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| The view from McClellan's headquarters of Antietam Battlefield |
Harry Smeltzer’s great blog
post over at Bull Runnings is entitled Your Grandpa’s Maryland Campaign –NOT!!!. Equally informative and instructive are the comments to this post that
offer in a microcosm the range of different reactions to General George B. McClellan.
I usually do not reply in
the depth that I did to Harry’s post.
As a guide and volunteer at Antietam, I hear all sorts of reactions to
George B. McClellan. I happen to
agree with the current interpretation on the general that is advocated by our
rangers and codified in the works of Joseph Harsh, Ethan Rafuse, Tom Clemens
and Vince Armstrong. My own
thoughts "On the McClellan Merry Go-Round" as Harsh once called it, have
been fermenting for some time.
I am not an academic historian but merely an avid amateur
who reads everything I can find about the battle and the men who fought
there. I am fortunate to volunteer
at Antietam Battlefield nearly every weekend and have been a guide there for
the past four years as well. I
have studied the terrain and have the advantage of knowing all the rangers who
make the study and interpretation their life's work. And finally my perspective
as a retired soldier gives me some additional useful perspective.
I am not an apologist for
McClellan. I agree that he made mistakes. There was an arrogance and snobbery
imbued into his personality that came from his blue blood Philadelphia
origins. He let that get the
better of him sometimes. His
political instincts were not highly evolved. Unlike Lee, he failed to cultivate
and maintain a good relationship with his commander in chief. He didn't appreciate the power of the
radicals in Congress. He tended to
try to do too much himself. He
could have learned more from General Scott but viewed him as an obstacle. He didn’t try to bring all his corps
commanders into the inner circle preferring to rely on the recommendations of
his “pets” Fitz Porter and William Franklin, men with similar conservative
political and military perspectives. A terrible error was McClellan’s
inclination to “leave Pope to get out of his scrape.” Instead of truly
extending himself to help Pope, a man he detested, McClellan merely followed
Halleck’s orders to the letter.
This mean spirited attitude truly appalled Lincoln.
McClellan was a brilliant
trainer, organizer, logistician, and strategic planner. As Army commander-in-chief in early
1862, his strategic concept to attack on all fronts and his understanding and
inclination to employ Army-Navy joint operations (Burnside’s Carolina and
Butler’s New Orleans expeditions) preceded Grant's successful implementation of
similar plans two years later. His
overall concept to advance up the Peninsula was a good one that was similar to
part of Grant’s own final approach to Richmond after the Overland Campaign
failed to achieve decisive results.
Despite their deteriorating
relationship, Lincoln decided that McClellan was the only man capable to assume
command during that harrowing first week of September. His decision was over
almost total opposition of his cabinet.
This decision to restore McClellan was one of the most important acts of
his presidency. Lincoln knew his
general's limitations but he also recognized that McClellan’s strengths were
what the country needed then.
Operationally, McClellan had
a different mission in Maryland than he did in front of Richmond. He learned from his experiences on the
Peninsula. He had the example/specter
of Second Manassas less than a week after resuming command to consider as well. I'm sure that he and Porter had some
discussions about that battle in the days before Antietam. McClellan intensely felt the weight of
responsibility at Antietam and frequently made reference to it in his writings.
Lincoln's faith was not in
vain. In the space of several
days, McClellan restored the army's flagging morale, He reshuffled some senior
commanders, incorporated new regiments into the ranks, absorbed Reno's Ninth
Corp, the Kanawha Division, and two corps from the Army of Virginia into his
command and began straightening out logistics (an action which is often
overlooked in the Maryland campaign.)
McClellan had a primitive
intelligence service and he erred on the side of extreme caution when
evaluating and accepting the intelligence estimates of detective
Pinkerton. His cavalry was still
learning and was just then being concentrated into a single division under
Pleasanton during the campaign.
His artillery was still principally dispersed though it to was moving in
the direction of more consolidation as well. Two corps commanders (Hooker and Mansfield) were new to that level of
command.
He advanced northwest from
D.C. protecting both Baltimore and Washington. On September 12th, just days after being restored to command,
McClellan's right wing under Burnside entered Frederick from the east as the
last elements of Lee's cavalry abandoned the town and headed west. Lee's
operational planning and issuance of Special Order 191 to open his supply line
through Harpers Ferry was based partly on the assumption that whoever commanded
the pursuing Federal army would take much longer to reach western
Maryland.
McClellan’s response to
Special Order 191 was not a timid one. He prudently spent the afternoon of Saturday
September 13th validating the authenticity of the order. But when convinced of
its validity, he ordered an attack by his divided army on several fronts to
relieve Harpers Ferry on one end of the line and to attack Longstreet’s “main
body” on the other. Admittedly, he could have pressed Franklin forward that
afternoon instead of delaying the Sixth Corps advance until the next day. Franklin took all day to arrive at
Crampton’s Gap and overwhelm the Confederate defenders shortly before
sundown. Franklin’s slowness on
Sunday afternoon and subsequent failure to attack McLaws and relieve Harper’s
Ferry on Monday morning was perhaps the greatest failure of the campaign
On the battlefield,
McClellan was without question a careful, methodical, tactician. He believed in maintaining a large
reserve and his tolerance for taking risk was much lower than many other army
commanders. Whatever his exact
understanding of the size of the rebel army confronting him, McClellan
developed a sound offensive
plan. It called for attacks first
in the north at daybreak and later in the south to force Lee to commit his
reserves and enable a final attack by Porter in the center. Unfortunately there was no written plan
and McClellan did not meet together with all his commanders before the battle
to put them all in the picture.
