Five Generals in Two Years
1861–1865: The Union Army’s Command-Level Failures
John Helfers
One of the most striking differences between the North and the South during the Civil War was in the choice of commanders for the two armies. Like everything else in the Civil War, the Union and the Confederacy had very different ways of organizing and leading their armies—but the Union had particular difficulty in finding aggressive leaders for its new army.
The Confederate president, West Point graduate Jefferson Davis, had served in the field as colonel during the Mexican War, and was committed to installing trained and experienced officers to lead his army. Almost immediately, the South made Robert E. Lee, one of the finest tactical and military minds of his generation, one of the first five generals in charge of the Confederate Army. Lee would lead the Army of Virginia against the northern forces in most of the major battles in the east. The others, skilled officers Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, Jubal A. Early, and Joseph E. Johnston, would make their own valiant contributions to the southern war effort.
On the other hand, the North suffered the resignation of hundreds of military officers across all branches of service at the start of the war—many to join the Confederate cause. The Union Army also did not have a fixed command in place when the war began, and had to slowly create one while also trying to fight. The lack of firm, aggressive leadership would hinder the Federal army, particularly the Army of the Potomac, especially in the early years of the war, when a skilled, confident commander might have been able to bring the conflict to a swift conclusion. Although each potential general selected was an experienced military officer, their skills were often not the ones needed by a general-in-chief. (For those wondering why this essay, which details a problem the winning side had, is included, please remember that while the Union ultimately triumphed, if the North’s upper-echelon commanders had kept failing to defeat the Confederacy, history might have turned out very differently.)
The first commanding officer for the Union Army was General-in-Chief George Brinton McClellan. (When the war began, General Winfield Scott was serving in the position, despite being too old and unfit to go into battle.) McClellan had gained acclaim for his swift carving of northwestern Virginia from the rest of the state (even though he left most of the fighting during the campaign to his subordinates). He took command of the Army of Northeastern Virginia from General Irvin McDowell after the disastrous action at Bull Run on July 21, 1862, where, after a day of back-and-forth fighting, two forward Union batteries were overrun, leading to the army’s defeat.
Aware that this would not be a swift war, McClellan took the rest of the summer to train the new recruits swelling the Union Army. He didn’t order any major troop movements, despite the presence of Confederates near Washington, D.C., including at an outpost ten miles away that allowed them an unobstructed view of the main road south of the capital as well as the army’s advance camps. The unit withdrew in September, and when the site was investigated, their covering artillery was found to be “Quaker guns”—logs painted black, which made McClellan the butt of jokes in the northern press.
Still, Lincoln kept his faith in McClellan, making him the general-in-chief of all Union forces in November after Scott’s resignation due to age and ill health (a third reason may have been his acrimonious relationship with McClellan). McClellan’s first action upon receiving this promotion was to prepare . . . and prepare . . . and prepare his troops some more. The only action during this time was an ill-handled reconnaissance at Ball’s Bluff, where Union regiments were routed and their commanding officer, Colonel Edward D. Baker, killed in action.
And still McClellan delayed, arousing the ire of hawkish Republican leaders in Washington, including Edwin M. Stanton, the secretary of war. They all felt McClellan lacked the will to fight, with some even accusing him of being a Confederate sympathizer, since he refused to ally with the hard-core abolitionists, feeling that slavery was protected under the Constitution. Whatever the reason, McClellan dragged his heels so long that in March 1862 he was demoted back to the commander of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln had to directly order him to go after Richmond, figuring to capture the enemy’s capital and cut off the head of the Confederacy in one stroke.
But even when McClellan entered the field, he was unable to do so effectively. He’d planned to take a massive army down to Fort Monroe, then back up the Virginia peninsula toward Richmond. He was hoping a war of maneuver would allow the Union Army to defeat the southern nation while avoiding a head-on collision between the two armies, and allow a swift, bloodless reunification of the two sides.
