Who was the better George? McClellan or Thomas?

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The word "anything" comes to mind. A decent commander would have taken a third option, either by protecting his supply line at the expense of an immediate (ha) assault on Richmond, or done his best to draw off Confederate forces from this weakness.
Okay, so a "decent" commander would have done one of two things:

1) Protect his supply line at the expense of an assault on Richmond.
2) Draw off Confederate forces from this weakness.

If McClellan takes option (1), he's safe but stuck. He will never be able to attack Richmond without reinforcements because the minimum required to secure his supply line is greater than the maximum he can put north of the Chickahominy and still attack Richmond.
If McClellan takes option (2), how? The only other thing he can do (it's his only point of contact) is to attack straight at Richmond, but he did this at Oak Grove (day 1 of the Seven Days) and it didn't draw off anything, because the Confederates had enough troops in strong fortifications (around 40,000 of them, PFD) to stay safe from anything but a long-term methodical attack.

So of your two options, one of them means attacking Richmond is not possible until reinforcements arrive for McClellan, and the other option was what he did historically but didn't work.
If you think there was another way McClellan could have drawn off Confederate forces, please outline it. Recall that what you're after is a situation which would allow McClellan to attack Richmond without either uncovering his supply line or getting reinforcements.

The sixth would have been ideal, then the rain started. Ordering an attack on the 12th would have been ever more ideal, but he waited again. Then waited some more. Then Johnston arrived in full force and McClellan's chances were gone. Then Johnston slipped away and McClellan could do nothing to stop him.

Okay, let's look at the Confederate strengths on the sixth. Before I start, I want to confirm something - we have individual Confederate infantry regimental strengths for 30 April. Is it all right to use these strengths for those units in the line on the 6th of April to determine how strongly held the Yorktown line was?

As for the 12th, by the 12th two entire corps (Magruder and DH Hill) have arrived and half of a third (Longstreet). At this point there's over 40,000 troops in the Yorktown line.

That's just the kind of behavior that caused Lincoln to relieve him of command after Antietam. Thankfully, for the Union's sake he was never given another field command for the rest of the war.
Do you mean the Loudoun Valley campaign, or the period when supplies literally were not reaching his army post Antietam?
 
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Then provide an example of public disrespect for Lincoln. If so obvious it should be easy....
I did. Only to have it brushed aside with no counter proof to the contrary. Only a statement that it "may" not have really happened. Please don't tell me that a man who wrote to his wife calling the president "the original gorilla" was content to keep his derision private.
 
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The word "anything" comes to mind. A decent commander would have taken a third option, either by protecting his supply line at the expense of an immediate (ha) assault on Richmond, or done his best to draw off Confederate forces from this weakness.

So a decent commander should have not attacked?

The sixth would have been ideal, then the rain started. Ordering an attack on the 12th would have been ever more ideal, but he waited again. Then waited some more. Then Johnston arrived in full force and McClellan's chances were gone. Then Johnston slipped away and McClellan could do nothing to stop him.

Order an attack where and with what? No-one has ever provided a reasonable attack plan when asked for details. They state such an attack would be easy, but when faced with perfect knowledge of the position can't find any with any chance of success.


Or rather you feel justified using a double standard?

No, he sat and did nothing. Kindly surrendering the initiative to the enemy, who were at their leisure to change operations. Hence his drubbing down the Peninsula.

Yet, you think he should have done less (see above)?

This is, without a doubt, one of the most counterfactual statements I've ever read.

Really? Since it's factually accurate that surprises me.

McClellan could have acted on the defense on the Peninsula (as Porter did at Malvern Hill) or could have attempted to stymie and counterattack Lee's pursuit to stall him or throw him back. On the 27th he could have ordered a counterattack, or at least a diversionary attack, to stall pursuit by Lee. Instead, he was unnerved and surrendered the initiative in order to fall back to the James.

Except what you've suggested is the worst course of action.

"Lee Loses the Initiative, July 2– 5


If not while the guns still reverberated from Malvern Hill, then very soon thereafter, Lee realized how limited was the victory he had achieved. He had gathered most of the Confederacy’s strength in the East into his army, seized the initiative, broken McClellan’s communications, and forced the Federals to abandon their entrenched position. He had then pursued the enemy with a determination and persistence heretofore unmatched by any commander on either side. Yet, in the end, he had accomplished little more than to push his foe aside.

