Member Review McClellan's War, by Ethan S. Rafuse

[Belfoured]

Are you implying I have an established agenda? If so, I'd love to know what it is.

No - see PM

 

[67th Tigers]

What are the most important sources you think he overlooked?

On these three points:

1. The Galena

No secondary sources except Sears really analysed McClellan's visit to the Galena, and so using it is only logical. However, Sears makes several assertions that the various reports in the OR and even McClellan's Own Story can easily overturn.

Sears' major evidence was a translation of la Comte de Paris' journal, done by Mark Grimsley. At the time this journal was only in the archives, but it was published in 2011, and so is available for about 5 dollars. It's in French. Grimsley's or Sears' translation was wrong, and especially the line; "Lorsqu'on à mène pendant quelques jours une vie aussi rude, l'on se sent tout dépaysé en arrivant sur un navire ou tout est propre, ou les officers ont ligne blanc et ou l'on trouve subitement un bon dîner et du bon vin."

A casual cross-check with MOS and the reports in the OR would cast serious doubt on Sears' version of events, but this wasn't done. It's a shame, as it clearly puzzled Rafuse as being out-of-character.

2. The Movement from the Peninsula.

Cozzens' biography of Pope gives a much better account of events than Hennessey's Return to Bull Run. However, the absolute best analysis was done by Carman, and is freely available in book 3. Carman went through all the communications, which Hennessey didn't, missing important facts. Carman found that McClellan did nothing wrong, and placed the blame for affairs squarely on Halleck and Pope.

3. The Reserve at Antietam

Rafuse is confused and Harsh's Taken at the Flood is a little clearer. However, since then chapter 4 of Stotelmyer is specifically about this question, and as is clear as to the facts.

 

[SSVilla]

I have read further, and find that I cannot agree with Rafuse revisionist take on the situation in Missouri. I have a reluctance to second guess. He's of the opinion that Nathaniel Lyon pushed Missouri into chaos. No doubt the man was a firebrand but in second guessing his actions, I am faced with a question I once asked myself when I first learned that R.E. Lee was anguished and asked General Winfield Scott for no field assignment — so torn was he at that particular moment about conflicting duties and demands. IIRC Scott told him that a General unwilling to accept orders to the field was of no use at all, and that if he had reservations he better resign. That precipitated Lee's resignation from the U.S. Army.

Originally I thought, what if? What if Scott had allowed Lee to deliberate further or had given him leave, or whatever right? What if Scott hadn't pressured him? But of course the blame is not on Scott. There's a problem with second guessing how someone would have acted if they hadn't been pressed. Aside from the fact we can never know for sure there's also the fact that the person already has an inclination, a preference. The precipitating event was not the reason for what lay behind the motivation and in a way it's what was already coming.

Rafuse appears to lay on Nathaniel Lyon the blame for the situation in Missouri, such that if he hadn't acted as he did, things would have been different? No way. People were already leaning whatever way they were leaning. The situation was already very tense. I can't ignore Grant's assessment of things, who lived at that time and was familiar with Missouri politics, that Blair's intervention was key from keeping the arsenal from falling into secessionist hands, and kept Missouri from leaving the Union. The fact it fell into partisan terrorism couldn't have been helped no matter what Lyon or anyone did, IMO. People already were polarized and would have done as they wanted.

Because this is speculation it is the kind of difference of opinion in which everyone can have their own take, but Rafuse has not persuaded me one bit on that point. None of us is omniscient and his speculation didn't happen so that it's a very weak point for me.

The worst argument to use as an explanation for Mac is the conservatism, the whigism, etc. I didn't want to go there, but so was Grant conservative, also a West Point graduate, also someone who disliked extremists, also someone who voted for Buchanan, also a follower of Senator Douglass, etc.

Rafuse succeeded in explaining McC conservative strategies which frankly were nothing exceptional. So was Winfield Scott a proponent of not escalating things. Heck, Grant also originally thought that just getting a decisive victory over " the secesh" would be enough… That was nothing difficult to understand. What matters is what happened after… what happened after contact with the enemy, what happened when things didn't go according to plan, what happened when one encountered obstacles, when the rebels fought fiercely, etc… Whigism has nothing on that. That's where the personality matters.