Lincoln and Stanton, however, demanded that enough men be left behind so that Washington, D.C., would be adequately protected in the event of a Rebel attack on the city. McClellan promised to do so, but didn’t follow through, forcing the president to separate an entire army corps from his command and place it between Washington and Fredericksburg. Now McClellan only had 100,000 men at his disposal (which still should have been plenty). He also relied too heavily on his head of military intelligence, Allan Pinkerton, who constantly overestimated the Confederate force’s strength, an error that slowed McClellan’s advance to a crawl.
By this time, McClellan’s psyche was weakening, both from his demotion as well as the suspicion that the politicians in Washington were plotting against him (which was most likely correct in some cases). When Lee and his troops struck during the series of battles and skirmishes that would later be known as the Seven Days’ Battles, McClellan provided hardly any leadership, apparently overcome by the idea of actually sending tens of thousands of men to their deaths. He led from well behind Union lines, including from a ship, the Galena, in one instance, and even leaving the field of battle twice. The series of clashes at places like Mechanicsville, Gaines’ Mill, Savage’s Station, Frayser’s Farm, and Malvern Hill halted the Union advance, with the Confederates taking more losses than they could afford—3,286 dead and 15,909 wounded to the Union’s 1,734 dead and 8,066 wounded. Still, a victory was a victory for the South, and it also hammered a big nail in the coffin of McClellan’s military career.
Back in Washington, the cabinet cast about for another general-in-chief, and found what they thought was an ideal candidate in Henry “Old Brains” Halleck, who had been fighting on the western front as part of the Union’s Department of the Mississippi. Halleck’s first action was to assess the state of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was requesting reinforcements to continue his advance, despite believing he faced an army of 200,000 Rebels. Instead Halleck ordered the withdrawal of the army to northern Virginia. McClellan took most of August to plod his army out of harm’s way.
Reassigned to bolster the defenses of Washington, D.C. (Lincoln justified his order by saying, “If he can’t fight himself, he excels in making others ready to fight”), McClellan received word of Lee’s advance into Maryland in early September, and slowly sallied forth at the head of 84,000 men to carefully pursue the Rebel army. Although McClellan had the infamous “three cigars” orders found by a Union soldier, informing him of Lee’s plan to divide his army, he was still the same cautious, stolid leader, and advanced at a snail’s pace.
A brief series of battles was fought for three passes at South Mountain on September 14, but when night fell, the Confederates still held two of them. This allowed Lee to assemble his main force at Sharpsburg and prepare for the Union Army to come to him, which it did at Antietam Creek on September 17. When the smoke cleared after the bloodiest day of fighting in U.S. military history, more than 3,500 men had been killed and a staggering 22,719 were wounded on both sides. Although outnumbered almost two to one, Lee had fought McClellan to a draw, able to shift his men to meet each of the three Union Army’s attacks in turn.
Although in hindsight the battle was a win for the Union, since it both stopped the Rebel advance and allowed Lincoln to announce the Emancipation Proclamation, it was also the end of McClellan’s military career. When he refused to pursue the tattered Confederate Army for more than a month, Lincoln removed him from command on November 7, 1862.
His replacement, Henry Halleck, had made his reputation leading first the Department of the Missouri, then the Department of the Mississippi in the west (again, there is controversy as to whether Halleck or his subordinates, which included Ulysses S. Grant and John Pope, were responsible for the Union successes). After securing the upper half of the Mississippi River, Halleck was called to Washington, where Lincoln hoped he could prod the Union generals to action. Alas, if McClellan was a better administrator than commander, Halleck was McClellan multiplied by five. An aloof, abrasive man, he did not inspire confidence in his subordinates or Lincoln’s cabinet. Even the president himself assessed Halleck as “little more than a first-rate clerk.” Under his jurisdiction, the Union Army was well equipped and trained, but Halleck did not direct its movement in the field, leaving that up to Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton, both of whom, it should be noted, micromanaged the war effort.
But no matter who was issuing the orders, the Union was rocked by a series of mismanaged battles due in part to the installation of two more generals to lead the Army of the Potomac who would be defeated by Lee.
