McClellan to Ellen

rupert822

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I was reading Andrew Gordon's The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command last night and came across this passage, at the relevant points, in reference to Hugh Evan-Thomas:

"His wartime letters to his wife Hilda were (as is so often the case) burned by her after his death....(p)ossibly the letters which Lady Evan-Thomas destroyed were diatribes of discontent; but it is unlikely....".

It pretty much immediately occurred to me that "diatribes of discontent" pretty well sums up McCllellan's letters to Ellen. What would his reputation be like if she had burned them? As I recall, a good deal of his most offensive riffs- the original gorilla, well meaning baboon, I have become the power of the land- come out of this correspondence. His superiors, contemporaries, and his soldiers weren't privy to the letters, or the last line of his you have done your best to sacrifice this army wire. No wonder they had a different opinion of Little Mac than Stephen Sears does. Not saying he should be given a total pass for their contents, but it also does not make a lot of sense to judge his entire character on the basis of private letters to his newly wed wife.
 
I was reading Andrew Gordon's The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command last night and came across this passage, at the relevant points, in reference to Hugh Evan-Thomas:

"His wartime letters to his wife Hilda were (as is so often the case) burned by her after his death....(p)ossibly the letters which Lady Evan-Thomas destroyed were diatribes of discontent; but it is unlikely....".

It pretty much immediately occurred to me that "diatribes of discontent" pretty well sums up McCllellan's letters to Ellen. What would his reputation be like if she had burned them? As I recall, a good deal of his most offensive riffs- the original gorilla, well meaning baboon, I have become the power of the land- come out of this correspondence. His superiors, contemporaries, and his soldiers weren't privy to the letters, or the last line of his you have done your best to sacrifice this army wire. No wonder they had a different opinion of Little Mac than Stephen Sears does. Not saying he should be given a total pass for their contents, but it also does not make a lot of sense to judge his entire character on the basis of private letters to his newly wed wife.
I don't know of anybody who has judged "his entire character" on those letters. There is plenty in McClellan's official record to allow an assessment. But it's also contrived to completely exclude those letters from an assessment. Ellen was more connected to McClellan's professional side than many wives - her father was McClellan's Chief of Staff and McClellan went into a lot of military subjects with her. Sears, by the way, in his Civil War Papers book included far more than just the letters to Ellen - voluminous correspondence between McClellan and Lincoln, Stanton, Halleck, other generals, Samuel Barlow, etc etc.. As for the foot soldiers, there was a ton of information they weren't privy to - as should be the case in a military organization.
 
What we have are not McClellan's letters. When McClellan was preparing to write his memoir, he transcribed parts of the letters into a notebook as an aide memoir. He wanted to know what he was thinking and when. Hence it's mostly military stuff.
 
What we have are not McClellan's letters. When McClellan was preparing to write his memoir, he transcribed parts of the letters into a notebook as an aide memoir. He wanted to know what he was thinking and when. Hence it's mostly military stuff.
Although they do contain some family/personal stuff, as well. There's the role of daughter May in all this and the fact that Prime was cryotic about what of this material was not used in connection with Own Story when it was published in 1887. Ellen held the copyright to that book as executrix so it's safe to assume she was on board with the content. So they're not the complete letters but what we've seen can be considered as reasonably accurate in substance.
 
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