I haven't finished reading yet.

 

[1SGDan]

On this forum when it comes to Mac there are apparently only two opinions that are the only source of truth. But not to worry we can still think on our own as long as we don't disagree with them.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

He's of the opinion that Nathaniel Lyon pushed Missouri into chaos.

Lyon is someone whose reputation has seemed to decline over time with no real defenders. Which is especially rare for a martyr like Lyon.

Rafuse's opinion of Lyon is shared by Piston & Hatcher in their modern study of Wilson's Creek.

I certainly see how Lyon's zealotry probably lead him to make a number of suboptimal choices. However, Missouri had enough pro-Confederate sentiment, including the governor, that a peaceful solution was not possible.

A particularly large issue was the significant German immigration population in St. Louis was strongly pro-Union and the pro-Confederate faction was racially prejudiced against them. Kentucky and Maryland didn't have a comparable kind of tension, even though they had their own Union and Confederate divisions.

 

[SSVilla]

Lyon is someone whose reputation has seemed to decline over time with no real defenders. Which is especially rare for a martyr like Lyon.

Rafuse's opinion of Lyon is shared by Piston & Hatcher in their modern study of Wilson's Creek.

I certainly see how Lyon's zealotry probably lead him to make a number of suboptimal choices. However, Missouri had enough pro-Confederate sentiment, including the governor, that a peaceful solution was not possible.

A particularly large issue was the significant German immigration population in St. Louis was strongly pro-Union and the pro-Confederate faction was racially prejudiced against them. Kentucky and Maryland didn't have a comparable kind of tension, even though they had their own Union and Confederate divisions.

In the preface to his book Rafuse stated:

"Joseph L. Harsh taught me, it is only by closely following a historical actor in his day-to-day activities and confronting decisions the way he confronted them—"living with him" in Professor Harsh's words—that a historian can avoid the pitfalls of hindsight, understand an individual's specific decisions and how they reflected his broader outlook, and gain a true understanding of their subject. The danger of this, of course, is that the attempt to see things through a historical actor's eyes will lead one to become too close to that person with the result that analysis gives way to advocacy."

He is attempting to avoid hindsight with Mac, but then falls head first into the pits of it with Lyon. I think Lyon could definitely be studied for military purposes even if your conclusion is what not to do. I am not arguing his merits, but at a time when arsenals and federal property had been given up without resistance, and Ft. Sumter was taken by force, should Lyon have ignored the confederate camp posted at St. Louis near the arsenal? Rafuse is decidedly judgmental there. Without explaining or discussing this, Rafuse just concluded the whole thing could have been avoided if Harney had stayed in command. There's definitely hindsight there too. Color me skeptical. The specific riot resulting from the arrest of the confederates at Camp Jackson is the only thing that could have been prevented, but something else would have happened and not necessarily what Rafuse expects. This is to me the problem with his speculation.

 

[SSVilla]

Rafuse uses some confusing terms. He calls an invasion of the South with overwhelming force a conciliation policy. I suppose a question has to be asked if that was conciliatory…
Blair and Lyon used instead a confrontational policy… I don't see any explanation for the use of these terms…

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

I have objection to Rafuse's use of misleading terms. He calls an invasion of the South with overwhelming force a conciliation policy. This is confusing. I suppose a question has to be asked if that was conciliatory…
Blair and Lyon used instead a confrontational policy… I don't see any explanation for the use of these terms…

Conciliation would be the Union policy toward KY: the state declared neutrality and Lincoln rolled with it rather than force the issue. Then Polk pursued a confrontational policy and forced the issue.

In MO, conciliation would have been to built up Union strength and defend the arsenal, but only cautiously watch the situation at Camp Jackson. At the Planters House meeting it would have been negotiating some kind of agreement in the hopes of staving off the Missouri State Guards from engaging in open warfare. Lyon took a confrontational approach by arresting everyone at Camp Jackson then telling Price, et al to go to hell. Deescalation vs. escalation would be another way to put it.

I suppose one could argue that the conciliation vs confrontation dichotomy evolved into Soft War vs Hard War.

