George McClellan wasn't actually as awful and incompetent as history has portrayed him to be. The mistakes that were made in the spring and summer of 1862 were not fully his fault. Ever since he overestimated the strength of the Confederate's at Manassas, he has been labeled by history as overly-cautious, and even a traitor because he couldn't do anything good for the North. However, he was a great organizer and had an ability to fight. McClellan was able to build up the army after several significant Union losses, and had good vision and stewardship, but even though he was cautious, he was not overly-cautious because his strategy was more about destroying the Confederacy's ability to fight by destroying railroads and closing off water ways than solely by combat, and he usually moved to places where the Confederates were forced to attack him. When McClellan battled Lee on the run, the reason he didn't act was because although Lee's army was hurting, McClellan's army was hurting as well. He also allowed his army to be properly trained and fed well, unlike some of the new recruits in August and September who were transported to the front and thrown into battle immediately with barely any training. McClellan' strategies were what Grant used to win the war because his objective was to block railroads, however, McClellan was forced to be stationed Northeast of Richmond to receive McDowell's reinforcements by Stanton's orders, and he could not move without Stanton's approval. When he did receive these reinforcements, they were immediately taken away by Lincoln. Lincoln and McClellan were at odds the whole war, and McClellan could not count on him for his support. In the end, McClellan was able to train his army effectively, but Northern politicians were meddlesome and because he was a cautious general, he was disliked by the politicians who wanted to see results quickly and not have a long war that McClellan's tactic of cutting off logistics (food, water, railroads) would have prolonged. McClellan was not incompetent but had a lot of things going against him that made it hard to do his job well and ultimately, led to his infamy in the Civil War.
Source: https://live.washingtonpost.com/civil-war-120305.html
Source: https://live.washingtonpost.com/civil-war-120305.html
I like your summary about George McClellan! I agree with how you stated that it wasn't entirely his fault that he never advanced his soldiers. While reading in the textbook, I noticed that the number of "green troops" in McClellan's army was very high and led to his disadvantage. I feel like McClellan did the right thing by deciding not to attack with an incompetent army. In my view, it was better than being slaughtered on the battle field.
ReplyDeleteThis summary was very helpful in describing and helping understand who George McClellan was. I liked how you first stated how history described him as this negative and bad guy and then described why this was not the truth. I think that from your summary I also agree that he was not a bad guy and was not at fault. He took the right decision to have a full trained army.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do like how you showed a different portrayal of McClellan than what we usually see, I still feel that you are missing a major issue. You have to remember that in order to continue to run a political campaign against the South and stay in the war, the Union did, in fact, really need quick results. McClellan, although a profound strategist as you mentioned, was nevertheless not the right man for the job. Throughout the entire first half of the war, the Union needed to rally over some sort of victory, which McClellan slow paced battle plans could not provide.
ReplyDelete