General McClellan

TIME was when the name of George B. McClellan called forth unbounded eulogy from one side which was met by unbounded animadversion from the other. That time is past, and we have reached the standpoint where his strength and weakness as a soldier and military leader may be considered with the judicial temperament that weighs both sides of a question calmly. Thirty years ago, no one could look at General McClellan without viewing him through the distortion of political clouds and mist. For or against, it was the same; no one could see him in a true light. But the years have rolled away, and with them the clouds, so that even a nation of politicians like ourselves, when it comes to estimate personal or public character of the past, will be unaffected by the politics of thirty years ago. It was his good fortune to gain the love and admiration of his armies to an extent never attained by any other general whom the Americans have produced, save one. It was his misfortune to incur the distrust and opposition of his government to a degree experienced by no other commander. Here is evidence at once of strength and of weakness. Wherein did this strength and weakness lie? What were their causes?

The ensuing consideration of McClellan’s character as a military leader is confined to the Peninsular campaign. In that remarkable movement, he had to contend with difficulties, in front and in rear, which brought out his character in startling relief; and consequently it is the campaign which affords us the best opportunity of knowing him. Moreover, the limits of a magazine article allow no further discursion.

Let it be premised, however, that his first campaign as a commander was in West Virginia. It was a brief one. On May 26, 1861, McClellan made his proclamation to the Union men of that locality, and also issued his address to his troops. On the 22d of July he received the dispatch calling him to Washington to take command of the armies of the United States. In this short time he had acquired complete possession of the country west of the mountains and north of the Kanawha, holding also the lower portion of the Kanawha valley. Only the first step of this campaign had been taken when he was called to the commandership-in-chief. His whole plan involved an advance to Wytheville, and the severance of the railway between Memphis, Tennessee, and Lynchburg, Virginia, where it united with the eastern railway system. Had this been accomplished at so timely a stage of the game, the evacuation of Richmond might have been one of the early events of the war instead of being one of the very latest.

A retrospect of this campaign discloses, first, a clear conception of the work to be performed, great personal energy, fertility of resources, readiness in meeting unexpected contingencies, and the power of evolving an organization out of chaos; in a word, McClellan exhibited his capacity for organization from the start. Secondly, his plan of campaign, his strategical conception, was sound. Thirdly, the execution of this plan, so far as he had progressed in it, had been prompt and vigorous. Though his opponents had the advantage of familiarity with a country peculiarly adapted for defense, he did not hesitate to take the initiative. In this campaign appear the wonderful power he possessed of attaching men to him, and the enthusiastic devotion of the troops to his person, and their implicit trust in him. There appears, also, the characteristic which afterwards brought so much obloquy upon him, — the determination to have everything in readiness before moving. “I have ever,” he says, “ regarded our true policy as being that of fully preparing ourselves, and then striking for the most decisive results.”

Upon his arrival at Washington, McClellan found the government with a dozen plans, but none of them adopted. It was, besides, bewildered and in a state of panic. Utter confusion and lack of preparation pervaded the Western armies. A disordered and dispirited mob, still bespattered with the mud of Bull Run, cowered upon the hills south of the Potomac, into which river it could easily have been driven, had the Confederates had more than a handful of cavalry and field batteries. It is even asserted by the critics that the enemy, just as he was, could have carried Arlington Heights and have placed the city at the mercy of his guns, or have crossed the river at Great Falls and have entered the capital by the north bank, and that he committed his greatest error of the war in not doing so. No general defensive line of fortifications covered Washington, which was crowded with drunken stragglers, and fugitives were sneaking back to their homes in the far North. Mr. Stanton, the day after McClellan’s arrival, wrote to ex-President Buchanan : “ The dreadful disaster of Sunday can scarcely be mentioned. The imbecility of this administration culminated in that catastrophe. . . . The capture of Washington seems now to be inevitable. During the whole of Monday and Tuesday it might have been taken without any resistance. Even now I doubt whether any serious opposition to the entrance of the Confederate forces could be offered. . . . General McClellan reached here last evening, but if he had the ability of Caesar, Alexander, or Napoleon, what can he accomplish ? ” He was soon to see.

There is no need of entering into the details by which the wreck was cleared, but on the 4th of August McClellan was able to write home : “ I have Washington perfectly quiet now. You would not know that there was a regiment here. I have restored order very completely.” In eight days he had cleared the decks and righted the ship; but this is not the place to dwell upon the details of organization. If there is any one thing creditable to our army since the day it took shape under the muzzles of Gage’s guns at Boston, it is the organization of the Army of the Potomac. The creation of an army — its organization, the institution of discipline, the transformation of an inert mass into an active, living, efficient being — is not striking to the eye which delights only in the deeds of the new immortal. But the most sentimental of creatures must be alive to the prosaic fact that the first and indispensable stop necessary to a warring host is the creation of a host that can war. The capacity for organization. therefore, has always been considered one of the highest order, and he who displays it ranks among the foremost of the great captains. Frederick reorganizing his broken army after Kolin redeems Frederick at Kolin. An army, like Lord Chatham’s confidence, is a plant of slow growth. All the critics are unanimous in giving McClellan great praise for his organization of the Army of the Potomac. In eight months it was in marching order. It was not fully developed, it is true, but its capacity was more than merely defensive. It could and did take the field against a victorious foe, and did wage war effectively in the jungles of the Chickahominy at a distance from its depot, the capital; compelling its enemy to fight on the field of its own choosing. Sherman, Buell, McDowell, half the generals whose names are now inseparably connected with the war, were on the ground; why could not they accomplish the task of restoring order and organizing an army ? They did not do so, but McClellan did, and well might he say. “ Let those who criticise me for the delay in creating an army and its material point out an instance when so much has been done with the same means in so short a time.” When spring opened, the capital was fortified and garrisoned, and the Army of the Potomac took the field. Before following it and taking leave of McClellan as an organizer of armies, let us observe him in the character of a strategist.

