I need some clarity on the issue with McClellan asking Lincoln for permission to relieve corps commanders. When this happened and the request was denied. McClellan had proposed a clear usurpation of power by thinking he could receive the power to relieve and remove without further request to Lincoln. When this power was denied him, he may have still had the opportunity to request to Lincoln any removal of a Corps Commander but did not. Do you see the point I need clarified?
Grant never usurped his position by such a tactic as McClellan had tried to do. Did McClellan believe Lincoln would fall to the hoodwink?
Lubliner.
The Army of the Potomac was ordered to be organized into Corps by this:
PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER, No. 2
EXECUTIVE MANSION,
Washington, March 8, 1862.
Ordered, 1. That the major-general commanding the Army of the Potomac proceed forthwith to organize that part of the said army destined to enter upon active operations (including the reserve, but excluding the troops to be left in the fortifications about Washington) into four army corps, to be commanded according to seniority of rank, as follows:
First Corps to consist of four divisions, and to be commanded by Maj. Gen. I. McDowell.
Second Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by Brig. Gen. E. V. Sumner.
Third Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by Brig. Gen. S. P. Heintzelman.
Fourth Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by Brig. Gen. E. D. Keyes.
2. That the divisions now commanded by the officers above assigned to the commands of army corps shall be embraced in and form part of their respective corps.
3. The forces left for the defense of Washington will be placed in command of Brig. Gen. James S. Wadsworth, who shall also be military governor of the District of Columbia.
4. That this order be executed with such promptness and dispatch as not to delay the commencement of the operations already directed to be undertaken by the Army of the Potomac.
5. A fifth army corps, to be commanded by Maj. Gen. N. P. Banks, will be formed from his own and General Shields' (late General Lander's) divisions.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
McClellan implemented that on March 13th with his General Order, No. 101. In between those two dates, McClellan was relieved as his duties as commanding general of the Armies of the United States. Thus McClellan's order is issued by Major general McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
On April 30th, McClellan relieves General Hamilton, commander of a division, and replaces him with Kearney. McClellan does this under his own authority as commander of the Army of the Potomac and lists no cause for the action. A controversy erupts over this. Lincoln, under pressure from Congress, tries to find out what is going on, gets no information. Finally, Lincoln is receives a delegation from Congress delivering a letter signed by a great many Senators and Congressmen. Lincoln writes McClellan telling him of this and saying he has a mind to reverse McClellan's relief of C. S. Hamilton. That gets McClellan to finally give his reasons for relieving Hamilton. Lincoln then sustains McClellan.
This all happens in early May. On May 8th, Stanton is at Fort Monroe and Lincoln is actually down near Ft. Wool witnessing the attack on Sewell Point. McClellan is engaged in the move up the Peninsula. On May 9th, with the furor over the relief of General Hamilton barely ended, McClellan was apparently feeling his oats and decided to push for more:
WILLIAMSBURG, (Received May 9, 1862, 12.19 a.m.)
Hon. E. M. STANTON,
Secretary of War:
I respectfully ask permission to reorganize the army corps. I am not willing to be held responsible for the present arrangement, experience having proved it to be very bad, and it having very nearly resulted in a most disastrous defeat. I wish either to return to the organization by division or else be authorized to relieve incompetent commanders of army corps. Had I been one-half hour later on the field on the 5th we would have been routed and would have lost everything. Notwithstanding my positive orders I was informed of nothing that had occurred, and I went to the field of battle myself upon unofficial information that my presence was needed to avoid defeat. I found there the utmost confusion and incompetency, the utmost discouragement on the part of the men. At least a thousand lives were really sacrificed by the organization into corps.
I have too much regard for the lives of my comrades and too deep an interest in the success of our cause to hesitate for a moment. I learn that you are equally in earnest, and I therefore again request full and complete authority to relieve from duty with this army commanders of corps or divisions who prove themselves incompetent.
GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Major-General, Commanding.
If nothing else, this shows McClellan as completely tone-deaf to the realities of political life for the President. Also --as usual for McClellan -- he makes the request all about him and implies that someone else (IOW, the President) is responsible for the problems, is hamstringing McClellan, and that he declares he is "
not willing to be held responsible". In my experience, people who talk that way to their bosses often end up fired, whether we are talking about military or civilian life.
Given all that, Lincoln is actually very kind to McClellan in his reply, attempting to help him see the light:
FORT MONROE, VA.,
May 9, 1862.
Major-General McCLELLAN:
The President is unwilling to have the army corps organization broken up, but also unwilling that the commanding general shall be trammeled and embarrassed in actual skirmishing, collision with the enemy, and on the eve of an expected great battle. You, therefore, may temporarily suspend that organization in the army now under your immediate command, and adopt any you see fit until further order. He also writes you privately.
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
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FORT MONROE, VA.,May 9, 1862.
Major-General McCLELLAN:
MY DEAR SIR: I have just assisted the Secretary of War in framing the part of a dispatch to you relating to army corps, which dispatch of course will have reached you long before this will.
I wish to say a few words to you privately on this subject. I ordered the army corps organization not only on the unanimous opinion of the twelve generals whom you had selected and assigned as generals of divisions, but also on the unanimous opinion of every military man I could get an opinion from, and every modern military book, yourself only excepted. Of course I did not on my own judgment pretend to understand the subject. I now think it indispensable for you to know how your struggle against it is received in quarters which we cannot entirely disregard. It is looked upon as merely all effort to pamper one or two pets and to persecute and degrade their supposed rivals. I have had no word from Sumner, Heintzelman, or Keyes. The commanders of these corps are of course the three highest officers with you? but I am constantly told that you have no consultation or communication with them; that you consult and communicate with nobody but General Fitz John Porter and perhaps General Franklin. I do not say these complaints are true or just, but at all events it is proper you should know of their existence. Do the commanders of corps disobey your orders in anything?
When you relieved General Hamilton of his command the other day you thereby lost the confidence of at least one of your best friends in the Senate. And here let me say, not as applicable to you personally, that Senators and Representatives speak of me in their places as they please without question, and that officers of the Army must cease addressing insulting letters to them for taking no greater liberty with them.
But to return: Are you strong enough--are you strong enough, even with my help-to set your foot upon the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes all at once? This is a practical and very serious question for you.
The success of your army and the cause of the country are the same, and of course I only desire the good of the cause.
Yours, truly,
A. LINCOLN.