Major General Ambrose Burnside had fought under McClellan in the Peninsula Campaign and at Antietam. He managed to orchestrate a crushing defeat for the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg on December 11 to 15, 1862. His army’s quick advance to the field of battle stopped upon crossing the Rappahannock River, allowing Lee to set up his troops on Marye’s Heights. Instead of finding another attack route, Burnside ordered wave after wave of futile charges that cost them 1,284 dead and 9,600 wounded, compared to the 608 killed and 4,116 wounded Confederates. Burnside tried to strike at Lee once more in January, but his plan was ruined by rainy weather (today it is referred to as the “Mud March”) and Lincoln replaced him with Major General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker.
Hooker had chafed under the ineffective leadership of both McClellan and Burnside since the war began, and he welcomed the chance to lead. After reinvigorating the Army of the Potomac’s morale by improving the care of the men under his command, his elegant plan seemed very feasible. First, his cavalry would swing behind Lee’s army to disrupt his supply lines, then Hooker’s army would outflank Lee, then attack and defeat him. Unfortunately, the reality was less glorious. The cavalry didn’t accomplish its goals, and Hooker was defeated at the Battle of Chancellorsville, fought on April 30 to May 6, 1863. The typically aggressive Lee divided his force of 60,892 men and struck hard at elements of Hooker’s massive 133,868-man army, beating them soundly and forcing Hooker to leave the field. Almost incapacitated by a near miss from a cannonball that hit a wooden pillar he’d been leaning on, Hooker was timid and unaggressive in command, unable to muster his large army in a concerted effort. He would resign his command three days before one of the most critical battles of the war—Gettysburg.
His replacement, Major General George Gordon Meade, would serve as the commander of the Army of the Potomac until the end of the war. With only three days to assume command before the start of the fighting at Gettysburg, Meade finally stopped the tide of Union losses. Outside a small Pennsylvania town, he and his subordinate officers held off Rebel assaults in heavy fighting from July 1 to 3, 1863, halting Lee’s second invasion of the North. The casualties were heavy on both sides (Union: 3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded; Confederates: 4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded), but the decisive victory was exactly what the Union needed. Unfortunately, Meade did not follow up on his opportunity to pursue and defeat Lee’s army once and for all, despite the Confederates being trapped on the rain-swollen Potomac for a few days. Just as Pickett’s Charge was a high-water mark for the South, Gettysburg was the high-water mark for Meade, who would go on to undistinguished service for the rest of the war.
By March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant would replace Halleck as general-in-chief of the Union Army, and under his leadership, the final blows would be struck to bring the Confederacy down once and for all. But why weren’t the other generals able to defeat Lee’s seemingly (at least until Gettysburg) unstoppable army?
In the case of McClellan and Halleck, the answer is obvious—both men could handle localized military actions where the goal was clearly identified, but the pressure of creating a strategy with the entire Union riding on it was more than they could handle. Add to this a hostile press ready to lampoon them for the slightest mistake, as well as a cabinet that could turn on them for that same mistake, and they found themselves in a thankless, grueling job where success demanded more of the same, only better, and a single failure marked them as targets. If some theories are correct, and McClellan and Halleck rode to their success on the coattails of others, then it would be only logical that, when faced with the true challenge of coordinating all of the Union Army across the huge front, they would simply not be up to the task.
As for Burnside and Hooker, not only did they allow themselves to be beaten by smaller Confederate forces that used terrain more effectively, but they were also up against a foe almost impossible to defeat—the already burnished legend of Robert E. Lee. Both generals became timid and unaggressive when facing the leader of the Army of Virginia (although for Hooker, one could say the near miss by the cannonball played a part as well). It is not to say that Lee’s reputation alone defeated either Burnside or Hooker—how he deployed his officers and men took care of that. However, when all is said and done, the simple fact is that both generals, each a capable officer in his own right, were outmaneuvered and outfought by the brilliant southern general.
And in the end, it was a hard-drinking, plain-speaking general, Ulysses S. Grant, who understood that the only way to win the war was to grind down the South’s military and economy until it could not fight anymore. That would lead the Union Army to victory.