McClellan McClellan and Politics

[SSVilla]

"McClellan's main blunder was in allowing himself political sympathies, and in permitting himself to become the critic of the President, and in time his rival. This is shown in his letter to Mr. Lincoln on his return to Harrison's Landing, when he sat down and wrote out a policy for the government. He was forced into this by his associations, and that led to his nomination for the Presidency. I remember how disappointed I was about this letter, and also in his failure to destroy Lee at Antietam.* His friends say that he failed because of the interference from Washington. I am afraid the interference from Washington was not from Mr. Lincoln so much as from the enemies of the administration, who believed they could carry their point through the army of the Potomac. My own experience with Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton, both in the western and eastern armies, was the reverse. I was never interfered with. I had the fullest support of the President and Secretary of War. No general could want better backing, for the President was a man of great wisdom and moderation, the Secretary a man of enormous character and will."

— Conversations with General Grant by Ulysses S. Grant, John Russell Young

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