Stephen Sears Books:

[Nathan Towne]

Hey everyone,

I just want to put out a quick question to everyone here, as I know that his books are very highly read. I have only read one of them, Chancellorsville, in full and I have long been a big fan. I have read most of it twice, actually and while I do have a few areas of disagreement (he is much too trusting of the voluminous accounts of people who stated later on that they had gone out on the right of the Army on May 2nd due to their suspicions that the Army was being turned deep on its right flank, for instance, in my view), I think that it is a great operational study overall.

I have read bits of To The Gates of Richmond and of The Young Napoleon and while they both have value, I wasn't quite as impressed, overall, especially in his coverage of McClellan, which, as everyone knows, is highly critical and I find to be somewhat superficial that way.

Due to the degree to which his books are widely read, what are your perceptions overall?

 

[Belfoured]

Yes, I certainly understood what you meant and the term was often used in that context. It is often used in that manner in the historiography, as well. However, you will occasionally see officers state that they received "signal telegraph," or something along those lines, which is technically the accurate use of the word.

Like any rule, it's proven by the exception. No question there are occasional references to that. But overwhelmingly they distinguished the two - for example, "signal station" and "telegraph station". Of course, how many people do we think who read that reference by Sears thought he meant "signalling" by the Signal Corps? Whether McClellan was in effective command while on the Galena by virtue of signalling and how long he was on the Galena are different issues which have been beaten to death elsewhere.

I have never said that Sears got everything right on McClellan. For example, I've stated repeatedly - here and elsewhere - that he has been shown conclusively wrong on McClellan's receipt of the Lost Orders and the timing of his response by the convincing, evidence-supported analysis of Rossino and Thorp. That's different from some stuff we;ve been given on other issues by McClellan acolytes.

 

[rpkennedy]

Hey everyone,

I just want to put out a quick question to everyone here, as I know that his books are very highly read. I have only read one of them, Chancellorsville, in full and I have long been a big fan. I have read most of it twice, actually and while I do have a few areas of disagreement (he is much too trusting of the voluminous accounts of people who stated later on that they had gone out on the right of the Army on May 2nd due to their suspicions that the Army was being turned deep on its right flank, for instance, in my view), I think that it is a great operational study overall.

I have read bits of To The Gates of Richmond and of The Young Napoleon and while they both have value, I wasn't quite as impressed, overall, especially in his coverage of McClellan, which, as everyone knows, is highly critical and I find to be somewhat superficial that way.

Due to the degree to which his books are widely read, what are your perceptions overall?

I think that @Eric Wittenberg pretty much nailed it. As long as the reader is aware of Sears' perspectives, the books are excellent reads.

Ryan

 

[67th Tigers]

Sears mostly follows the once revisionist (but now mainstream) ideas of Kenneth Powers Williams.

For a long time there was genuine debate about McClellan (and Grant), for example. Republicans wrote their anti-McClellan screeds, and Democrats wrote defences. It is notable for the men that actually fought the war usually came down on McClellan's side unless they were extremely partisan.

Emory Upton is a good example; he was a solid Republican who developed extremely anti-McClellan opinions in 1864 which he held until he came to write his history of the war. When he examined the documents then entering the public domain detailing Stanton's sabotage of McClellan he completely did an about face on the matter, and reached the same conclusions that McClellan did about the operations of 1862.

After the original burst of partisanship, scholars largely came down on McClellan's side. The big historians of the era, James Garfield Randall and William Starr Myers were very pro-McClellan and anti-Stanton. Hence when T. Harry Williams published "Lincoln and the Radicals" in 1941, it was very balanced and by modern standards very pro-McClellan (although later he revised his ideas somewhat).

The rise of "Anti-McClellanism" and "Pro-Grantism" really started with Kenneth Powers Williams. He essentially endorsed the "On To Richmond" philosophy of the Radicals and believed the two great generals of the war were Pope and Grant, and that Stanton and the JCCW could do no wrong. He slated everyone else in an effort to promote this idea. No academic press would touch his work with a barge-pole, it was unscholarly and unbalanced, but read like an accessible novel. He eventually got a British publisher, Macmillan, to publish it for the British market where there was less scrutiny. Then we come to Bruce Catton.

