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Little Mac
by Steven Wilson, 2005

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT MILITARY.COM, March 26, 2007

To General Grant he was a mystery, to Lincoln a trial, to the nation he was a savior, and to history, George B. McClellan might have been a footnote had it not been for his role in a war that forever changed America.

He seemed to have it all, Little Mac, the Young Napoleon. He was born into a wealthy family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1826, and entered the Military Academy at West Point at the tender age of 15. Graduating in 1846 he placed second in a class of 59. The Class of ’59 might well have been known as the 19th Century equivalent of “the class the stars fell on,” as it produced twenty Union and Confederate generals.

There was no doubting McClellan’s intellectual capabilities, or personal and physical courage. He was a brilliant engineer, well traveled, a military observer during the Crimean War, and responsible for the creation of the McClellan saddle which saw service until World War II. During the Mexican War he earned two brevets and favorably impressed General Winfield Scott—an irony that may have haunted Scott. Finding opportunities limited in the peace-time army, McClellan resigned his commission and joined the Illinois Central Railroad as their chief engineer. One of that railroad’s attorneys was future president Abraham Lincoln.

Before the war McClellan’s fast track to success was so apparent and his qualities so overwhelming it seemed obvious that Abraham Lincoln could do nothing but call him to Washington after the debacle at First Bull Run. The first major battle of the Civil War shook the confidence of the nation and foretold that the war would be long and bloody. In its naivety the nation, and its president sought the assistance of a savior, a military messiah who would call forth a mighty host to destroy the enemy. In a nutshell, McClellan’s mission was to replace the mob of volunteers that fought at Manassas on July 21, 1861 with a professional army. When the war began the North had no problem attracting enthusiastic volunteers to add to its 16,000 man regular army. It was the training, arming, clothing and feeding of these tens of thousands of newly minted ‘soldiers.’ What was needed at this juncture in the creation of the North’s war machine was a capable, gifted organizer. A McClellan.

When Little Mac arrived in Washington on July 26, 1861, aging General Winfield Scott was General of the Army and the contrast between the two could not have been more different. White-haired, infirm, over-weight, plagued by gout, and incapable of mounting his horse without assistance; Scott was viewed by some as a doddering reminder of another age. McClellan’s presence was as inspiring to behold as Scott’s was painful. He was young, trim, with the bearing of a soldier and the ultimate self-confidence of a man who achieves anything he sets his mind to. Politicians fawned over him; Washington’s “cliff-dwellers” held parties to honor the thirty-five year old savior of the nation. Little Mac was a success before uttering his first line.

McClellan sent provost guards sweeping through Washington, gathering up errant officers and men to return them to a multitude of camps that made up a brand new army: McClellan’s army, the Army of the Potomac. He was everywhere, trailing a band of staff officers who found it difficult to keep up with their dynamic leader. Things began to happen when McClellan took over; men received their rations, uniforms and weapons; officers were held accountable, and training became a way of life. McClellan was building an army in his image with grand reviews, parades and the pomp and ceremony necessary to create an esprit de corps. Men who had just a short time before been clerks, farmers, and factory workers, suddenly found that if they gave it a bit of thought, they might consider themselves soldiers. As historian James McPherson noted: “McClellan forged the Army of the Potomac into a fighting machine second to none...”

But there was a problem. If the men in the ranks who watched Little Mac thunder by with his entourage of aid-de-camps they might have noticed two who had no business riding beside so superb a general; self-doubt and arrogance. There came times when either, exerting their influence undermined all other qualities of this particular savior. In a letter to his wife he contemplated the exalted position that he held. “I find myself in a strange position here: President, Cabinet, Genl. Scott & all deferring to me,” adding, “By some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land.” He wrote to her of the spontaneous cheers erupting from his soldiers “when I go among them.” Their eyes glisten, he reported, and he believed that they truly loved him.

Convinced that God himself had a hand in his fortune, McClellan quickly lost patience with anyone he felt was a determent to his divine mission. Scott, McClellan decided, would have to go. “I don’t know whether he is a dotard or a traitor,” McClellan complained, and the situation between the two men became so bad even Lincoln’s mediations did not help. Scott was out, retiring on November 1, 1861and McClellan was now commander of the Army of the Potomac and general in chief. “I can do it all,” the young Napoleon proclaimed.

