Halleck found McClellan far less responsive. From August 4 to 7, McClellan did not move. It is in much better position to do so from here than from Aquia. Do so with all possible rapidity.
I am confident that the disposition to be made of me will depend entirely upon the state of their nerves in Washn…. Nothing but their fear will induce them to give me any command of importance or to treat me otherwise than with discourtesy…. They marched 54 miles in 36 hours.
Pope rushed back toward Manassas hoping to trap Jackson. Lee and Longstreet advanced with 30, troops through Thoroughfare Gap on the morning of the 29th.
McClellan could have been there to help Pope, but he deliberately failed him. McClellan had moved north to Alexandria by August 27 and reported to Mary Ellen that he had heard a general engagement was probable that day or the next near Warrenton. That same morning Halleck gave him the first of six direct orders to move some of his own troops toward the scene of the expected battle.
After receiving copies of dispatches stating that a major battle was imminent, McClellan recommended to Halleck that Maj. That afternoon McClellan sent a barrage of telegrams stating why he could not or should not do as ordered.
I have no time for details. You will therefore, as ranking general in the field, direct as you deem best…. McClellan said that he had 12, men and the 1st Connecticut Artillery, which he recommended keeping for the defense of Washington. He may have thought his earlier two orders to advance Franklin were sufficient, particularly since McClellan had received a request from Pope about the destination of reinforcements.
He may also have assumed that McClellan was acting in good faith. He would soon find out otherwise. Halleck then took matters into his own hands, wiring Franklin at p. McClellan still did not budge. At that afternoon he telegraphed Halleck that Franklin was still in no condition to move but might be the next morning, adding that Pope should cut through to Washington. It would be a sacrifice to send them out now.
At p. They must go to-morrow morning, ready or not ready. If we delay too long to get ready there will be no necessity to go at all, for Pope will either be defeated or be victorious without our aid. If he moves in support of Franklin, it leaves us without any reliable troops in and near Washington. Yet Franklin is too weak alone.
Date Of Birth:. Place Of Death:. Date Of Death:. Place Of Burial:. McClellan ranked second in his class upon graduation from West Point in McClellan was commissioned as a brevet second lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers , and played an active part in the Mexican-American War. As an engineering officer, McClellan frequently saw combat and was promoted to the rank of captain for showing gallantry under fire.
He returned to West Point after the war and continued to serve as an engineer for three years before being transferred to the western frontier. McClellan left the military in and became chief engineer of the newly constructed Illinois Central Railroad.
By , he had become president of the Ohio and Mississippi River Railroad, headquartered in Cincinnati. During this time, McClellan met and wed Mary Ellen Marcy, the daughter of one of his former commanders. McClellan Jr.
Like many people at the time, McClellan opposed the outright abolition of slavery, though he was committed to the preservation of the Union. At the outbreak of the Civil War in , he accepted command of the volunteer army of the state of Ohio. His skill at training the Ohio Volunteers won him favor in Washington , and he was soon promoted to the rank of major general in the regular army.
McClellan once again demonstrated his skill at marshalling his troops into a solid fighting unit, and his early command was marked by a period of high morale. By November , McClellan had assembled an army of , troops and fortified the capital of Washington, D. Despite having assembled a massive fighting force, McClellan was wary of the Confederate Army—which he believed, through faulty intelligence, to be much stronger than it actually was—and was reluctant to mount a mass offensive.
His inaction annoyed President Abraham Lincoln and newly appointed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and in January they issued a general order instructing the Army of the Potomac to move south into Confederate territory. Lincoln removed McClellan as general-in-chief in March of , stating that McClellan needed to focus his full attention on an attack on the South. Lincoln preferred an overland campaign toward Richmond, but McClellan proposed an amphibious maneuver in which the Union Army would land on the Virginia Peninsula, effectively circumventing the rebels under General Joseph E.
The general lost even more troops when Lee, in a successful attempt to divert attention away from Richmond, dispatched Stonewall Jackson to the Shenandoah Valley. The Peninsula Campaign, as it took shape, did nothing to improve those relations. The springtime march toward the Confederate capital was methodical and plagued by bad weather and inaccurate maps. As he did at Manassas, McClellan was tempted to see before him stiffer resistance than actually existed a truth exploited at Yorktown by the theatrically inclined John B.
His belief in a limited war also made him hesitant to fight bloody battles of attrition. Although McClellan was no more supportive of secession than he was of abolition, some suggested he was too sympathetic to the South. The Confederates attacked at Seven Pines on May 31, and only stubborn fighting and timely reinforcements allowed McClellan to avoid disaster.
After Johnston was severely wounded, Lee took command and went on the offensive. By then, McClellan blamed the Republicans in Washington for everything. Stanton, however, never read that sentence; an alarmed telegraph operator deleted it. Historian Stephen W. In a civil war, attrition as a strategy would only prolong the bitterness and ill feeling. Halleck from command in the West and made him general-in-chief.
Lee seized the opportunity to launch his first invasion of the North and, as his troops crossed the Potomac River on September 5, Lincoln and Halleck saw no other alternative but to offer McClellan command of his old army. How to judge his victory twelve days later at Sharpsburg, Maryland, depends on how one judges McClellan himself.
A day later, Lee established a defensive position across Antietam Creek, urging his generals Jackson and A. Hill to join him on the double. That he drove Lee from Maryland when he finally did attack—at dawn on September 17, in what was the bloodiest single day of the war—is itself a significant achievement.
Many generals could have benefited from such caution. McClellan, in turn, was disappointed that the president had used Antietam as an excuse to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
Two days later, Ambrose Burnside—having already turned down the position twice, partly out of loyalty to his old friend—took over the Army of the Potomac. He was elected and served creditably as governor of New Jersey from until , and then served on the Board of Directors for the National Home for Disabled Soldiers.
While his military caution led to speculation that his political sympathies were not solidly pro-war and pro-Union, it also defined the nature of conflict in Virginia. Until Ulysses S. McClellan clashed with Lincoln over war strategy and even challenged him for office, and he has been accused of everything from paranoid delusions to disloyalty.
He has not, however, been given enough credit for his successes, the most notable of which was expelling Lee from Maryland. The first is by the soldiers who served under him, who almost without exception loved him. His departure from the Army of the Potomac even led to suggestions that he install himself in Washington as a dictator. McClellan adamantly repudiated such talk. The other endorsement came after the war, when a relative of Robert E. Encyclopedia Virginia Grady Ave.
Virginia Humanities acknowledges the Monacan Nation , the original people of the land and waters of our home in Charlottesville, Virginia. We invite you to learn more about Indians in Virginia in our Encyclopedia Virginia. Skip to content. Contributor: Thomas G. McClellan and Officers.
McClellan and the Presidential Election. December 3, George B. McClellan is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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