On the evening of June 30, as the Army of Northern Virginia emerged from the White Oak Swamp in pursuit of the Army of the Potomac, Lee had fretted over his inability to deliver the coup de grace to his opponent. “He will get away,” he had muttered in despair, “because I cannot have my orders carried out!” And McClellan did get away— with the organization, the trains, and, so far as Lee knew, the morale of the Northern army intact. “Our success has not been so great or complete as we could have desired,” he confessed to his wife. And in his final report, his disappointment still rankling, he stated flatly, “Under ordinary circumstances the Federal army should have been destroyed.” He knew full well the Confederacy did not have the resources to spend heavy casualties on limited victories, nor the time to waste on missed opportunities. 1

What compounded Lee’s frustration and sharpened his anger was the dawning realization that his victory had worsened the Confederate strategic position. The Army of the Potomac had been driven from the outskirts of Richmond, but it remained less than twenty miles from the Confederate capital. While those twenty miles gained breathing space for the Confederacy, ironically McClellan now posed an even greater potential threat. So long as the Federal army had approached Richmond from the north, its communications necessarily ran overland for some distance and were vulnerable to a turning movement. Now McClellan was based on the river that flowed directly into the heart of Richmond. With his vastly superior navy controlling the James, the Union general would be free to approach the Confederate capital along either bank with a water-based and secure supply line. Until he chose to resume his offensive, McClellan could sit at his impregnable position on the James— refitting, resupplying, and accruing new strength— and Lee could do little about it. In short, once McClellan reached Harrison’s Landing, the initiative in the Richmond area slipped from Lee’s grasp. The Confederate commander was now compelled to wait and watch for the movement of the enemy."

Harsh, Joseph L.. Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861-1862 (Kindle Locations 2244-2264). Kent State Univ Pr. Kindle Edition.

The final nail in the coffin really is his complete inert stance on the Peninsula through July, so much so Lee was able to begin moving troops away from him within weeks. McClellan did not formulate a plan of attack, merely requested yet more men and gleefully predicted Pope's demise. Heck, he knew or suspected Jackson was after Pope, but rather than try to use that to strike at Lee's army, he sat.

No, your timings are completely out of whack.
 
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I did. Only to have it brushed aside with no counter proof to the contrary. Only a statement that it "may" not have really happened. Please don't tell me that a man who wrote to his wife calling the president "the original gorilla" was content to keep his derision private.

Public disrespect. Private thoughts are not public.
 
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I did. Only to have it brushed aside with no counter proof to the contrary. Only a statement that it "may" not have really happened.
As I noted, at the time it wasn't actually a disrespectful action - and it took place in McClellan's own parlor, if indeed it happened at all. That's not public, and it's not his headquarters either.
Gene Thorp holds that there's some serious temporal inconsistencies because the wedding Hay refers to took place over a week away in time:

The event that McClellan allegedly attended was the wedding between Col. Frank Wheaton of the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry and Emma Twiggs Mason, descendant of the famous Mason family and stepdaughter of the Gen. Don Carlos Buell.

Here's the thing, according to the Gunston Hall web page—the organization that runs the family home of the Masons on the Potomac River—Col. Wheaton got married on Nov. 2, 1861, not Nov. 13 as Hay, claims in his diary entry.
 
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McClellan could have acted on the defense on the Peninsula (as Porter did at Malvern Hill) or could have attempted to stymie and counterattack Lee's pursuit to stall him or throw him back. On the 27th he could have ordered a counterattack, or at least a diversionary attack, to stall pursuit by Lee.

A counterattack on the 27th to stall pursuit by Lee? With which forces, exactly, and when? If it's "to stall pursuit" then presumably you mean north of the Chickahominy after Porter's lines have broken, but Porter's force was the entire force north of the Chickahominy (half McClellan's army by that point as he temporarily abandoned any chance of an attack on Richmond and threw more north than his corps commanders wanted to release) and once it's broken it's broken - any counterattack is going to be a couple of brigades trying to 'stall pursuit' by attacking multiple corps of Confederate troops near sundown.
 