Catton was not a historian but rather a journalist. Hence he didn't read the dense scholarly tomes, but he did read KP Williams. His first few books are basically KP Williams' thesis repackaged. Now, Catton actually improved and moved a bit away from this in later works, but the underlying basis of KP Williams' thesis remained. Catton's work was, of course, wildly popular and effectively rewrote the popular narrative. A few scholars broke out of the KP Williams narrative, but went nowhere.

The late Joseph Harsh called this the "American Heritage" narrative, because it was heavily associated with publications in that magazine. It was highly biased, and the editors had an editorial line which they followed.

This narrative was continued with Sears, who was an editor at American Heritage. Sears took their ideas and added a veneer of authenticity by the inclusion of proper references etc. However, I find he used the references very selectively. He knew the narrative, and used references to back them up, even when they contradicted the narrative.

 

[Mr King]

I have books by Sears and think he did well. Sears' opinion may not be favorable for Gen. McClellan but General Lee when asked who was the best Union general he fought, he replied, Gen. McClellan.
https://emergingcivilwar.com/2022/03/28/why-did-robert-e-lee-think-highly-of-george-b-mcclellan/

In my opinion Gen. McClellan and even Gen. Longstreet were ahead of their time on combat strategy tactics especially with the fact that the rifles were replacing the smoothbore muskets. They both seem to believe like what Gen. Patton believed in WW2 who said in the movie Patton(the beginning which is the best part of the movie, but not to use cuss words)Patton said, "No one has ever won a war by dying for his country. Instead, he won it by making the enemy die for his country."

Gen. McClellan may be cautious but fought in that way in order to force Gen. Lee to fight on the offensive while he and his army possessed great defensive positions for his artillery and his infantrymen and still have men in reserve which left Gen. Lee no choice but to launch offensive strategy tactics which the Confederate army suffered many casualties and men they couldn't replace compared to the Federal army.

I prefer McClellan over Grant for Grant knew he could easily replace his men but McClellan was more concerned with protecting his men that he had and taking good care of them.

 

[Saphroneth]

Gen. McClellan may be cautious but fought in that way in order to force Gen. Lee to fight on the offensive while he and his army possessed great defensive positions for his artillery and his infantrymen and still have men in reserve which left Gen. Lee no choice but to launch offensive strategy tactics which the Confederate army suffered many casualties and men they couldn't replace compared to the Federal army.

The interesting thing about this is that at Antietam McClellan goes on the offensive, and while his performance at Antietam is criticized roundly for not having destroyed Lee's army (which implicitly assumes such a thing was not only possible but probable) his attacks there are - by CEV (i.e. effectiveness adjusted for relative army size) just about the best offensive actions anyone ever launches against Lee. In fact, he does better against Lee than Lee does against him by the same metrics, though the sample size is quite small and you could argue that either was a little better than the other at tactics.

Operationally both men appear to launch attacks if they have the numerical advantage overall, and both men can manoeuvre well.


But really the key point to me is that the Army of Northern Virginia suffered something like 55,000 casualties (~30,000 on the Peninsula, at least 17,000 in Maryland, ~10,000 against Pope) from the opening of the Peninsula Campaign to the end of McClellan's tenure, of which over 80% were suffered against McClellan. In a very real sense, McClellan fights the largest Confederate army ever assembled, and the battles he fights reduce it significantly in size - in fact, he inflicts more casualties than he suffers, though it's close - meaning that no other Union commander has to fight against a Confederate army of the same sort of size.

For Lee to get back to near-parity in the Gettysburg campaign it takes Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and lots of expiring nine-month enlistments. If the destruction of an army is a process, not an event, McClellan does the first (and, arguably, the hardest) part.

 

[Mr King]

The interesting thing about this is that at Antietam McClellan goes on the offensive, and while his performance at Antietam is criticized roundly for not having destroyed Lee's army (which implicitly assumes such a thing was not only possible but probable) his attacks there are - by CEV (i.e. effectiveness adjusted for relative army size) just about the best offensive actions anyone ever launches against Lee. In fact, he does better against Lee than Lee does against him by the same metrics, though the sample size is quite small and you could argue that either was a little better than the other at tactics.

Operationally both men appear to launch attacks if they have the numerical advantage overall, and both men can manoeuvre well.


