Grant knew that Lee had to defend Richmond, so he used it to his advantage. Pretty simple, really.

 

[repman66]

The Army of the North consisted of 20 full regiments, a couple of battalions, 5-8 batteries and two regiments of cavalry.* It had been assembled to counter the threat McDowell's corps posed at Fredericksburg, and was organised into two divisions: Anderson's own (Anderson's, Field's and Gregg's brigades) and Branch's (based on Branch's brigade with extras; 7 infantry regiments and 2 batteries organised into 2 brigades, and a regiment of cavalry).

The fighting was mostly by a couple of Branch's regiments, acting as grand guards. The whole Army of the North became AP Hill's grand division at Half Sink that evening, having successfully moved to rejoin Johnston.

When Porter places Branch at 8,000 troops from NC, GA and VA, there were 8 full regiments from those states. Lane gives the strength of his 28th NC as 890 men. In a congratulatory message in late July, Branch placed the brigade at less than 4,000 that day. Johnston, writing in the Century, gives Branch 4,000 (or 5,000), and JR Anderson 9,000 or 10,000, or 13-15,000 total effective men (exclusive of the 2 cavalry regiments). This is in accord with McClellan's statement.

The fact that only three regiments of this force were engaged doesn't prevent it being effectively a small Corps de Armee. In fact, the "Army of the North" and Porter's 5th Corps and the the Advance Guard were two roughly equal forces.

The effect of forcing the "Army of the North" to retreat to the Chickahominy was to open communication between McDowell's Corps and Porter's Corps, and their cavalry pickets actually met. If McDowell had simply marched down as planned, then ultimately Richmond would probably have fallen. It would have enabled McClellan to keep a large force consisted of 1st and 5th Corps on the left bank and block Jackson's crossing of the Totopotomoy.

Ultimately, of course, yet again McDowell is ordered not to join McClellan...



* Order of Battle

Army of the North
BG JR Anderson

JR Anderson's Division

JR Andersons' Brigade

• 34th North Carolina
• 38th North Carolina
• 45th North Carolina
• 48th North Carolina
• 1st Louisiana Battalion
• Pee Dee Artillery (McIntosh's battery)

Field's Brigade

• 40th Virginia
• 55th Virginia
• 57th Virginia
• 60th Virginia
• 22nd Va Bn
• Purcell Artillery (Pegram's battery)

Gregg's Brigade

• 1st South Carolina
• 12th South Carolina
• 13th South Carolina
• 14th South Carolina
• 1st South Carolina Rifles
• Richmond Artillery (Crenshaw's Battery)

9th Virginia Cavalry
Divisional Arty (upto 3 btys)

Branch's oversized Brigade ("Division" in some accounts)

• 7th North Carolina
• 18th North Carolina
• 28th North Carolina
• 33rd North Carolina
• 37th North Carolina
• Branch artillery (Johnson's battery)
• 45th Georgia (attached)
• 12th North Carolina (attached, not the 20th as per wikipedia, see the 12th's regimental history)
• Latham's artillery battery (NC, attached)

4th Virginia Cavalry

McDowell is not ordered to join the Richmond expedition solely through the fault of McClellan and no one else. He constantly lies and obfuscates the truth and never gives Lincoln a full accounting of his plan - most likely so if (when) it fails he cannot be called to account.

Branch had less than 4,000 men at Hanover Court house

 

[67th Tigers]

McDowell is not ordered to join the Richmond expedition solely through the fault of McClellan and no one else. He constantly lies and obfuscates the truth and never gives Lincoln a full accounting of his plan - most likely so if (when) it fails he cannot be called to account.

That's an interesting attempt to shift the blame from Lincoln and Stanton mishandling of affairs, onto McClellan.

Branch had less than 4,000 men at Hanover Court house

Maybe, but JR Anderson's division, who were literally a couple of miles away, were 9,000+

As it was, 3 of Branch's regiments fought a delaying action and the whole Corps de Armee reached Half Sink that evening.

 

[Saphroneth]

I am fairly sure that McClellan gives Lincoln a full accounting of his plans for the Urbana plan. Lincoln in fact describes it to McClellan in a discussion (I believe back in January). Then when things change to the Peninsula plan Lincoln knows the Peninsula plan in so far as McClellan has actually got a firm plan rather than a set of options - because McClellan doesn't have a firm plan in the sense of X on day A then Y on day B then Z on day C. It's more flexible than that. McDowell's corps were to be landed wherever made sense at the time, for example - before Magruder pulled back that would be one of three sites south of Yorktown, then once Magruder pulled back that changed to the Severn river and Mobjack Bay.


In terms of the basic principle of moving to Fort Monroe and operating up the Peninsula, with the navy to silence or aid in silencing Yorktown, technically it's not McClellan who tells Lincoln that on March 13 or 14 but that's only because the plan is signed by the corps commanders.