LITTLE MAC

George Brinton McClellan invites markedly contradictory assessments of his personality and career. One of the more controversial figures of the Civil War, he has admirers and detractors in profusion. Book titles reflect the striking contrast of opinions. In 1957, Warren W. Hassler published General George B. McClellan: Shield of the Union, an appreciative treatment that portrayed its subject as “not only a most able organizer, drillmaster, and disciplinarian” but also “a soldier of superior strategic and tactical ability as compared with many of the other prominent generals on both sides.” In contrast, fifty years later Edward H. Bonekemper III offered McClellan and Failure: A Study of Civil War Fear, Incompetence and Worse, which suggested that “Little Mac” “has not yet received the ignominy that he so richly deserves.”28 Careful studies by Stephen W. Sears, Joseph L. Harsh, and Ethan S. Rafuse have occupied more moderate interpretive ground, conveying the complexity of the thirty-five-year-old officer who found himself general in chief of all United States armies and commander of the republic’s largest and most important field force in the autumn of 1861.

McClellan’s actions and statements pose daunting obstacles to anyone hoping to reach unbiased conclusions. He repeatedly manifested scorn for his commander in chief, refused to accord Winfield Scott—a soldier far McClellan’s superior in every way—the respect he deserved, and exhibited unlovely ambition, narcissism, and lack of self-awareness in quite stunning proportion. All these qualities were on display in the wake of Antietam, a hard-won victory that could have been much more decisive had McClellan proved willing to risk anything in pursuit of a much smaller and badly mauled Army of Northern Virginia.

Three days after the battle, McClellan sent a most revealing letter to his wife. “I feel some little pride,” he wrote with self-congratulatory understatement, “in having with a beaten and demoralized army defeated Lee so utterly, & saved the North so completely.” He then turned to characteristic whining about how others failed to appreciate his earlier service: “Well—one of these days history will I trust do me justice in deciding that it was not my fault that the campaign of the Peninsula was not successful.” As for the future, only recognition of his superior talents would redeem the republic. “The only safety for the country & for me” would be in getting rid of General in Chief Henry W. Halleck and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. “I am tired of fighting against such disadvantages,” he said in his best martyr’s tone, “& feel that it is now time for the country to come to my help, & remove these difficulties from my path. . . . Thank Heaven for one thing—my military reputation is cleared—I have shown that I can fight battles & win them! I think my enemies are pretty effectively killed by this time! May they remain so!!”29

The war, it seems from reading many such letters from McClellan’s pen, was really about allowing the long-suffering hero to win the war despite tormentors in the Lincoln administration and in the army’s hierarchy. The general would take comfort in knowing that some twenty-first-century authors and denizens of social media sites, quick to defend him against what they describe as small-minded critics, match his own soaring flights of self-congratulatory rhetoric untethered to any reasonable assessment of historical evidence.

Yet it must be admitted that McClellan possessed formidable talents, rendered superior service to the nation, and earned his soldiers’ love. He built the nation’s most important army from the wreckage of green units that lost the battle of First Bull Run, instilling a sense of pride in the men who would contest more of the conflict’s bloody battles than any other U.S. forces. That he also compromised the Army of the Potomac’s performance by creating a culture of caution that persisted even after the advent of U. S. Grant in the spring of 1864 should not diminish McClellan’s good work in the summer and fall of 1861.

The incredible bond between McClellan and his soldiers has always fascinated me. Only that between Lee and his soldiers exceeded it, I believe, and in the Army of Northern Virginia’s case there was the variable of multiple victories against long odds, which McClellan’s relationship with his men lacked. Why did officers and men in the Army of the Potomac embrace their young commander enthusiastically and maintain their affection for so long? A crucial factor lay in a shared vision of the war’s overarching purpose. First to last, McClellan and the soldiers waged a war to smash the rebellion, restore the Union, and protect it from future internal threats such as that posed by secession crisis of 1860 to 1861.

The famous Harrison’s Landing letter that McClellan handed to Abraham Lincoln in July 1862 underscores this point. Dated July 7, 1862, it has provoked a good deal of criticism of McClellan because it seems to highlight his penchant for addressing political questions when he should have been smiting the Rebels militarily. After retreating unnecessarily following the battle of Malvern Hill, runs a common argument, McClellan sought to divert attention from his military failures by lecturing Lincoln on the issue of emancipation. The letter called for a restrained war that did not seek to destroy the slavery-based social structure of the Confederate states. “Military power should not be allowed to interfere with the relations of servitude,” argued McClellan, “either by supporting or impairing the authority of the master; except for repressing disorder as in other cases.” War should be waged for the sole purpose of restoring the Union—adding emancipation to the equation would be harmful. “A declaration of radical views,” insisted McClellan, “especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present Armies.”30

Although McClellan exaggerated the degree to which emancipation would weaken the nation’s armies, he correctly gauged the sentiment of the vast majority of Federal soldiers—in July 1862 and throughout the conflict. The alignment of general and rank-and-file regarding the centrality of Union helps explain their remarkable bond. As McClellan noted in his farewell order to the Army of the Potomac, “We shall also ever be comrades in supporting the Constitution of our country & the nationality of our people.”31