But really the key point to me is that the Army of Northern Virginia suffered something like 55,000 casualties (~30,000 on the Peninsula, at least 17,000 in Maryland, ~10,000 against Pope) from the opening of the Peninsula Campaign to the end of McClellan's tenure, of which over 80% were suffered against McClellan. In a very real sense, McClellan fights the largest Confederate army ever assembled, and the battles he fights reduce it significantly in size - in fact, he inflicts more casualties than he suffers, though it's close - meaning that no other Union commander has to fight against a Confederate army of the same sort of size.

For Lee to get back to near-parity in the Gettysburg campaign it takes Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and lots of expiring nine-month enlistments. If the destruction of an army is a process, not an event, McClellan does the first (and, arguably, the hardest) part.

Yes, Gen. McClellan launched many attacks against Lee in Antietam/Sharpsburg but he kept 30,000 federal troops to be held in reserve in case the confederates counterattacked. A flaw on McClellan was that he thought he was fighting against overwhelming odds but he wasn't. McClellan finally decided to launch offensive tactics when he received the "lost orders" wrapped around cigars and took the dare of attacking the confederates hoping he could defeat Lee with Lee's army split but still left a large portion behind to protect and defend the federal army.

 

[Saphroneth]

Yes, Gen. McClellan launched many attacks against Lee in Antietam/Sharpsburg but he kept 30,000 federal troops to be held in reserve in case the confederates counterattacked. A flaw on McClellan was that he thought he was fighting against overwhelming odds but he wasn't. McClellan finally decided to launch offensive tactics when he received the "lost orders" wrapped around cigars and took the dare of attacking the confederates hoping he could defeat Lee with Lee's army split but still left a large portion behind to protect and defend the federal army.

I think this picture of what's going on is quite... incomplete?


McClellan was moving out of Washington for days and moving to attack Lee when the Lost Orders were found in the first place. At most they simply confirmed how Lee had split his army; McClellan couldn't have attacked Lee before the Lost Orders were found because he had not yet reached Lee.

McClellan's actual tactics at Antietam commit all but one division to attacks; as more troops arrive he feeds in his reserve division of 2nd Corps (replaced by Morell) to improve the attack, then 6th Corps to protect his shattered northern flank after a major Confederate counterattack.

McClellan didn't keep 30,000 Federal troops in reserve at Antietam. Reserves are troops that have not been committed to do something (defending troops are not reserves) and at most McClellan's reserve at Antietam is about one division; he doesn't attack with 6th Corps (two divisions, actually 5 bdes since one attacks but one bde from 1st Corps doesn't attack either, but 6th Corps are forming the battle line) or Morell's one division (which is his actual reserve), and you could also argue that one brigade of Sykes' regulars is in reserve but the two regular brigades are McClellan's entire centre.


If you count all the troops with which McClellan did not actually attack (5 bdes of 6th Corps, 1 of 1st Corps, ~4 of 5th Corps) as being "in reserve" then you get about 20,000 PFD (which would be about 13,000 effectives on the day). But then by the same count you get almost half of Lee's entire army, since only about half of Lee's brigades had fought in close action that day (the rest was forming the battle line, like 6th Corps).



Certainly, McClellan could have launched the last remaining unbroken troops he had in an attack. Perhaps it would have worked, but this kind of last-throw-of-the-dice is also a very risky move - it failed for Lee at Gettysburg, and it failed disastrously for Napoleon at Waterloo and for Pope at Second Bull Run three weeks ago.

 

[Mr King]

I think this picture of what's going on is quite... incomplete?


McClellan was moving out of Washington for days and moving to attack Lee when the Lost Orders were found in the first place. At most they simply confirmed how Lee had split his army; McClellan couldn't have attacked Lee before the Lost Orders were found because he had not yet reached Lee.

McClellan's actual tactics at Antietam commit all but one division to attacks; as more troops arrive he feeds in his reserve division of 2nd Corps (replaced by Morell) to improve the attack, then 6th Corps to protect his shattered northern flank after a major Confederate counterattack.

McClellan didn't keep 30,000 Federal troops in reserve at Antietam. Reserves are troops that have not been committed to do something (defending troops are not reserves) and at most McClellan's reserve at Antietam is about one division; he doesn't attack with 6th Corps (two divisions, actually 5 bdes since one attacks but one bde from 1st Corps doesn't attack either, but 6th Corps are forming the battle line) or Morell's one division (which is his actual reserve), and you could also argue that one brigade of Sykes' regulars is in reserve but the two regular brigades are McClellan's entire centre.


