McClellan Thomas and McClellan

Thomas is a way better General than McClellan could ever be.

However, "General" is a nebulous term. It encompasses brigadiers, who might be commanding not much more than 1,000 men, and basically super-colonels, to the division (10,000), corps (30,000), army (100,000) commanders, and the supreme command.

Thomas never commanded a full sized army of ca. 100,000 men, and was only once in an independent command (at Nashville). My assessment when this came up a year ago that Thomas was a solid executive general who wasn't cut out for independent command seems reasonable. What's more, Thomas knew his own limitations, which is why he kept insisting that he not be given an army.
 
However, "General" is a nebulous term. It encompasses brigadiers, who might be commanding not much more than 1,000 men, and basically super-colonels, to the division (10,000), corps (30,000), army (100,000) commanders, and the supreme command.

Thomas never commanded a full sized army of ca. 100,000 men, and was only once in an independent command (at Nashville). My assessment when this came up a year ago that Thomas was a solid executive general who wasn't cut out for independent command seems reasonable. What's more, Thomas knew his own limitations, which is why he kept insisting that he not be given an army.
Heck, McClellan had Lee cornered up 2 times and even had Lee's instruction which in hand. You are preaching to the wrong person here.

Battles won-
McClellan, none, zip, nada.
Thomas, Saved Rosecran's Army, Won big time the Battle of Nashville.

No comparison.
 
However, "General" is a nebulous term. It encompasses brigadiers, who might be commanding not much more than 1,000 men, and basically super-colonels, to the division (10,000), corps (30,000), army (100,000) commanders, and the supreme command.


Thomas never commanded a full sized army of ca. 100,000 men, and was only once in an independent command (at Nashville). My assessment when this came up a year ago that Thomas was a solid executive general who wasn't cut out for independent command seems reasonable. What's more, Thomas knew his own limitations, which is why he kept insisting that he not be given an army.


I was not aware Thomas "kept insisting" he not be given an army. I only knew we declined to replace his commanding officer, General Buell. Please elaborate. I know he only won the battles he fought and never sent his troops in impulsively throwing away their lives. Please also remind me of those battles he lost. Thanks
 
Why should one be rated any higher than the other? I find both McClellan and Thomas to have sterling qualities for leadership at the Major General Level. Both men faced unique circumstances that precludes any proper comparison. McClellan was an unlucky General, much more than Thomas who really was lucky. That to me is the real kicker when I see both side by side.
I still believe Lincoln was being duped into putting all his eggs in one basket, and all his resources plus authority unto one very ambitious young man. Whether or not the Secretary of War passed on the warnings from General Scott, I believe it was so, but I do see in 1862 a cadre of generals forming up to usurp the powers of Government, such as Freemont, Banks, McClellan, and possibly Butler. Butler possibly had Gideon Welles support in the cabinet. Still, a whole top echelon of generals were ousted before further embarrassment of egotistical folly and persuasion could solidify and dictate a Presidential Decree.
Lubliner.
 
I was not aware Thomas "kept insisting" he not be given an army. I only knew we declined to replace his commanding officer, General Buell. Please elaborate. I know he only won the battles he fought and never sent his troops in impulsively throwing away their lives. Please also remind me of those battles he lost. Thanks

Perhaps it's worth reviewing his record? One should remember, that Thomas served the whole war, and that when McClellan was relieved, Thomas had only been in one action (Mill Springs/ Fishing Creek) and managed to miss another (Perryville) by stubbornness.

Mill Springs/ Fishing Creek - Thomas (a division commander) was attacked by Zollicoffer and repulsed the attack, but refused McClellan's orders to move forward on Knoxville.

Perryville - Thomas was nominally 2i/c, but was assigned to command 2nd Corps (Crittenden). Buell had assigned Thomas a movement directly up the Lebanon Road to Perryville. This would have been a masterstroke if carried out, encircling Bragg's Army and likely leading to its destruction. Thomas however decided the troops were too tired, and instead had moved them away from the battle to find water. Whilst they could hear the action, Thomas kept his corps in camp, and ignored Buell's orders to report in person.

Stones River - Thomas commanded a corps of 13,500 men (i.e. the size of a full strength division), under Rosecrans' close attention. He did an okay job of managing it.

