George B. McClellan: Smarter than We Think??

[Artemis Barca]

As a disclaimer I am obviously not a historian. I'm just a history fan with a few million hours of documentaries, podcasts and Ivy League type lectures posted on YouTube under my belt.

So for context this is way more of a random "What if" thought and me asking a question rather than a deep seeded belief.

Ok, So what if McCellan was smart enough to realize line fighting in the gunpowder age was ridiculous, but not smart enough to think up a new way of fighting???

(off topic but I guess trench warfare
Would be the next evolution??)

So McCellan is kinda considered a coward for his unwillingness to engage..

Well in the end wasn't he kinda right???

Don't most modern commanders agree that line fighting really should have ended before Napoleon..


So that makes me wonder if maybe he realized that the jig was up with line fighting, but wasn't smart enough or was unable to make broad sweeping changes.


Which left him stuck in the position of knowing it would be a totally inefficient slaughter, but couldn't think of a way to convience everyone else of that...


Thoughts?

 

[E_just_E]

The willingness to fight has nothing to do with intelligence. Not sure about his intentions when he was running the Army of the Potomac, but in 1864 when he ran against Lincoln as a Democrat, he was anti-war. Was that his intend previously? We will not know.

 

[Artemis Barca]

The willingness to fight has nothing to do with intelligence. Not sure about his intentions when he was running the Army of the Potomac, but in 1864 when he ran against Lincoln as a Democrat, he was anti-war. Was that his intend previously? We will not know.

Just about everything I have seen on him has claimed he was a "soldiers commander" the men loved him and he often sited unacceptable loses as his reasoning behind his hesitation.

I mean if you were the only military guy in the room who was smart enough to realize shooting at each other while standing right in front of each other is a horrible idea.

That could definitely change your politics. Lol

 

[Irishtom29]

I think the OP's premise is faulty and that line formations made good sense in muzzle loading black powder warfare. Some excellent soldiers certainly thought so.

 

[General Butterfield]

We have actually been discussing this alot lately. I'm a big fan myself, though I'm biased because McClellan's from my home town and I have family that served in AoP. He was certainly one of the best Union commanders along with Grant, Sherman and Thomas. I think all will acknowledge he was an organizational genius, his building of the AoP alone was a fantastic accomplishment.

I'll qoute Gen. Alexander Webb: "McClellan proceeded to equip and discipline the AoP with a skill and persistence which will be the admiration of military students for all time. He inspired the army with confidence, it believed him to be right in all his measures because it loved and respected him. The AoP never lost its reputation of being the best equipped and most efficient army on this continent and this reputation was due solely to General McClellan's system of organization."

 

[Artemis Barca]

I think the OP's premise is faulty and that line formations made good sense in muzzle loading black powder warfare. Some excellent soldiers certainly thought so.

I couldn't disagree more..

The second guns were good enough for people to commonly hunt deer with , that should have been the end of line fighting.

One guy behind a rock or trench is worth ten in a line.

 

[Irishtom29]

I couldn't disagree more..

The second guns were good enough for people to commonly hunted deer with , should have been the end of line fighting.

One guy behind a rock or trench is worth ten in a line.

You disagree with some of history's greatest soldiers. Soldiers have to move out from trenches and rocks to attack. Firepower had to be concentrated, the nature of muskets demanded soldiers be concentrated to do so. El Gran Capitan knew the value of entrenched musketry but the Spaniards also knew you had to advance and take the fight to the enemy, thus the tercio where pike protected musket. When the bayonet made the pike obsolete all infantry became musket men.

 

[dlofting]

I couldn't disagree more..

The second guns were good enough for people to commonly hunt deer with , that should have been the end of line fighting.

One guy behind a rock or trench is worth ten in a line.

How do you concentrate fire power, using single shot muzzle loaders, without a line of battle ??

 

[chucksr]

2nd in his class at West Point! I haven't ever heard a criticism of McClellan's intelligence, only his character.

 

[General Butterfield]

2nd in his class at West Point! I haven't ever heard a criticism of McClellan's intelligence, only his character.

Fun tidbit he also supposedly spoke seven languages!?!

