George B. McClellan
Sears, Stephen W.
The best thing that can be said delusion tinged with hysteria. Explain- 1 about Gen. George Brinton ing away the failure of the Peninsula McClellan is that at a critical juncture campaign, he wrote...
...The Bat- busying himself with administrative tle of Antietam documented McClel- duties that might better have been Ian's biggest day, lists them all: handled by subordinates...
...A man of George McClellan's in- - Joe Mysak, The American Spectator's flexible certitude could not tolerate dischief saloon correspondent, is manag- sent from these conclusions...
...The abolitionist policies was dubbed by his friends and the press of Northern fire-eaters were distasteful "The Young Napoleon...
...After the fighting, he blew yet another chance to pursue and destroy Lee's forces before they went South...
...He attempted to take Richmond in the Peninsula campaign, typically stalled before what he thought were superior enemy forces, and was finally rebuffed in a close call during the fighting of the Seven Days...
...He sat a horse possessed by demons and delusions," well...
...What Sears presents in George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon is a study in command as fascinating as The Caine Mutiny, with McClellan as Queeg and the Army of the Potomac his Caine...
...uniform coat...
...Once again a success in business and the toast of "the better class of people," as he called them, he returned to the U.S., and won the governorship of New Jersey...
...Many of his battlefield decisions were, for a trained soldier, simply irrational...
...he was solely responsible daily in a series of remarkable letters for the fate of the nation...
...As if the careerist aphorism—"nothing succeeds like failure'?—needed to be proved, McClellan, having botched his time in the big show, ran against Lincoln as the Democratic candidate in 1864, and lost in an election not as close as other historians have made it seem...
...What was a federate enemies faced him with forces normal precaution . . . became for him substantially greater than his own...
...He wisely jettisons the psychohistory, however, in favor of the historical facts and McClellan's own opinions, as presented in his fantastic letters and dispatches...
...George Brinton ing away the failure of the Peninsula McClellan is that at a critical juncture campaign, he wrote her, "When they in history—the year 1862, to be pre- begin to reap the whirlwind that they cise—he did not take the Army of the have sown I may still be in a position Potomac, march on Washington, and to do something to save my country...
...When finally brought to battle, McClellan "seemed incapable of reacting decisively when his enemy did something he had not anticipated...
...Fortunate- parisons ended...
...Ultimately, he failed what Sears calls the test of battle: "Crisis on the battlefield left him incapable of initiative and virtually deranged, desperately attempting to shift the responsibility and consequences of his failure...
...He lost his inner composure and with it the courage to command under the pressure of combat...
...He squandered the opportunity...
...He an obsession, a self-fulfilling prophecy...
...It fixed the pattern for those wrote to his friends, and to his wife...
...Of all the appraisals and brief introduction, and proves it of the enemy that he would make durconclusively in a book written entirely ing his months of high command, this from original, primary sources, which first one was pivotal," according to include scores of letters the general Sears...
...relieve the Lincoln administration...
...believed with equal conviction that enemies in preparing for the worst, he came to at the head of his own government conspired to see him and his army defeated so anticipate and then expect the worst," as to carry out their traitorous purposes...
...He liked according to his biographer, Stephen to pose with one hand tucked into his W. Sears...
...With all their faults I do love my counCertainly he had his reasons for do- trymen & if I can save them I will yet ing so...
...The result at Antietam was the single bloodiest day in the nation's history...
...believed himself to be God's chosen instru- He was never worse than when in ment for saving the Union...
...He died of heart disease at age 58 in 1885, celebrated right to the end...
...He watched smugly as General Pope lost the Second Battle of Bull Run...
...ministration which hired him...
...But the was never happier than when in camp, catalogue of his demons and delusions drilling his soldiers, riding amongst is nevertheless a heavy one, and Sears, them to carefully orchestrated cheers, whose Landscape Turned Red...
...ing editor of the Bond Buyer...
...he must have whose style might best be described as full and unfettered control to meet the crisis...
...He was in thrall to his "one safe rule of war": He believed beyond any doubt that his Con- prepare for the worst...
...He considered Lincoln a accounts, keenly intelligent—both "baboon...
...He was, by all to him...
...Nor did McClellan was, as Lincoln termed they possess any creative spark in him, the general with "the slows...
...History willdo him justice," read the obituaries...
...McClellan, never, with the disloyal to the Union, although they exasperating results familiar to all Civil were hardly loyal to the Republican ad- War buffs...
...When he was given yet another life as commander, Lee's famous Lost Orders, detailing the Confederate order of battle at Antietam, came into his hands, and with it the chance of a lifetime...
...McClellan did little more than watch, apparently transfixed, as his army slugged it out with Lee's...
...A professional soldier, he dis- do so...
...He regard to his personal destiny...
...He was fluent in French...
...When he lost command on the battlefield...
...she was certainly reinforced at whatever cost to other long-suffering: McClellan wrote to her operations...
...As mentioned, McClellan believed he was God's chosen instrument to save the republic, but the responsibility for success or failure in individual engagements was God's—"not the most promising state of mind for a general to take to the battlefield," Sears notes...
...Sears notes that McClellan was "by 52 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1988 no means the only Civil War general to believe he was outnumbered when he was not, but he was the only one to believe it so obstinately and for so long...
...There, however, the cornSuch men are dangerous...
...he must be immediately charming hostess...
...But more than that, when before and after the war he was a sucmaking war, McClellan was "a man cessful businessman...
...that followed: he was heavily out-The lovely Nelly had a reputation as a numbered...
...liked civilian meddling in military af- The dashing McClellan took high fairs, and had since his service in the command at the tender age of 35 and Mexican War...
...It has taken 103 years, but history, finally, has done McClellan justice...
...Preparing the courage to fight, as he did in every bat- for the defense of Washington early in tle, he believed he was preserving his army the war, he came to believe that the to fight the next time on another and better day...
...He retired from the Army, decided upon a self-imposed exile abroad, and put together notes for his memoirs...
...Getting religion—which he did well before the war—only compounded his lack of nerve...
...M cClellan actually took the field few times...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1988 53...
...enemy army numbered no less than 100,000, compared to his own of Sears presents his case in an effective roughly 80,000...
...Napoleon was ever ly, none of McClellan's demons were audacious...
...He writes Sears...
Vol. 21 • December 1988 • No. 12