Chickamauga - Thomas of course did a good job holding a rally point, before extracting.

Missionary Ridge - Thomas' quiet mutiny against Grant was successful, surprisingly so for a frontal assault on what should have been a strong position. Of course, Hooker had turned the rebels out of position the night before, and they'd quickly occupied their position. They placed their guns incorrectly.

Kennesaw - Thomas basically refused to make a real attack. He put on a show of a weak attack, and then refused to attack again when Sherman asked.

Peach Creek - A battle mainly fought by Hooker. Thomas, when he received word Hooker's Corps was under attack, became telescoped in on moving one battery over the creek. He'd already been lying to Sherman, saying his forces were across the creek as ordered, and ready to move forward, whilst at the same time complaining to his subordinates about them not being across the creek.

Nashville -Thomas originally had the idea of pinning the rebel line with a demonstration and sweeping round the rebel left. It worked after a fashion. The fixing attacks were pushed in far too vigorously, and the rebels slaughtered the attackers. They were however turned, and withdrew to a new prepared position on Shy's and Overton Hills. On Shy's Hill the engineers made the same mistake as on Missionary Ridge, siting the artillery too high up.

The next day Thomas launched "straight up the middle" assaults on this fortified line, with great slaughter (ca. 3:1 loss ratio in favour of the rebs). Thomas dismounted his cavalry and had them make one last desperate push on Shy's Hill, and during that dusk assault an infantry brigade of AJ Smith's got lucky. The position on Shy's Hill disintegrated at nightfall. Hood withdrew his army in good order, and force marched for the Duck River, crossing it on the 19th and burning the bridges. In dismounting his cavalry, Thomas had lost the ability to exploit any success, and Thomas was binned thereafter. Hood's army fell apart by desertion over the coming months, and was certainly not "annihilated" as some partisans claim.
 
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The wizardry of strategic operations had benefitted by General Scott's initial Anaconda Plan, in spite of what the young General hoped to crown himself with; laurels of being the main centerpiece of the defeated rebellion. Stanton was sworn in on January 20, 1862, replacing Simon Cameron, who essentially had been mismanaging the needs of the army. With Stanton in charge, the cabal of defiance against authority which McClellan had helped create was smothered. From that point on, the western army made its move strategically and tactically. McClellan had sent off Burnside and Foster(?) to Nags Head and New Berne, where success was gained. Port Royal was acquired, and New Orleans captured, according to strategy. Meanwhile, McClellan was blaming General Wool for not submitting to orders as he had promised, and blaming tardiness on other reasons besides himself. These successes helped realize the planned operations were not all focused on the knock-out blow to Richmond, but many other points of fluid actions were taking place, and McClellan could not grasp that? When Henry Halleck as called back to Washington to command the army, Lincoln found for communicating with the young general. McClellan had lost the competition he had carried on from the beginning when he was with Governor Denison and the Army of the Ohio. His complacency to reinforce the field at Second Manassas was a direct disobedience where other generals took the blame; a usual predicament with McClellan.
I don't believe anyone fell into disgrace by General Thomas's acts, because he shouldered the responsibilities resulting from his own actions. McClellan never would.
Lubliner.
 
The wizardry of strategic operations had benefitted by General Scott's initial Anaconda Plan, in spite of what the young General hoped to crown himself with; laurels of being the main centerpiece of the defeated rebellion.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; Scott's Anaconda Plan was never even tried. Of course the Navy mounted a blockade, because that's what navies do. However, Scott's plan was essentially to not attack the Confederacy at all, and it was roundly rejected by Lincoln. Lincoln demanded offensive action - hence Bull Run.

Meanwhile, McClellan was blaming General Wool for not submitting to orders as he had promised, and blaming tardiness on other reasons besides himself.

When McClellan was promoted to his third star in November '61, Lincoln's orders specifically excluded Wool from McClellan's command authority. Of course, McClellan had a hell of a time getting either Halleck or Buell to move. Eventually he managed to force the advances on Forts Henry and Donelson etc. out of them. Almost immediately thereafter Halleck was made commander in the west and McClellan's authority over him removed.