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As I noted, at the time it wasn't actually a disrespectful action - and it took place in McClellan's own drawing room, if indeed it happened at all. That's not public, and it's not his headquarters either.
Gene Thorp holds that there's some serious temporal inconsistencies because the wedding Hays refers to took place over a week away in time:

The event that McClellan allegedly attended was the wedding between Col. Frank Wheaton of the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry and Emma Twiggs Mason, descendant of the famous Mason family and stepdaughter of the Gen. Don Carlos Buell.

Here's the thing, according to the Gunston Hall web page—the organization that runs the family home of the Masons on the Potomac River—Col. Wheaton got married on Nov. 2, 1861, not Nov. 13 as Hay, claims in his diary entry.

Where and when it happened is a mute point. Others became painfully aware of it and at that time it became public. If he had spoken it only to his wife then it would have only been private.
 
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Where and when it happened is a mute point. Others became painfully aware of it and at that time it became public. If he had spoken it only to his wife then it would have only been private.
So the fact that Hay gets the details verifiably wrong in his diary, by over a week, doesn't indicate that perhaps it's been made up after the fact and he didn't actually write it at the time? It first appears in a book written decades later, after all.

I also want to point out that when you say "others became painfully aware of it", they didn't. It first appears in Hay's book in 1890, by which time Lincoln has been dead thirty-five years and McClellan five - nobody refers to it before that date, so if it happened it stayed private.
 
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Public disrespect. Private thoughts are not public.
If you believe that Little Mac, as egotistical and vain as he was, would be content to keep his private thoughts about Lincoln private then I have a bridge in northern Michigan I would like to sell you. Lincoln gave him more chances and over looked his derision with the patience of Job and all he got for it were insults, excuses, and poor results. I let the President's actions speak for themselves as they are undisputed facts.
 
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Was he "ticking off the Prez" by not succeeding quickly with inadequate resources, or in some other way?
Ticking off the Prez by his established pattern of not taking care of what he was supposed to do. Whether it was small things, such as appointing corps commanders, or larger things like the Peninsula Campaign, Mac preferred to complain rather than accept the reality of civil control of the army and engage the enemy.
 
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Okay, let's look at the Confederate strengths on the sixth. Before I start, I want to confirm something - we have individual Confederate infantry regimental strengths for 30 April. Is it all right to use these strengths for those units in the line on the 6th of April to determine how strongly held the Yorktown line was?

As for the 12th, by the 12th two entire corps (Magruder and DH Hill) have arrived and half of a third (Longstreet). At this point there's over 40,000 troops in the Yorktown line.

I've continued to search for arrival times, and I will refine my previous tables in a few months.

The "positions" of mid-April aren't pre-existing corps, but will solidify as the corps/ grand divisions of May-June. Going though them:

Right Position (Magruder)
McLaws' brigade - standing garrison
Griffith's brigade - the last brigade of DH Hill's 5 brigades, being the old Leesburg garrison. It arrived 9th April
Kershaw's brigade - one brigade of DH Hill's force that went down the York. It arrived on the 7th, and was on the left until relieved.
Cobb's brigade - was originally at this position, but went to Goldsboro and came back. Of the six regiments listed; one was present before the campaign (24th Ga), 2 arrived on the 5th (2nd La and 16th Ga) and 2 on the 6th (Cobb's Legion Inf and the 15th NC). The 17th Mississippi was one of Griffith's regiments, but sent to the right to replace Early's missing regiment (see below). The Cobb Legion Cav and attached arty came the long way round and arrived on the 9th.
--
Toombs' brigade - originally part of the 1st Division, AoP. Appears to have arrived morning of the 14th (from 38th Va history, no others located)
Semmes' brigade - ditto, arriving 13th (from 11th Ga history)

Centre (Longstreet)
(AP Hill, RH Anderson and Pickett are the 2nd division, AoP)
AP Hill - arrives from the 10th to the 17th. As of the 12th two regiments are present (7th and 11th Va), but are in reserve.
RH Anderson - boarded ship on the 16th and arrived 17th
Pickett - ditto to Anderson
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Colston - all 3 regiments are present before the 5th, with the 3rd Va and 14th NC crossing on 29th March, and the 13th NC on the 4th April.
Wilcox - the infantry arrived 3rd-4th April. The baggage and attached battery arrived on the 6th
Pryor - created late March and present before campaign