If you count all the troops with which McClellan did not actually attack (5 bdes of 6th Corps, 1 of 1st Corps, ~4 of 5th Corps) as being "in reserve" then you get about 20,000 PFD (which would be about 13,000 effectives on the day). But then by the same count you get almost half of Lee's entire army, since only about half of Lee's brigades had fought in close action that day (the rest was forming the battle line, like 6th Corps).



Certainly, McClellan could have launched the last remaining unbroken troops he had in an attack. Perhaps it would have worked, but this kind of last-throw-of-the-dice is also a very risky move - it failed for Lee at Gettysburg, and it failed disastrously for Napoleon at Waterloo and for Pope at Second Bull Run three weeks ago.

I apologize if my statements were historically incorrect and incomplete. It's not about me being right but what is historically correct. Thank you for correcting me.

 

[gjpratt]

Sears mostly follows the once revisionist (but now mainstream) ideas of Kenneth Powers Williams.

For a long time there was genuine debate about McClellan (and Grant), for example. Republicans wrote their anti-McClellan screeds, and Democrats wrote defences. It is notable for the men that actually fought the war usually came down on McClellan's side unless they were extremely partisan.

Emory Upton is a good example; he was a solid Republican who developed extremely anti-McClellan opinions in 1864 which he held until he came to write his history of the war. When he examined the documents then entering the public domain detailing Stanton's sabotage of McClellan he completely did an about face on the matter, and reached the same conclusions that McClellan did about the operations of 1862.

After the original burst of partisanship, scholars largely came down on McClellan's side. The big historians of the era, James Garfield Randall and William Starr Myers were very pro-McClellan and anti-Stanton. Hence when T. Harry Williams published "Lincoln and the Radicals" in 1941, it was very balanced and by modern standards very pro-McClellan (although later he revised his ideas somewhat).

The rise of "Anti-McClellanism" and "Pro-Grantism" really started with Kenneth Powers Williams. He essentially endorsed the "On To Richmond" philosophy of the Radicals and believed the two great generals of the war were Pope and Grant, and that Stanton and the JCCW could do no wrong. He slated everyone else in an effort to promote this idea. No academic press would touch his work with a barge-pole, it was unscholarly and unbalanced, but read like an accessible novel. He eventually got a British publisher, Macmillan, to publish it for the British market where there was less scrutiny. Then we come to Bruce Catton.

Catton was not a historian but rather a journalist. Hence he didn't read the dense scholarly tomes, but he did read KP Williams. His first few books are basically KP Williams' thesis repackaged. Now, Catton actually improved and moved a bit away from this in later works, but the underlying basis of KP Williams' thesis remained. Catton's work was, of course, wildly popular and effectively rewrote the popular narrative. A few scholars broke out of the KP Williams narrative, but went nowhere.

The late Joseph Harsh called this the "American Heritage" narrative, because it was heavily associated with publications in that magazine. It was highly biased, and the editors had an editorial line which they followed.

This narrative was continued with Sears, who was an editor at American Heritage. Sears took their ideas and added a veneer of authenticity by the inclusion of proper references etc. However, I find he used the references very selectively. He knew the narrative, and used references to back them up, even when they contradicted the narrative.

Very informative and insightful @67th Tigers Thank you for this thoughtful post.

 

[JerryD]

Telegraph means "distant writing," and telegraphs were originally optical. Well done on all the incorrect scare quotes.

Still, don't let little things like the actual meaning of words get in your way...

Not sure what you mean by "optical", but originally the Morse telegraph created a written record of holes punched in a strip of paper that could be read. Eventually it was determined that the operators could decipher the record from listening to the device punch the holes, so the paper was no longer needed.

 

[Saphroneth]

Not sure what you mean by "optical", but originally the Morse telegraph created a written record of holes punched in a strip of paper that could be read. Eventually it was determined that the operators could decipher the record from listening to the device punch the holes, so the paper was no longer needed.

What 67th means is that the Optical Telegraph was invented in the 1700s, and was what we would now call semaphore or similar. At the time it was just called the "telegraph" (the word is originally coined in France) and subsequent electrical telegraphs just used the same name.

 

[JerryD]

What 67th means is that the Optical Telegraph was invented in the 1700s, and was what we would now call semaphore or similar. At the time it was just called the "telegraph" (the word is originally coined in France) and subsequent electrical telegraphs just used the same name.

Ahh, I see. Thanks for that clarification.