What is bizarre is that McClellan had been scrupulous in following Lincoln's instruction that the main effort was East Tennessee. Buell really didn't care for this. Eventually Lincoln wrote to Buell and Halleck himself, and got back reasons from both of them why what McClellan was asking was impossible.

McClellan forced Buell to send Thomas against Knoxville, and Thomas defeated an attempt to attack him en route, and then turned around and didn't push onto Knoxville. Thomas didn't regard the possession of a strategic centre (the railroad hub), or Lincoln's political desires to liberate Unionists from the rebels as important.

Given Halleck's objections to Lincoln's order for Halleck to attack Columbus, McClellan ordered at least Halleck should feint towards Columbus, and push his disposable force up the Cumberland to gain Fts Henry and Donelson. He sent as much of Buell's force as Buell could move (because Buell still was refusing to move on Bowling Green) to reinforce Grant's expedition.

Halleck seized upon Grant's success, and on receiving command in the west abandoned Lincoln's no. 1 priority (Knoxville) as an objective. It would not be liberated until Burnside reached it in the summer of '63.

His complacency to reinforce the field at Second Manassas was a direct disobedience where other generals took the blame; a usual predicament with McClellan.

Pope was cut off, and there was no way to reinforce him.

I don't believe anyone fell into disgrace by General Thomas's acts, because he shouldered the responsibilities resulting from his own actions. McClellan never would.

McClellan privately regarded several of his subordinates as failures, but never threw any of them "under the bus". Indeed, he acted to protect them. The most obvious example is Burnside after Antietam. His private writings were scathing of Burnside's performance, but publicly he defended Burnside.
 
His complacency to reinforce the field at Second Manassas was a direct disobedience where other generals took the blame; a usual predicament with McClellan.
I'm not sure I follow what you mean here. Can you specify? (I don't want to argue about the wrong period.)
ED: by this I mean I want to know the exact date I should be talking about. The event sequence is kind of complex.

Meanwhile, McClellan was blaming General Wool for not submitting to orders as he had promised, and blaming tardiness on other reasons besides himself.

This speaks to an important point.


Firstly, we should establish a couple of basic assumptions. Hopefully these are pretty much inarguable.

1) For any given military situation, there is an amount of troops which is sufficient to comfortably deal with it.
2) For any given military situation, there is an amount of troops which is insufficient to comfortably deal with it.
3) McClellan was asking for more troops.
4) McClellan was acking for an amount of reinforcements which was broadly within the means of the Union to provide.


(By that fourth point I mean he wasn't asking for all the troops in the East, or something like that. At no point was the number of troops McClellan was asking for enough that the defenders of Washington would drop below the official military consensus on the number of defenders required, for example.)


What this then means is that we need to evaluate whether the amount of troops McClellan had was sufficient to comfortably deal with the situation, and whether the amount of reinforcements he requested was excessive.
It's a fairly basic military fact that very few operations failed because the commander had access to too many troops. It's also the case that Richmond was a critical military and political objective - the Confederate capital, source of a huge fraction of their military production, and the rail junction that basically controlled southern Virginia.


Thus - was the amount of troops McClellan had sufficient?
I think there is a strong case that it was not. He was making an attack on a fortified city but was actually outnumbered by the end of June during the Seven Days sequence, and whenever someone qualified made an assessment of the military situation (McDowell for one, but not the only one) they said that McClellan needed more troops; additionally, Lincoln concurred when fighting was actually going on, but didn't subsequently reinforce McClellan.


Was the amount of troops McClellan asked for excessive?
Again, I think there is a strong case that it was not. The number of troops that passed through the Union army that conducted the Overland Campaign was 170,000 (possibly using a more restrictive measure of PFD than the one during McClellan's campaign, but we'll ignore that for now) while even with the largest rush of reinforcements McClellan ever asked for personally the total number of men PFD passing through his force would not have gone over 160,000 (and that was a case of 'this will make it easier' rather than 'I need these'); he was also opposed to a Confederate army that was larger in size than that which faced the Overland campaign.



What this means is that there are two possibilities to argue that McClellan's requests should not have been fulfilled.