Left (DH Hill)
Rodes - one of DH Hill's 5 brigades, arrived 6th
Early - one of DH Hill's 5 brigades, 3 regiments arrived 6th, and the last (5th NC) was delayed until the 8th. One of Kershaw's regiments was attached for a while.
Featherson - the last of the 5 brigades, arrived 9th. (previously I thought this arrived on the 12th, but that was the day Featherston arrived and took command)
Ward - standing garrison
Rains - standing garrison

Reserve
Whiting's Division of 3 brigades - started for Yorktown 8th April, ahead of Longstreet, and arrived 13th-15th.
SR Anderson's -18th
Pettigrew's brigade - escorted the last trains and arty from the army and arrived 22nd April.

On the 12th there are 12 brigades - equivalent to 4 Federal divisions. The Federals have 5 divisions and 2 brigades.
 
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If you believe that Little Mac, as egotistical and vain as he was, would be content to keep his private thoughts about Lincoln private then I have a bridge in northern Michigan I would like to sell you. Lincoln gave him more chances and over looked his derision with the patience of Job and all he got for it were insults, excuses, and poor results. I let the President's actions speak for themselves as they are undisputed facts.

So, you have no examples? I have to try and believe they exist in spite of none being in the historical record?
 
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McClellan's situation as of Gaines' Mill (the 27th).

Up_to_Gaines_Mill.jpg

(strengths PFD)


I've marked a couple of points of interest. The first (n.b. 1) is McClellan's offensive operations on the 25th, 26th and 27th - Oak Grove, Garnetts Hill and Goldings Farm. These were not human wave attacks or anything like that, but relatively small (division or corps level) attacks on limited objectives to secure good artilley platforms. They drew a Confederate reaction, in addition to the demonstration attacks Lee ordered Magruder's 40,000 left in Richmond to make - Lee's explicit objective was that if McClellan stripped his lines south of the Chickahominy then Magruder should make an attack.
The second is the problem that comes up even if Gaines Mill is a Union victory - Early's force (Stuart's cavalry plus an infantry brigade) is already making for the railroad and so the supplies are at minimum going to take a hit.

The 6,000 in the south is the flank guard, by the way - two brigades. Each of McClellan's brigades is about 3,000, though they vary a little.

So, how much does McClellan transfer over the river to Gaines Mill? Well, his first step during the day of the 26th (Mechanicsville) is to ask what his commander north of the Chickahominy needs (his reply - nothing more, I can hold with what I have) and his corps commanders south of the Chickahominy how much they can give him (their answers are 3 brigades from Sumner, 2 tired ones from Heintzelmann, a request for reinforcements from Keyes and no reply on record from Franklin).
Ultimately McClellan sends seven brigades across the Chickahominy, which join the existing troops Porter is fighting with, and he also takes the two tired brigades from Heintzelmann and uses them to reinforce the flanking artillery position south of the river on Garnetts Hill when it gets attacked by Magruder. These join the pre-existing nine brigades north of the Chickahominy.

When the line breaks and Porter's force flees back over the river, functionally McClellan's army is down to about 17-20 unbroken brigades - that is, a force barely larger than the one Lee just beat. The supply line is gone - it's lost, unrecoverable with 60,000 Confederates in the way, and to try to retrieve it would mean stripping the line so much that Magruder could (as per his orders) roll over McClellan's force.
 
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So a decent commander should have not attacked?

Chuckle.

Or rather you feel justified using a double standard?

There's no double standard. Lee delivered concrete decisive victories, McClellan delivered excuses, a failed campaign, the comprehensive defeat of Pope's army, a stalemate at Antietam, and a clean getaway for Lee's army.

Really? Since it's factually accurate that surprises me.

Chuckle, what happened at Gaine's Mill then? And of course, he didn't run McClellan far from Richmond either I suppose. A comprehensive strategic victory is pretty impressive.

Except what you've suggested is the worst course of action.