McClellan was not only certain that Scott was a hindrance; he was absolutely convinced that Abraham Lincoln was an impediment. He exchanged insulting opinions of Lincoln in letters to Edwin Stanton before the volcanic lawyer became Secretary of War. The general in chief detailed his disgust with “this imbecile administration,” in a letter to his wife. Several members of the cabinet were worse than useless and “The presdt. is nothing more than a well meaning baboon.” Lincoln, aware of McClellan’s disdain for him, said simply, “I will hold McClellan’s horse if he will only bring us success.”

Success would elude McClellan chiefly because of the general himself. He constantly called for more men and materials, claiming that the enemy possessed “3 to 4 times my force.” In reality McClellan always outnumbered his opponent. It was his self-doubt and overly cautious nature, as well as the faulty military intelligence supplied by Allen Pinkerton, inflated the enemy’s numbers.

To Lincoln, McClellan “had the slows,” but the commander in chief was willing to put up with the general’s seeming inability to close with the enemy. President Lincoln did so partly because he had no one with whom to replace McClellan, and politically Little Mac was still very popular with some influential members of Congress. That popularity was put to the test when McClellan finally led his army virtually within earshot of the church bells of Richmond. He had chosen a round-about attack up the peninsula created by the James and York Rivers, despite Lincoln’s concern that his maneuver would leave Washington open to attack.

McClellan’s army made a slow march toward Richmond with a confused fight at Fair Oaks, resulting in wounded Confederate commander Joe Johnston being replaced by Robert E. Lee. McClellan, upon hearing that he was to face Lee remarked that the Confederate general was likely to be “cautious and weak under grave responsibility,” words that would, if not for McClellan’s arrogance, come back to haunt him. Lee’s greatest ally actually rode with McClellan; it was the doubt that robbed Little Mac of the ability to win battles. He had built the army, and his men loved him, and he was loathe to send the army where a good portion of it might be destroyed. Perhaps he was afraid of failure as well because success had been so constant in his life. And he could not bring himself to admit that the fault lay with him. He sent Washington a constant barrage of telegrams warning them that the enemy was twice his army’s size, and he could not hope to advance without re-enforcements. In one telegram sent off by a man who had clearly lost his head McClellan accused Secretary of War Stanton and the administration of failing to support him. “I have lost my battle because my force was too small…The Government has not sustained this army…If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army.” An alert colonel in the telegraph office excised the last two lines, but the damage was already done. McClellan was beaten because McClellan was beaten. The Army of the Potomac although roughly handled was still a threat to Richmond, but the commanding officer saw only that his beautiful creation was in danger of being destroyed. The peninsula was abandoned and with it, at least for the time being, all hopes of capturing Richmond.

McClellan would have another chance to deal with Lee in mid-September 1862 at Sharpsburg, Maryland. A copy of Lee’s orders were discovered by Union soldiers and delivered to McClellan. After determining that they were authentically described how Lee had split his army, Little Mac cried out: “Here is the paper with which if I cannot whip Bobbie Lee, I will be willing to go home.” In a fit of exuberance he telegraphed Lincoln: “I am confident and no time shall be lost. I think Lee has made a gross mistake, and that he will be severely punished for it.” As a postscript he added: “Will send you trophies.”

Unfortunately, McClellan (being McClellan) failed to properly coordinate his attack, while some of his subordinates (Burnside as an example) performed poorly. The Army of the Potomac had nearly twice as many men available for battle as the Army of Northern Virginia and yet could not crush the Confederates. Little Mac’s failure at Antietam Creek is even more perplexing considering that he knew the disposition of Lee’s troops and, had he moved quickly, could have caught and destroyed the Army of Northern Virginia in detail. But McClellan was incapable of doing anything quickly, and as a result merely blunted Lee’s first invasion of the north. It was Little Mac’s last hurrah; he was removed from command on November 5, 1862.

Steven Wilson / HuntersAndTheHunted.Com E-Mail: readermail@HuntersAndTheHunted.Com