One of them is that you have to argue that McClellan would never make any offensive moves no matter how reinforced he was, and that he had enough troops already; that is, you have to argue that "if McClellan had a million men, he would claim the enemy had two million and then sit down in the mud and ask for three".
This is not justified by his actual record of command. McClellan did not launch charges into fortified positions for the heck of it, but he did conduct deliberate offensive operations on several occasions including in front of Richmond (Oak Grove); in fact, if he was less offensive minded in late June he would not have been pushed away from Richmond during the Seven Days. (He had enough troops to cover his flank or make offensive operations, and he chose the latter.)
It's also not justified by the enemy strength. Certainly by June McClellan was contemplating a fortified enemy city with defenders roughly equalling his own attacking force in strength, and that is simply not the sort of thing that can be treated lightly - and McClellan was making offensive operations against it anyway in June.
If this point is true, moreover, the correct thing to do is simple - replace McClellan. Don't give up all the progress made towards Richmond by withdrawing his army.


The other is diametrically opposed to it. This is the argument that the amount of troops it would take to successfully attack Richmond was so great that the Union simply did not have enough men.
This is not justified by what McClellan actually asked for and what the official consensus view was on the number of troops required to do other tasks. The number of men required to defend Washington both in the forts and in the covering forces was (consensus view) 40,000; at no point did the number of men defending Washington in this way drop below 70,000, and McClellan was generally asking for a number smaller than the excess*. Furthermore, when there were troops that were not defending Washington sitting at Fort Monroe in July they weren't sent up to join McClellan.


* When he did ask for more than the excess he was explicitly asking for troops from elsewhere, and it was in a speculative sense of "this will help" rather than "this is needed".
 
I don't believe anyone fell into disgrace by General Thomas's acts, because he shouldered the responsibilities resulting from his own actions. McClellan never would.

Halleck, 1864, to Grant:
"Genl. Franklin would not give satisfaction. The President ordered him to be tried for negligence & disobedience of orders when here before, but Genl McClellan assumed the responsibility of his repeated delays in obeying orders."
 
Why should one be rated any higher than the other? I find both McClellan and Thomas to have sterling qualities for leadership at the Major General Level. Both men faced unique circumstances that precludes any proper comparison. McClellan was an unlucky General, much more than Thomas who really was lucky. That to me is the real kicker when I see both side by side.
I still believe Lincoln was being duped into putting all his eggs in one basket, and all his resources plus authority unto one very ambitious young man. Whether or not the Secretary of War passed on the warnings from General Scott, I believe it was so, but I do see in 1862 a cadre of generals forming up to usurp the powers of Government, such as Freemont, Banks, McClellan, and possibly Butler. Butler possibly had Gideon Welles support in the cabinet. Still, a whole top echelon of generals were ousted before further embarrassment of egotistical folly and persuasion could solidify and dictate a Presidential Decree.
Lubliner.
I will go along with your word lucky. Just so happems though, Thomas was more luckier.
 
MC Clellan reminds me of his Confederate counterpart Braxton Bragg in many respects both were good planners, but each was too quick to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. One major exception was McClellan was popular with his men and most his officers while Bragg was not. Thomas was a tenacious fighter slow to yield ground but had the reputation as a slow mover. I don't see Thomas faring well against Lee or Jackson or even Longstreet when he was in the right mood.
 
Perhaps it's worth reviewing his record? One should remember, that Thomas served the whole war, and that when McClellan was relieved, Thomas had only been in one action (Mill Springs/ Fishing Creek) and managed to miss another (Perryville) by stubbornness.

Mill Springs/ Fishing Creek - Thomas (a division commander) was attacked by Zollicoffer and repulsed the attack, but refused McClellan's orders to move forward on Knoxville.

Perryville - Thomas was nominally 2i/c, but was assigned to command 2nd Corps (Crittenden). Buell had assigned Thomas a movement directly up the Lebanon Road to Perryville. This would have been a masterstroke if carried out, encircling Bragg's Army and likely leading to its destruction. Thomas however decided the troops were too tired, and instead had moved them away from the battle to find water. Whilst they could hear the action, Thomas kept his corps in camp, and ignored Buell's orders to report in person.

Stones River - Thomas commanded a corps of 13,500 men (i.e. the size of a full strength division), under Rosecrans' close attention. He did an okay job of managing it.

Chickamauga - Thomas of course did a good job holding a rally point, before extracting.

