General "McC"

16 Apr 08

The "Redoubtable McC"

"... they always get this exaggerated notion of their own importance. Down in Cuba, I heard a colonel inform a group of brother officers that a Spanish field piece had marked him for its own. For an hour, it had pumped shrapnelat him and no one else. The only interesting part of his otherwise boring and absurd story was that he actually believed it himself!"

Richard H Davis, War Correspondent (1864-1916)

It is easy to see how Union General George B McClellan's career took on meteoric proportions, at both ends! Engaging, clever, always well-dressed, good-looking , George fit the image of the modern Army Officer, favorably impressing everyone, particularly newly-elected President Lincoln. And, at war-games, no one could beat him! So expert at winning paper victories was he, that his unofficial nickname, "Young Napoleon," stuck with him for the duration.

Unhappily, George was dreadfully apprehensive of risking his war-game reputation in real battle, and that was his undoing! Lincoln naively put him in charge of a vast army and, in the wake of Irwin McDowell's embarrassing trouncing at Bull Run, instructed him to go after the Confederacy and get this distasteful war over with quickly.

Predictably, McClellan's subsequent "Peninsular Campaign" hopelessly bogged down, almost immediately, with no measurable results for months at a time. In fact, the entire "Army of the Potomac" functioned as little more than McClellan's personal bodyguard! He consistently overestimated Confederate strength and used this faulty intelligence as a rationalization for engaging in every imaginable activity, except advancing on the enemy. Lincoln sarcastically referred to him (at least in private) as "The Virginia Creeper."

Pinkerton's Detective Agency was finally engaged to accurately access Confederate strength, but Pinkerton himself quickly learned that, if he wanted to get paid promptly, he told George only what George wanted to hear! And, the only news George wanted was confirmation that he was hopelessly outnumberedand outclassed, which served as an uninterrupted pretext for his glacial progress. In fact, the exact opposite was true! Confederate General RobertE Lee's opposing forces were extremely modest, ill-supplied, stretched-thin, mostly-starving, and profoundly vulnerable during the entire duration of the Campaign.

In nearly every communication to Lincoln, George insisted that he needed more troops. Lincoln had no more to send. In the end, it took only a few militarily insignificant attacks by Lee on McClellan's forward units to unnerve McClellan completely. In a panic, he hurriedly withdrew his entire army back to Washington DC, full of excuses for having accomplished nothing during the five-month Campaign (March-July of 1862).

McClelland was subsequently replaced by John Pope, who promptly handed Lincoln a new military disaster at the Second Battle of Bull Run!

Lincoln was persuaded to give McClellan a second chance at Antietam in MD, two months later. As before, McClellan's excessive caution allowed Lee to avoid a war-ending defeat, and, worse, escape with his Army intact. Lincoln would see the War, which could have been concluded decisively at Antietam, drag on for another three, bloody years! In fact, Gettysburg, a year later, was tobe an eerie replay of Antietam, with then Union General George Meade, repeating McClellan's mistakes, and achieving substantially the same result!

It was too much! McClelland was relieved of command a second time, this time for good. He was succeeded by a shaky and unwilling Ambrose Burnside, who would speedily provide Lincoln with a brand-new debacle, this time at Fredericksburg!

George McClellan never really recovered. Ever justifying himself to anyone who would listen, he published "McClellan's Own Story" shortly before his death. Few were interested in reading it! He never saw his sixtieth birthday, dying of a sudden heart attack in 1885, at the age of fifty-eight.

Probably George's best-known legacy, and far from what he would have predicted, is the "McClellan Cavalry Saddle," officially adopted by the US Army in 1859. Inspired by European cavalry, McClellan was able to sell the Army on his innovative design. The McClellan Saddle subsequently saw extensive service well in to the Twentieth Century, both in and out of the Army.

Like so many colorful characters of the era, "General McC,"as him men called him, spent too much time reading his own press releases!

"One day you will come to a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about what direction you want to go.

When you go that way, you can 'be somebody.' You will make compromises, and you will turn your back on friends, but you will be a member of 'The Club.' You will get good assignments, and you will get promoted.

When you go this way, you can 'do something,' for your Country, your Air Force, and yourself. When you decide to 'do something,' youmay not get promoted, and you may not get good assignments, and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But, you won't have to compromise, and you willbe true to your friends and to yourself. And, your work might truly advance the Art.

To 'be somebody,' or to 'do something.' Youwill have to make a decision: To be, or to do?

Which way do you go, Mister?"

Col John Boyd

/John