 

[SSVilla]

I finished the book. I had a phase early on where I almost gave up reading it, but I ended up coming back and I am glad I did. I am starting to appreciate reading serious historians with opinions different to mine and still learning something. This is probably a sign of personal growth.

The most I took away from this book was the discussion of policy, which is ironic because when the book started off with a political class, I almost quit reading. However, that ended up being his major contribution to my understanding, the political foundations of conservatism, the conciliation politics and what it was that they were about in the context of the civil war.

Ultimately that still didn't change my opinion of Mac. There were times that I thought Rafuse had reached the level of advocacy, particularly when he got into Mac's head to explain what he was doing. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, the advocacy is very evident. The whole book is about explaining what Mac was doing in a political context, but when he got into Mac's head to explain his motives it read like pure fiction to me.

My favorite parts in the narrative were the ones that referenced Halleck. The rivalry between Halleck and Buell, Halleck's jealousy towards Grant and some of Halleck's two faced dealings were narrated in a very interesting fashion. Possibly for me those were the most interesting parts of the book. Halleck is an interesting character for me, so maybe those are just my interests showing. But I wish he'd done a similar evaluation of McC than he did Halleck, his ambitions, his own rivalries and how he maneuvered those he perceived as enemies or dangerous to him. There's a lot of Mac's personality overall that this book doesn't cover.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

The whole book is about explaining what Mac was doing in a political context, but when he got into Mac's head to explain his motives it read like pure fiction to me.

I think McClellan's motives and his politics are related, but not conflated.

Motives set his goals; politics defined how he tried to achieve those goals.

 

[SSVilla]

I think McClellan's motives and his politics are related, but not conflated.

Motives set his goals; politics defined how he tried to achieve those goals.

Hmm what do you mean exactly?

For my part, I just think it's complicated. I have discovered through study that someone could have both legitimate military motives and rivalry/ambitious motives in a single action.

————

Some things I appreciated was Rafuse explaining how disconnected McClellan was from public sentiment disregarding it as the product of extremists, when popular opinion was already changing.

The reasons congress and the people were pressing for military action were dismissed as unreasonable and irrational ramblings in his mind, while in reality the war was expensive and nothing was being done (this fact is not explained in the book, which if he had, it would have been more fair and be less of a partisan issue. At one point the Union was in a precarious position in terms of international appearances with passage through the rivers threatened by rebel batteries and looking like a scared country, and needed action to send a message to calm the people's anxiety (financing) and also to put off Europe. Mac was disconnected from that for whatever reason. That he thought them irrational is probably as good explanation as any.

 

[wausaubob]

The soft war approach was very successful in Kentucky and Tennessee, and that set up the war of attrition with food shortages mixed in. The war was won by capturing New Orleans from the Gulf, a plan Scott and McClellan corresponded about. Eventually Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana were cut off from the Confederacy, Its not a coincidence that the US Civil War ended about 3 months after the massive US armada, landed an army above Fort Fisher and then closed the Confederacy's last port. Events demonstrated that McClellan was correct about the consequences of the big land battles, but he never acknowledged that the combined arms successes were dismantling the Confederacy. He wanted his big eastern army to win the war, and make him the winning general. But that never happened until the Confederacy had been shredded.
Its understandable that after Stephen A. Douglas died McClellan would begin to think that McClellan could be the next general to be elected President

 

[wausaubob]

I don't think McClellan had enough hard experience in the US/Mexican war to appreciate the importance of camp engineering and adequate nutrition. Men who had been to California and to solve the basic quartermaster and commissary problems may have had an advantage over McClellan who skipped several grades to become the commanding major general in mid 1861. In terms of tactics McClellan had a lot to learn. How much of the work he did formed the basis for an army that endured 3.5 years of frustration and finally endured to victory?

 

[wausaubob]

The federal government did not win the war in tactical land battles. The US steadily improved its combined arms operation, imposed a blockade that get tighter every year, cut 1/4 of the Confederacy off from the rest, and used its railroad system to better support its armies and run a furlough system that sent men home and got them back to the army.

