McClellan McClellan's miscalculation.

[wausaubob]

General McClellan had the worthy goal of preventing the US Civil War from being escalated into a war that resulted in a revolutionary change in the US. It seems to me that in order to reach that goal he was going to have to press General Lee's army closely after the battle at Antietam Creek. General McClellan would have needed to solve his logistical problem, which was going to be difficult if his livestock was not healthy and the forage that was being sent to his army was not properly cured. Nonetheless, General McClellan was going to have press the Confederates back into Richmond and probably bomb his way into the city with heavy artillery. The best chance George McClellan had was to definitely batter the Confederates, and hopefully the British would warn the Confederates that it was time to do the right thing before cotton from India began to flow into Liverpool.

 

[TallTallMan]

 

[jackt62]

General McClellan had the worthy goal of preventing the US Civil War from being escalated into a war that resulted in a revolutionary change in the US. It seems to me that in order to reach that goal he was going to have to press General Lee's army closely after the battle at Antietam Creek

I would say that McClellan had already missed that opportunity when he failed to press his assault on the Peninsula and seize Richmond in the spring of 1862. McClellan and a cadre of like-minded army officers had as their sole aim extinguishing the southern rebellion and reuniting the country. They believed in fighting a limited war against armed insurrectionists only; civilians, infrastructure, and property rights in the ownership of slaves were to be safeguarded and strictly off-limits. Lincoln and the administration generally went along with this conception of a "soft" war until its failure to put down the rebellion became evident sometime in the summer of 1862. McClellan's best opportunity to achieve his goal was after successfully landing a concentrated, supplied force on the Virginia peninsula and the Confederacy's inability to halt the AotP at Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Seven Pines.

 

[wausaubob]

I would say that McClellan had already missed that opportunity when he failed to press his assault on the Peninsula and seize Richmond in the spring of 1862. McClellan and a cadre of like-minded army officers had as their sole aim extinguishing the southern rebellion and reuniting the country. They believed in fighting a limited war against armed insurrectionists only; civilians, infrastructure, and property rights in the ownership of slaves were to be safeguarded and strictly off-limits. Lincoln and the administration generally went along with this conception of a "soft" war until its failure to put down the rebellion became evident sometime in the summer of 1862. McClellan's best opportunity to achieve his goal was after successfully landing a concentrated, supplied force on the Virginia peninsula and the Confederacy's inability to halt the AotP at Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Seven Pines.

I think that after a hard Summer of killing, both armies were in poor condition. It was up to McClellan to press the Confederate weaknesses and use his advantage in manpower and artillery. His strategy of limiting the war and limiting the killing was going to lead to a longer war, his own dismissal for a second time, and as should have seemed probable, a war decree like the Emancipation Proclamation. To prevent a change in war policy, McClellan had to win quickly. It seems odd that he couldn't see that the longer the war continued the more the war aims would change. Maybe General McClellan thought he could stall the result until 1864 and a Democrat would replace Lincoln.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Journal Article
McClellan Redux? The Often-Reported, Imminent Return of Little Mac
GEORGE C. RABLE
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
Vol. 38, No. 2 (SUMMER 2017), pp. 40-62
University of Illinois Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26290254

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[wausaubob]

It was a tremendous gamble with respect to McClellan's integrity. If General McClellan had won a decisive victory against the Confederates there would have been a tremendous temptation to emulate Julius Ceaser and Napoleon and march on the national capital.