"Lee Loses the Initiative, July 2– 5


If not while the guns still reverberated from Malvern Hill, then very soon thereafter, Lee realized how limited was the victory he had achieved. He had gathered most of the Confederacy’s strength in the East into his army, seized the initiative, broken McClellan’s communications, and forced the Federals to abandon their entrenched position. He had then pursued the enemy with a determination and persistence heretofore unmatched by any commander on either side. Yet, in the end, he had accomplished little more than to push his foe aside.

On the evening of June 30, as the Army of Northern Virginia emerged from the White Oak Swamp in pursuit of the Army of the Potomac, Lee had fretted over his inability to deliver the coup de grace to his opponent. “He will get away,” he had muttered in despair, “because I cannot have my orders carried out!” And McClellan did get away— with the organization, the trains, and, so far as Lee knew, the morale of the Northern army intact. “Our success has not been so great or complete as we could have desired,” he confessed to his wife. And in his final report, his disappointment still rankling, he stated flatly, “Under ordinary circumstances the Federal army should have been destroyed.” He knew full well the Confederacy did not have the resources to spend heavy casualties on limited victories, nor the time to waste on missed opportunities. 1

What compounded Lee’s frustration and sharpened his anger was the dawning realization that his victory had worsened the Confederate strategic position. The Army of the Potomac had been driven from the outskirts of Richmond, but it remained less than twenty miles from the Confederate capital. While those twenty miles gained breathing space for the Confederacy, ironically McClellan now posed an even greater potential threat. So long as the Federal army had approached Richmond from the north, its communications necessarily ran overland for some distance and were vulnerable to a turning movement. Now McClellan was based on the river that flowed directly into the heart of Richmond. With his vastly superior navy controlling the James, the Union general would be free to approach the Confederate capital along either bank with a water-based and secure supply line. Until he chose to resume his offensive, McClellan could sit at his impregnable position on the James— refitting, resupplying, and accruing new strength— and Lee could do little about it. In short, once McClellan reached Harrison’s Landing, the initiative in the Richmond area slipped from Lee’s grasp. The Confederate commander was now compelled to wait and watch for the movement of the enemy."

Harsh, Joseph L.. Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861-1862 (Kindle Locations 2244-2264). Kent State Univ Pr. Kindle Edition.

Of course, Lee did have the initiative since McClellan did not move. Or do much of anything but deliver a litany of excuses to Halleck and Lincoln. Then, having sat on his hands he was recalled from his position on the Peninsula.

In the end, Lee's intuition proved correct, and for all McClellan's fine excuses nothing was accomplished. And for all your special pleading his record simply speaks to that.
 
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Ticking off the Prez by his established pattern of not taking care of what he was supposed to do. Whether it was small things, such as appointing corps commanders, or larger things like the Peninsula Campaign, Mac preferred to complain rather than accept the reality of civil control of the army and engage the enemy.
Can you give a hard example of this? As for corps commanders, that was a prerogative Lincoln retained and employed.

If you believe that Little Mac, as egotistical and vain as he was, would be content to keep his private thoughts about Lincoln private then I have a bridge in northern Michigan I would like to sell you. Lincoln gave him more chances and over looked his derision with the patience of Job and all he got for it were insults, excuses, and poor results. I let the President's actions speak for themselves as they are undisputed facts.
Yeah, this is just silly. It's actually tautological - you claim McClellan was egotistical and your support for it is that he was publicly dismissive of the President, and now you're claiming he was publicly dismissive of the President because he was egotistical.
 
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You yourself said that one of the options a better commander would have done is protect his supply line at the expense of an attack on Richmond. Do you still hold this view?

Chuckle, what happened at Gaine's Mill then? And of course, he didn't run McClellan far from Richmond either I suppose. A comprehensive strategic victory is pretty impressive.
Well, Lee didn't push McClellan nearly as far from Richmond as he wanted to.

Of course, Lee did have the initiative since McClellan did not move. Or do much of anything but deliver a litany of excuses to Halleck and Lincoln. Then, having sat on his hands he was recalled from his position on the Peninsula.
Okay, let's get something clear here. McClellan stayed where he was on the Peninsula because he was waiting for reinforcements.
Reinforcements which he had been promised by Lincoln, in a direct letter.

It's not an 'excuse' if it's "why haven't those reinforcements you personally promised me arrived yet"?
 
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