Missionary Ridge - Thomas' quiet mutiny against Grant was successful, surprisingly so for a frontal assault on what should have been a strong position. Of course, Hooker had turned the rebels out of position the night before, and they'd quickly occupied their position. They placed their guns incorrectly.

Kennesaw - Thomas basically refused to make a real attack. He put on a show of a weak attack, and then refused to attack again when Sherman asked.

Peach Creek - A battle mainly fought by Hooker. Thomas, when he received word Hooker's Corps was under attack, became telescoped in on moving one battery over the creek. He'd already been lying to Sherman, saying his forces were across the creek as ordered, and ready to move forward, whilst at the same time complaining to his subordinates about them not being across the creek.

Nashville -Thomas originally had the idea of pinning the rebel line with a demonstration and sweeping round the rebel left. It worked after a fashion. The fixing attacks were pushed in far too vigorously, and the rebels slaughtered the attackers. They were however turned, and withdrew to a new prepared position on Shy's and Overton Hills. On Shy's Hill the engineers made the same mistake as on Missionary Ridge, siting the artillery too high up.

The next day Thomas launched "straight up the middle" assaults on this fortified line, with great slaughter (ca. 3:1 loss ratio in favour of the rebs). Thomas dismounted his cavalry and had them make one last desperate push on Shy's Hill, and during that dusk assault an infantry brigade of AJ Smith's got lucky. The position on Shy's Hill disintegrated at nightfall. Hood withdrew his army in good order, and force marched for the Duck River, crossing it on the 19th and burning the bridges. In dismounting his cavalry, Thomas had lost the ability to exploit any success, and Thomas was binned thereafter. Hood's army fell apart by desertion over the coming months, and was certainly not "annihilated" as some partisans claim.

Thanks for your reply. I see you did not answer the questions. When did Thomas "keep insisting" he did not want to command an army? I find your examples of Thomas "losing battles" quite informative. Most of your examples appear to be times when he did not take advantage of an opportunity. Not exactly throwing troops into an impossible situation and wasting lives.

I'm happy you thought he did Okay at times. No doubt he would be pleased by your faint praise. You know another way of looking at his victories, rather than emphasizing the mistakes made against him, would be to talk about how he took advantage of the situation he was confronted with. That would attend to his strengths which you seem determined to downplay. My father had a saying: "The harder I work, the luckier I get." You might consider that Confederate generals made mistakes against other Union generals too, really they did.

Not to be critical, I think your points are fairly good, part of the time.
 
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It looks like I served a Supreme Pizza to the table, and it was cut into 1/16th's. Everyone gets a piece! First, thank you both, @67th Tigers and @Saphroneth for putting so much thought into comments, seriously. I only hope my response will be found satisfying.
The maneuver up to Aquia Creek and the landing of reinforcements there had somehow been mismanaged. Please allow me to backtrack and show my own blunder in calling out McClellan for this recalcitrance. I have not studied the Second Battle of Manassas and I have only general knowledge of it. I knew by governmental research, being that study was more demanding at the time, that McClellan was not in a good mood at all, and it was bounced around that he had dawdled with no enthusiasm toward success. Government circle. The military side points to a courts-martial and with a thrust so soon into Maryland, no replacement for and one last chance for McClellan. What is going here is not an argument on strength of numbers to me. A serious problem has developed with placement of command. Areas of rule have overlapped, so a conflict of orders is inevitable. Another serious problem is temperament. On the movement south from Alexandria, when the troops were being transported, and before McClellan had left for General Wool's area of command, Secretary Stanton had been in contact with General Wool, and formed an agreement that any help in offloading of troops would be done with all due obeisance. Another problem was the conflict of interest with the Navy in areas of command, in specifications of duty, and requirements for operations. McClellan complained to Stanton that General Wool was diverting transport traffic up York River and Back River, and not allowing troops to land in the immediate vicinity of Hampton. Secretary Stanton then orders General Wool to stand down and allow McClellan his way. Wool responds back that the report was false, he had not hindered, he had a landing site, etc. Strike one.
McClellan was not cool in his delivery of correspondence with others while under pressure. He had tried at this point to claim 10,000 extra men of General Wool's Ft. Monroe detail, which had not been promised; just the help in controlling the landing of troops, and wanted to send them off under his own command leaving Ft. Monroe with Navy Guard only. These conflicts between leadership roles, in their spheres of influence had to be ameliorated before success could be attempted. McClellan was a sore point of continual strife, and he had no tact whatever in dealing with subordinates nor his superiors, and equals, unless they kowtowed to his own priorities of importance.
So in dealing with McClellan, numbers to me mean nothing. It is the attitude of the General, and his ability to prove harmonious concert with others in all ranks. He fed, clothed and encamped men, and taught them how to be soldiers. He was a very good man. But he was a common man, and did not have the quality of being hoisted up among the stars. His time came too soon.
Lubliner.
 