 

[WJC]

So what if McCellan was smart enough to realize line fighting in the gunpowder age was ridiculous, but not smart enough to think up a new way of fighting???

No one, from what I've read, disputes McClellan's intelligence.
The criticism has been his supposed unwillingness to fight- together with his open disdain for the Administration.
I suppose some might connect these, saying he was so intelligent he thought his superiors were his intellectual inferiors, so intelligent he was afraid to fight. On this last point, there is a line of thinking that a soldier can be too smart to be daring because he/she considers all the possibilities, including failure and death, while others simply follow orders.
But assuming that anyone with his intelligence should be "smart enough to think up a new way of fighting" flies in the face of history. Great advances in any field are often made not by the most intelligent person, but by the most practical, the most focused, the one most willing to do the hard work.

 

[WJC]

Don't most modern commanders agree that line fighting really should have ended before Napoleon.

I believe all modern-day military leaders understand the inherent drawback in "line fighting". Whether there is a concensus that it was obsolete "before Napoleon" is questionable. Do you have a source for that view?

 

[Artemis Barca]

I believe all modern-day military leaders understand the inherent drawback in "line fighting". Whether there is a concensus that it was obsolete "before Napoleon" is questionable. Do you have a source for that view?

Did you miss the disclaimer at the top of the OP lol??

 

[thomas aagaard]

I couldn't disagree more..
The second guns were good enough for people to commonly hunt deer with , that should have been the end of line fighting.
One guy behind a rock or trench is worth ten in a line.

Not when he need 20+ seconds to load and hitting anything at more than 100 yards is hard and require a good marksman.
One guy can't stop 10 men, even if they are just armed with sabers. Even if they come at you in close order, you still need to be a good marksman to hit them at more than about 100 yards. But lets say you manage to hit one at longer range, one at 100 yards. Then the charge your... even if the ground is uneven and they use 20 seconds on closing the distance you still end up dead...
So you need to mass your men to have sufficient firepower to stop an enemy that just charge you.

In a book from 1942 a danish officer try to compare fighting in 1864 (2nd sleswig war) with the west front in 1916 and he mention that a position that in 1864 was covered by 16 danish infantry companies would only require two companies in 1916... thanks to the much improved firepower.

Modern infantry still use a line... the distance between each man and each subunit is just greater than in 1860ties.

Also other wars did have much greater use of skirmishers. (both during the Napoleonic war... in 1864 both the danes and prussians used a heavy skirmish line as the main way of fighting...)

 

[Artemis Barca]

Not when he need 20+ seconds to load and hitting anything at more than 100 yards is hard and require a good marksman.
One guy can't stop 10 men, even if they are just armed with sabers. Even if they come at you in close order, you still need to be a good marksman to hit them at more than about 100 yards. But lets say you manage to hit one at longer range, one at 100 yards. Then the charge your... even if the ground is uneven and they use 20 seconds on closing the distance you still end up dead...
So you need to mass your men to have sufficient firepower to stop an enemy that just charge you.

In a book from 1942 a danish officer try to compare fighting in 1864 (2nd sleswig war) with the west front in 1916 and he mention that a position that in 1864 was covered by 16 danish infantry companies would only require two companies in 1916... thanks to the much improved firepower.

Modern infantry still use a line... the distance between each man and each subunit is just greater than in 1860ties.

Also other wars did have much greater use of skirmishers. (both during the Napoleonic war... in 1864 both the danes and prussians used a heavy skirmish line as the main way of fighting...)

I understand that had been the way the military elite had done combat for millinia..

But that doesn't mean they were not worng.

No trench warfare or whatever is not perfect, but it beats lining up 50 yards from each other and firing volley after volley into each other's lines..

At least you can use the trench/rock for a barrier. Just standing there in a line gives zero protection.. .

How far of a run are ten line fighters making??

Say the guns were accurate up to 200 yards..

You might could get off ten shots before they marched that 200 yards..

Reguardless it was a figure of speech.


In my experience the historians who think line fighting lasted WAY too long outnumber those who think it was still the best way to do it.

