Marsena R. Major Rufus R. Lincoln was manifestly touched at the worn appearance of our men. A cursory review of the army should have revealed that the men needed supplies, especially shoes and clothing. Unfortunately, the Northern public knew only what they read in the newspapers. When Lincoln departed for Washington, D. Halleck on October 6. Your army must move now while the roads are good.
Stanton, to move into Virginia. Throughout much of October, McClellan constantly stated that his requisitions for supplies had not been met. As colder weather approached, the men began to suffer even more. Consider the plight of the 20th Maine.
We had no tents, and for a number of weeks were without overcoats. Rufus Ingalls. Similar conditions prevailed in the ranks of the th Pennsylvania, another new regiment: Although within a comparatively short distance 50 or 60 miles of Washington City, the headquarters of army supplies, the requisitions of Colonel [Edward] Allen for shelter tents, necessary clothing…received no attention whatever from the department at Washington….
The Government at Washington seemed incapable of meeting or unwilling to meet the emergency. On October 23, the interim commander of the 1st Corps, Brig. George G. Meade, told his son, John:. We are in hourly expectation of marching orders….
We have been detained here by the failure of the Government to push forward reinforcements and supplies. You will hardly believe me when I tell you that as early as the 7th of this month a telegram was sent to. Overcoats were lacking, a problem as nights grew cold. Even worse, numerous accounts attest to worn-out brogans and even barefoot men. Washington informing the Clothing Department that my division wanted three thousand pairs of shoes, and that up to this date not a single pair has yet been received a large number of my men are barefooted and it is the same thing with blankets, overcoats, etc.
What the cause of this unpardonable delay is I can not say, but certain it is, that some one is to blame, and that it is hard the army should be censured for inaction, when the most necessary supplies for their movement are withheld, or at least not promptly forwarded when called for.
There seems to be an unaccountable delay in forwarding supplies. We want shoes and blankets and overcoats—indeed almost everything. I have sent requisition upon requisition; officers to Washington; made reports and complaints, and yet we are not half supplied. I see the papers speak of our splendid preparations. Crazy fools! I wish they were obliged to sleep, as my poor devils do tonight, in a cold shivering rain, without overcoat or blankets…. I wish these crazy fools were compelled to march over these stony roads barefooted, as hundreds of my men must if we go tomorrow.
Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. This proved to be the explanation of the trouble. There are other versions of the story from the leadership of the Union 5th Corps. One of them comes from Regular Army officer William H.
Powell of Maj. The destitute condition of the army certainly indicates a supply problem. Numerous primary sources document shoeless men shivering in the Maryland countryside. Is it believable that the Union War Department, with all its logistical advantages, was incapable of moving supplies 60 miles or so on an established railroad?
Was this misdirection of supplies accidental or intentional? The big problem with this explanation is that the conspirators covered their tracks extremely well.
On the other hand, a lack of evidence is just what one would expect with a successful conspiracy. Who had the most to gain from the situation, and who was able to engineer the circumstances? One answer would certainly be Secretary Stanton. Stanton seems to have created what he needed: documentation he could place in front of the president and release to the national media that proved McClellan untruthful.
On November 5, a Cabinet meeting was held to discuss the issue. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair provided an account in a letter dated January 21, As with Colonel Scott, 18 years separated the incident from memory, but also like Scott, Blair is a primary source.
I recollect that in reference to a supply, I think of shoes, which General McClellan had written were indispensable, and had not been received, Halleck undertook to show, by official statements of shipments made, that McClellan had not stated the truth.
Even if not directly involved, he at least exhibits a kind of quiet complicity, if not outright duplicity. His comments to Illinois Senator Orville H. In , he was promoted to captain and traveled to Europe to observe the Crimean War — When he returned to the United States, he wrote a cavalry manual and designed the so-called McClellan saddle that remained in use until the twentieth century. In , McClellan became chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad, and by January was promoted to its vice president.
Burnside , who had been left destitute by a business failure; McClellan arranged a job for him with the railroad. McClellan supported the Democrat Stephen A. Douglas in his successful U. Senate race against Republican Abraham Lincoln. Johnston in attendance , took an executive position at the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad a month later, and in the November presidential election again supported Douglas over Lincoln. When Lincoln was elected, secession and civil war followed.
On May 3, he took charge of the U. Garnett who was killed in the fighting. Credit for the victory at Rich Mountain rightfully belongs to William S.
Lincoln summoned McClellan to Washington, D. His train from western Virginia attracted enthusiastic crowds of well-wishers who already considered him to be a national hero and potentially a military savior.
As troops poured into Washington over the summer and autumn, he convinced Lincoln to allow him time to properly train and equip them. On August 20, he created the new Army of the Potomac with himself as its commander, and during the subsequent months he nurtured an unusually close relationship with his men. He trained them, drilled them, equipped them, and showed them and himself off in large military pageants.
In the meantime, a rift developed between McClellan and Scott. McClellan became convinced that he could win a contest of wills with Scott and began undermining him in the cabinet. McClellan was immediately appointed commanding general of the U. It was not long, however, before he and Lincoln clashed over war strategy. The president, under intense pressure from the newly formed Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, called for an immediate advance on Joseph E. He also preferred secrecy, worrying that sharing war plans with Lincoln and his cabinet would compromise security.
This end-around may have finally spurred McClellan to submit plans for capturing Richmond. Although still pale and weak from illness, he, too, was facing pressure to end, in the biting words of secretary of war Edwin M.
McClellan intended to sail the Army of the Potomac from Washington down the Chesapeake to the mouth of the Rappahannock River and thereby outflank Johnston at Manassas. But before he could do so, Johnston retreated, and in his absence revealed that the Confederate position had not been so strong after all. Another political uproar ensued, and McClellan decided to remove his army all the way to Union-held Fort Monroe.
From there it would march seventy-five miles up the Peninsula, between the York and the James rivers, and take Richmond from the southeast. Lincoln reluctantly approved the operation, but on March 11, , stripped McClellan of his status as general-in-chief so that he and Stanton could run the war from Washington. 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. McClellan graduates from the U.
Military Academy at West Point, second in a class of fifty-nine. His classmates include Thomas J. McClellan serves in the Mexican War. He receives two brevets for his service. McClellan translates a French bayonet manual into English for the Army. McClellan works as an Army surveyor on the Red River, in western territories, and on railroad routes. McClellan begins to court Ellen Marcy, whose father is his former commander.
She is also courted by A. Hill, who was a friend of McClellan's at West Point.
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