And again @67th Tigers, The Ananconda Plan was the actual military blueprint used for the invasion of quelling the confederacy. It was endeavored to encircle the whole confederate landmass east of the Mississippi; from the Ohio into western Virginia, down the Mississippi to meet forces from New Orleans, blockaded along the full eastern seacoast with Port Royal as a coaling station. Kentucky was an unsettling point of hands-off policy at first, but eventually cast aside, and thrusts were made for the major cities, and railroad junctions in the west. Across the Mississippi, the conflict was controlled by guarding rail lines, population areas, and striking out at any mass formation of troops. The reasons for early occupation of Alexandria were clear as guarding the Capitol, and Irwin McDowell's move on Bull Run was made due to pressures by the public, and Congress. The outline and structure of Union Forces was in every detail a calibrated effort drawn from the original plan. McClellan opposed the idea of direct assault on Richmond, and argued rightly, to invade from the tip of the Virginia Peninsula. But his sphere of influence was too demanding on him and other generals. He had hoodwinked the president that Washington was in extreme danger at the beginning of his promotion, when General Scott had adequate intelligence it was not in immediate peril, and after that tried to dupe the President into giving himself full authority of every decision. When it became apparent this was undermining other operations the President had to reconsider and deal more appropriately with the full field of command. McClellan would not submit to the common sense of his own authority until he knew he could be sacked. He lost his gamble on putting all his stakes on Richmond, hoping to control every other aspect beyond his ability for making proper decisions and judgements. He had to be dealt with as he was, for if he had been given full sway, his fall would have devastated the country.
Lubliner.
 
The maneuver up to Aquia Creek and the landing of reinforcements there had somehow been mismanaged. Please allow me to backtrack and show my own blunder in calling out McClellan for this recalcitrance. I have not studied the Second Battle of Manassas and I have only general knowledge of it. I knew by governmental research, being that study was more demanding at the time, that McClellan was not in a good mood at all, and it was bounced around that he had dawdled with no enthusiasm toward success.
That's the thing, though, because the movement up to Aquia was limited first by the need to send off all the wounded (who couldn't be transported except by loading them onto ships at Harrisons Landing) and second by the availability of transports to ship everyone up once the AotP had marched to somewhere more transport ships could arrive.

As for managing the landing of troops at Aquia and Alexandria and so on, McClellan wasn't there at first - he was sending his troops off north.

One of the main problems was to do with transport. As troops arrived at Aquia and Alexandria, they were arriving as men and guns but without transport - transport meaning horses and wagons - and the first formations to arrive took all of what was available locally. (Franklin's 6th Corps offloaded on the 25th and 26th, but on the night of the 27th had only sixteen horses for the entire corps - which is enough to move four guns and forty rounds of artillery ammunition)

Basically there was no clear decision about whether to push the arriving troops forward hard (and how) or whether to wait, or whatever, until the 29th August- orders to move up were made and countermanded, large bodies of troops being ordered into the Washington defences and transport not being provided for the rest, and so on. This was compounded by how Pope had manged to get himself enveloped, and so there was no easy route for an infantry road march to join him (on the 27th Taylor's brigade got smashed trying to reach Pope, indicating that there was an enemy force astride the road in) and it would have to be an "advance to contact".
 