 

[Artemis Barca]

No one, from what I've read, disputes McClellan's intelligence.
The criticism has been his supposed unwillingness to fight- together with his open disdain for the Administration.
I suppose some might connect these, saying he was so intelligent he thought his superiors were his intellectual inferiors, so intelligent he was afraid to fight. On this last point, there is a line of thinking that a soldier can be too smart to be daring because he/she considers all the possibilities, including failure and death, while others simply follow orders.
But assuming that anyone with his intelligence should be "smart enough to think up a new way of fighting" flies in the face of history. Great advances in any field are often made not by the most intelligent person, but by the most practical, the most focused, the one most willing to do the hard work.

Fair enough. I read an article once that said heros and serial killers both are branches on the same limb.

The ability to risk your life for a stranger and the ability to kill someone in cold blood both require the ability to turn off your empathy and fear of potential consequences.

 

[WJC]

Fair enough. I read an article once that said heros and serial killers both are branches on the same limb.
The ability to risk your life for a stranger and the ability to kill someone in cold blood both require the ability to turn off your empathy and fear of potential consequences.

Thanks for your response.
I won't go that far. But I do believe that we often do not reach our potential, or fail in some task because we think too much about possible negative consequences and allow that intellectual process to intimidate us.

 

[WJC]

Did you miss the disclaimer at the top of the OP lol??

Thanks for your response.
No, I did not miss your "disclaimer". It is one most of us here could use.
Still, if you have a source that "most modern commanders agree that line fighting really should have ended before Napoleon" I'd be interested in reviewing it, since I do not know that there is concensus on that.
My own view is that assault in formation only became obsolete with improved weaponry, something that seems to have happened during the course of the Civil War. Even as the tactic's shortcomings became apparent it continued in use throughout that conflict.

 

[thomas aagaard]

Say the guns were accurate up to 200 yards..
In my experience the historians who think line fighting lasted WAY too long outnumber those who think it was still the best way to do it.

The issue is not the gun, but the soldier. Because of the low velocity you need to be a good marksman to hit at more than 100 yards with a rifled musket.

"Line fighting" did not last too long, it is still in use today... the distance between each man have just changed.

By the Napoleonic wars much of the infantry was actually fighting in skirmish order. Wellington often used 25-33% of his infantry in front of his lines. But it is much more demanding than fighting in close order.
You need better men and better nco's for it.

Hardee's book actually expect 20% of the infantry to be used as skirmishers all the time. But that require well trained soldiers... But without them both sides stuck to using solid lines for much of the war. (the union even removed this idea)

And when one look at the development the following decades, "line fighting" was still the way to do thing. The distance between the files was just made bigger.

The ability to risk your life for a stranger and the ability to kill someone in cold blood both require the ability to turn off your empathy and fear of potential consequences.

Just a simple matter of training...

 

[Artemis Barca]

Thanks for your response.
No, I did not miss your "disclaimer". It is one most of us here could use.
Still, if you have a source that "most modern commanders agree that line fighting really should have ended before Napoleon" I'd be interested in reviewing it, since I do not know that there is concensus on that.
My own view is that assault in formation only became obsolete with improved weaponry, something that seems to have happened during the course of the Civil War. Even as the tactic's shortcomings became apparent it continued in use throughout that conflict.

Just anecdotal evidence...

I've watch thousands of hours of military documentaries and lectures. Along that route I have seen bunches argue that the military tradition over ruled logic, in a way.. but really I would have to scour you tube to find specifics..

Hypothetically...

They were used to lining up shoulder to shoulder from the phalanx days till guns became the standard. So thousands of years..

Your talking about generations on top of generations of military elite all with countless hours put into scheming ways to turn a flank or hammer and anvil. ..

So hypothetically they were just loathe to change...

It was about when the change from old school monarchies with "Rich military traditions". To a more merit based system, started.

So they could have been just stuck in their ways.

I try to be open minded about things. But I have a hard time imagaine for how "line fighting" with guns accurate enough to hit a deer, could have ever been a good idea.

So where most other things are fair game, that seems like a fundamental truth. So my own biases and all...