But the plan was
working. The brutal fighting in
the north indeed caused Lee’s characteristically bold reaction around 8:30 AM to
commit ALL his reserves to the shattered left flank. Yet, from McClellan's perspective at the Pry House, Lee
forcefully met and repulsed every attack launched by the Federal commanders:
·
Hooker’s First
Corps counterattacked by Hood’s division
·
Mansfield’s
Twelfth Corps attack engaged by three brigades of D.H. Hill’s division.
·
Sedgwick’s
division flanked by McLaws and other Confederate troops in the West Woods
·
French and
Richardson’s divisions met by Richard Anderson’s reinforcing division in the
Sunken Road, and Manning’s brigade attack on their right.
This had the effect of
causing McClellan to reassess the full commitment of Porter’s corps and the
cavalry in the center. Often
overlooked in the “old interpretation” of the battle is the fact that Porter's
regulars were in fact advancing toward the heights of Sharpsburg when they were
recalled. When A.P. Hill struck
Burnside's left flank at nearly the moment that his right was entering Sharpsburg
that confirmed in McClellan's mind that Lee was still a very dangerous enemy.
It justified and rationalized his decision not to hazard an attack by the Fifth
or Sixth Corps. This thinking
carried on to next day in his decision to keep a strong reserve and not attack preferring
to wait until the 19th.
By then, Lee was gone.
I believe that the shadow of
Second Manassas hung over McClellan (and Porter). They saw in every
counter-stroke by Lee a smashing potentially battle-ending attack like that
suffered by Porter only 18 days earlier.
Grant lost at Belmont; He
had a tough time at Shiloh. It took him a long time to figure out how to
capture Vicksburg. But he was far
enough down the chain of command and far enough from the flagpole to recover,
learn and advance. Sherman had
what amounted to a nervous breakdown early in the war. Again, he was far enough away from the
flagpole and the interfering Washington chain of command and had a mentor the likes
of Grant to shield him and permit his recovery. Both men had time to get better. McClellan did not get the benefit of a learning curve like
Grant, and Sherman. He had the
entire Lincoln administration, the Congress, and the national media following
his every move from fifty miles away.
Again, this is not an excuse but a reality. Grant had two years of additional time to figure out how to
deal more successfully with this poisoned environment.
Since I have heard a lot
about Grant and Lee in this string of comments, let’s recall what they later
said about McClellan.
Grant on his round the world
tour from 1877-1879 said this of him: "McClellan is to me one of the
mysteries of the war. As a young man he was always a mystery. He had the way of
inspiring you with the idea of immense capacity, if he would only have a
chance. Then he is a man of unusual accomplishments, a student, and a well-read
man. I have never studied his campaigns enough to make up my mind as to his
military skill, but all my impressions are in his favor. I have entire
confidence in McClellan’s loyalty and patriotism. But the test that was applied
to him would be terrible to any man, being made a major general at the
beginning of the war. It has always seemed to me that the critics of McClellan
do not consider this vast and cruel responsibility—the war, a new thing to all
of us, the army new, everything to do from the outset, with a restless people
and Congress. McClellan was a young man when this devolved upon him, and if he
did not succeed, it was because the conditions of success were so trying. If
McClellan had gone into the war as Sherman, Thomas, or Meade, had fought his
way along and up, I have no reason to suppose that he would not have won as
high a distinction as any of us.” From Around the World with General Grant: A
Narrative of the Visit of General U.S. Grant, Ex-President of the United
States, to Various Countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in 1877, 1878, 1879;
To Which Are Added Certain Conversations with General Grant on Questions
Connected with American Politics and History, by John Russell Young.
Lee’s cousin Cassius Lee
recalled a conversation that he had with the general on February 15, 1870. "I asked him which of the Federal generals he
considered the greatest, and he answered most emphatically "McClellan by
all odds." From Recollections and Letters
by Robert E. Lee. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2004.
Victorian niceties aside,
these are two heavy hitters whose perspective can't be ignored.
I had occasion this week to refer back to Mr. Lincoln’s Army, volume one of Bruce
Catton’s landmark work on the Army of the Potomac. I recently talked to one of my colleagues about the
writing style of modern Civil War authors. Much of it is certainly historically accurate but has an
element of dryness and structure that makes it difficult to enjoy. My friend is actually going back to
read Shakespeare to improve his own prose style. Maybe I should do that as well. It is no wonder that some of the best Civil War history is
written by journalists like Bruce Catton and Douglas Southall Freeman. It was Catton’s work that ignited my
interest as a youngster some 45 years ago and I am still drawn to it. Without ever having to been to Antietam
as a twelve year old, I could visualize it thanks to passages like these I
offer below. This post today, is
nothing more than an opportunity to go back and enjoy some of the beautiful
writing that I dare say many of you read and which drew you
into your own study of the Civil War. All of these passages beautifully evoke the early morning dawn of September 17,
1862 on the fields north of Sharpsburg but the second one is my favorite.
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