McClellan complained to Stanton that General Wool was diverting transport traffic up York River and Back River, and not allowing troops to land in the immediate vicinity of Hampton. Secretary Stanton then orders General Wool to stand down and allow McClellan his way. Wool responds back that the report was false, he had not hindered, he had a landing site, etc. Strike one.
The reference I've found in the ORs is that Wool was insisting that troops land at Hampton instead of Monroe (which is what Smith reported to McClellan, complaining that it would be a slow process to land troops at the one wharf at Hampton). If that was a false report the blame lies with Smith.
Wool's dispatch of the 26th March actually confirms that he'd said that troops should land at Hampton instead of Monroe, and he explains the reason for it as being that he'd repaired the docks at Hampton.


So the way you've described this is not supported by the ORs.


He had tried at this point to claim 10,000 extra men of General Wool's Ft. Monroe detail, which had not been promised; just the help in controlling the landing of troops, and wanted to send them off under his own command leaving Ft. Monroe with Navy Guard only.



March 20, 1862 (from Stanton to Wool)
Your telegraphic dispatch of the 19th [18th] instant, declaring your
purpose to waive all technical questions in favor of General McClellan,
has been received, and the Department anticipates no obstacle to his
operations from any conflict of authority at Fort Monroe. The general
states that he will wish to organize the force, or a part of it, under your
command, into a division, to be commanded by General Mansfield, and
his expressed desire has been approved by the Department.

Seems pretty clear to me that it was with War Department approval. In McClellan's own dispatch mentioning this he says "the greater part of the troops now under command of brevet MG Wool" - not all of them.


March 26, 1862 (from Stanton to McClellan):
"It is specially directed by the President, under the Sixty-second Article of War, that Fort Monroe and all the forces there or that may be there shall be commanded by you until further orders."
 
And again @67th Tigers, The Ananconda Plan was the actual military blueprint used for the invasion of quelling the confederacy.
It wasn't, because the Anaconda plan specifically foreswore invading the Confederacy except going down the Mississippi (and down only, not up). That lack of major battles was why Scott said that it would bring the Confederacy to heel "with less bloodshed than any other plan".
 
@Saphroneth, you have studied in deeper detail than me, so I shall await some further response from others with more information to see how their responses fare. Meanwhile if you dig a bit further than the initial order by Stanton with troops for McClellan, you may find, if my memory serves me some, the incident involving the abuse of that privilege. And the idea of ringing the confederacy included the disposition of coal loading stations. I did not mean to say it was explicitly followed. Not at all, but a good conception of some plan to bring the confederacy back into the Union had been formed. I do not believe McClellan could accept the sharing of ultimate success for the Union.
I do not denigrate his abilities as a commander; just his inability to respond regarding the placement of authority, and his lack of working harmoniously with others for the cause. In an orchestration he desired solo prominence that allowed no other member a share without him dividing the laurels of war. He also proved an immoveable obstacle when others were choreographed within the theater of operations.
These are my opinions only, and they are drawn by interpretation of many voices, and I do not mean them as a derogation of due authority nor disrespect to the Army. Thank you, and allow my silence to prevail for my behalf, until I hear some other persuasions.
Lubliner
 
Not at all, but a good conception of some plan to bring the confederacy back into the Union had been formed. I do not believe McClellan could accept the sharing of ultimate success for the Union.
Eh? It's a plan to do nothing but blockade, and that was a plan which basically relied on the idea that the CSA would just come back into the fold if left alone. This is nothing remotely like the plan that was actually followed.

McClellan disagreed, and so did almost everybody else. To single out McClellan as being driven by ego - I don't really see where you're coming from there.


Meanwhile if you dig a bit further than the initial order by Stanton with troops for McClellan, you may find, if my memory serves me some, the incident involving the abuse of that privilege.
McClellan asked to form most of the troops at Fort Monroe into a field division under Mansfield, and that was approved by the war department. I'm not sure how McClellan could have abused that privelige.

Now, the approval was later revoked. That doesn't mean it didn't exist in the first place, and McClellan can only plan based on the information he had at the time (to whit, he would have a division from Fort Monroe).

I can't find any letter from Wool complaining about abuse of that privilege. (I looked through the entire section on correspondence of the Peninsular campaign from the revocation order back.)

What you said was:

He had tried at this point to claim 10,000 extra men of General Wool's Ft. Monroe detail, which had not been promised

In fact they had been promised, and there's documentary evidence of that.
 
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