 

[SSVilla]

I don't think McClellan had enough hard experience in the US/Mexican war to appreciate the importance of camp engineering and adequate nutrition. Men who had been to California and to solve the basic quartermaster and commissary problems may have had an advantage over McClellan who skipped several grades to become the commanding major general in mid 1861. In terms of tactics McClellan had a lot to learn. How much of the work he did formed the basis for an army that endured 3.5 years of frustration and finally endured to victory?

The fact that he didn't have the experience for the responsibility thrown at him was never addressed in this book, I don't recall, but Grant did say that part of Mac's challenge was that he was too young for the responsibility and unlike all of the other great Union generals at the end of the war, he did not fight his way along and up.

 

[Jamieva]

I tried to read this earlier this year but bailed somewhere in the first 30 pages. I am going to try again in 25. It's not an easy read especially early on.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Hmm what do you mean exactly?

McClellan's motivation was a desire to save the Union, which soon evolved into a messianic desire to be the savior of the USA. His politics dictated how he went about doing that saving - namely, Soft War.

 

[SSVilla]

I tried to read this earlier this year but bailed somewhere in the first 30 pages. I am going to try again in 25. It's not an easy read especially early on.

I have to be honest that my recent threads asking when someone can tell a book is not for them were motivated by this book. The book seemingly starts off on a tangent and I actually gave up reading it, but picked it back up because I was interest in the controversial Mac and I know he is taboo in the forum for the polemics just mentioning him cause. I wanted to get two sides of the opinions on him. Therefore I read Sears the Young Napoleon, then a few other subjects so that I wouldn't be burned out by the topic (Demon of Unrest was among those I read) then came back to this.

It's a good book. I wasn't completely swayed ultimately, but I did gain an understanding and insight into some aspects of Mac's thinking and actions. I benefited from reading it is my vote, even though I wasn't converted into some Mac devotee.

I don't think everything Mac did can be explained by Whiggish principles. For one thing there were other Whiggish generals who succeeded—Grant the most notable—and there were issues of personality, personal ambition and rivalry that are not explored in this book. The over counting of rebel forces is mentioned but not analyzed. Rafuse is sympathetic to Mac, when I wouldn't always be, but I was looking for a different opinion to Sears and this was it. I thought Sears offered insight Rafuse didn't, but Rafuse explained other things that provide context. I am glad I read both.

One thing I'll mention about Mac, when he was removed from command and he encouraged his army to serve equally under Burnside that was probably his highest point in my eyes. We have no ideas the real temptations that someone can have for military dictatorships, but if there is one moment in American History where I have seen that mentioned by different people, the ACW was one. Not that long before that moment, there had been camp talks among officers in the AoP of marching to Washington to take over and just really alarming things of that nature. McClellan submitting to civil authority in the end I regard highly. I believe I have now a balanced view about Mac which is what I wanted.

————

I didn't think the chapters about politics added all that much but for someone who doesn't have any background of the politics of the antebellum time, it would be helpful. You could skip them if they are too much to push through. Ironically, although probably not intended, the chapters about politics and about West Point gave me insight into Grant, who had a similar political background, but diverged markedly. But honestly you could skip them, if that's nothing new for you. When it's relevant in the analysis m the author will say when Mac was motivated by his Whiggish principles or his West Point education, and you can determine for yourself your own opinions.

 

[SSVilla]

McClellan's motivation was a desire to save the Union, which soon evolved into a messianic desire to be the savior of the USA. His politics dictated how he went about doing that saving - namely, Soft War.

Big picture answer, loved it.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

I don't think everything Mac did can be explained by Whiggish principles. For one thing there were other Whiggish generals who succeeded—Grant the most notable—and there were issues of personality, personal ambition and rivalry that are not explored in this book.

Lincoln had been a staunch Whig until the formation of the Republicans.

People who haven't read this book probably aren't even aware McClellan was a Whig. Most of the prewar army officers were conservative Democrats, not Whigs. Mac seems like the epitome of that, not the antithesis.

Maybe it says something about mid-19th century politics more than it does about McClellan. Maybe heart of the reason the Republicans formed in the first place was the Whigs and Democrats weren't sufficiently different. And ultimately the Democrats recovered quickly not simply because of Southern Redeemers, but because in the North too many Republicans were really just anti-slavery Democrats or Whigs, not truly Republicans at heart.