The Search for McClellan's HQ

Got any evidence of that?
That... he's... um, dead?

I mean, what we have is that Price said in his forenotes that the manuscript burned and that McClellan hadn't finished recreating it, and we have a manuscript that ends at Seven Pines.

There are two possibilities.

Either:
McClellan wrote two manuscripts, one of which was much further along than the other and included the Antietam material, but the further along one has thus far disappeared after Price used it as a source. For the other one he stopped at Seven Pines for no adequately explained reason.
Or:
McClellan wrote only one manuscript, the one we have located, and Price used it as a source up until the point where it ended (with McClellan's death) after which he reconstructed the rest of the material in the book.


As it happens from a brief check the last page of the manuscript appears to be a direct match to the first paragraph of page 378 in the published book. This strongly implies that the manuscript Price used is the manuscript we have now, and obviously since it ends there it can't have been the source for the whole book.


In the rain? Having just gotten over Typhoid Fever?
He had typhoid in December 1861, and this was September 1862. Unless I've missed a particular bout of the fever he suffered from months later I'm not sure that qualifies as having "just" gotten over it; even if he'd suffered from it in July it would be a stretch.
 
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Well, it was published a couple of years after his death and the only manuscript I know of in his papers is incomplete*. This is because the previous one was destroyed in a fire (in 1881) and he was in the process of recreating it when he died. (This much is from W.C.Price's foreword of the book published as McClellan's Own Story)


* A more complete manuscript in his papers would, of course, indicate that this supposition had been overturned, as would a note from McClellan's papers to the effect that he did in fact stay in the Fry/Pry House on that date as this would indicate that that part of the narrative at least was generated from McClellan's papers as a source rather than wider material.

In battles and leaders, one of his essays us from his manuscript, and gives a good explanation.
 
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