McClellan’s general plan of the war is to be found in the Memorandum of August 20,1861, submitted to the President ; and his forecast of Lee’s strategical operations, with what should be the counteraction of the Army of the Potomac, is set forth in his letter of September 8 to Simon Cameron, then Secretary of W ar. The Memorandum covered the whole country, even as to operations having California for their base. The letter embraced that portion of the theatre of war which is in the vicinity of Washington and Baltimore. Even when in a subordinate position McClellan asserted: “ I always looked beyond the Army of the Potomac. I was never satisfied in my own mind with a barren victory, but looked to combined and decisive operations.” This is the keynote of his strategical conceptions.

These conceptions, so far as the Army of the Potomac only is concerned, are to be found in his letter of February 3, 1862, to Mr. Stanton, then Secretary of War; and as his career thenceforth was confined to this army, it is proper to dwell somewhat upon them as there set forth. Two bases of operation, he says, seemed to present themselves for the army’s advance: first, that of Washington, which involves a direct attack upon the intrenched positions of the enemy at Centreville, Manassas, etc., or a movement to turn one or both flanks of those positions, or a combination of the two plans; second, that of the lower Chesapeake Bay, which affords the shortest possible land route to Richmond, and strikes directly at the heart of the enemy’s power in the east.

After a discussion of the probable operations from the base first mentioned, and virtually rejecting this plan, afterwards known as “ the President’s plan,” McClellan turns his attention to the second scheme of operations, which, as the one adopted by him, is the one that interests us. Let it be observed in advance, however, that the source of all our woes was the ceaseless interference of the government in the operations of plan number two, and its constant endeavor to substitute for it plan number one. In truth, the government never recovered from the panic of Bull Run, and the spectacle of the Confederate flag flying within sight of the capital. It would not see that a threatened Richmond meant a secure Washington, and, deaf to expostulation, insisted upon large armies being maintained inactive upon the line that led from the Northern to the Southern capital. Even the direful loss of bloody battles on this line, and ocular demonstration, twice afforded, of Washington freed from the presence of the enemy by distant operations against the hostile communications, could not rid the government of its infatuation upon this score. It never got over its first scare.

The line suggested by McClellan as the best one upon which the advance to Richmond could be made was that from Urbana, on the lower Rappahannock. “ This point was easily reached by vessels of heavy draught; it was neither occupied nor observed by the enemy ; it was but one march from West Point, the key of that region, where a railroad from Richmond terminated at tide water, and thence to the Southern capital there were but two marches. A rapid movement from this base might cut off Magruder in the Peninsula, and enable us to occupy Richmond before it could be strongly reinforced. Should we fail in that, we could, with the coöperation of the navy, cross the James and throw ourselves in the rear of Richmond, thus forcing the enemy to come out and attack us; for his position would be untenable with us on the southern bank of the river.”

Such was McClellan’s plan of advance on Richmond, — a plan which has been demonstrated at last to be the true one; for the establishment of the army upon the south bank of the James was the recourse to which his latest successor was finally driven, and the one which terminated in the downfall of Richmond, The day came when, after a succession of incredibly bloody and useless battles, General Grant abandoned “ the President’s line ” forever, and adopted that of McClellan. This line was demonstrated to be, also, the line of real safety for Washington as well as the true line for the reduction of Richmond ; for, whenever it was occupied, the tranquillity of the capital Was undisturbed, except in the one instance of Early’s quixotic and futile diversion, a movement which served to prove the point. This was clearly indicated by McClellan in his letter to Mr. Stanton: “ A movement in force on that line obliges the enemy to abandon his intrenched position at Manassas in order to hasten to cover Richmond and Norfolk. He must do this ; for, should he permit us to occupy Richmond, his destruction can be averted only by entirely defeating us in a battle in which he must be the assailant. This movement, if successful, gives us the capital, the communications, the supplies of the rebels ; Norfolk would fall ; all the waters of the Chesapeake would be ours ; all Virginia would be in our power, and the enemy forced to abandon Tennessee and North Carolina. The alternative presented to the enemy would be to beat us in a position selected by ourselves, disperse, or pass beneath [the yoke of] the Caudine Forks.”

If the line from Urbana (now diminished in importance by the retirement of the enemy from his northernmost positions, but still retaining its superiority in relation to the Peninsula) should not commend itself to the government, McClellan’s next choice was that by way of the Peninsula, with Fort Monroe for the base. The government rejected the Urbana line, but gave him his choice between that of Manassas and that of the Peninsula. Needless to say, he chose the latter. It would require from 110,000 to 140,000 men; but of course this estimate contemplated effectives, and did not include those merely auxiliary to an attacking column ; it presupposed, too, that this number should be maintained by a constant stream of recruits making good the deficiency caused by disease, loss in battle, and the ordinary casualties of an army. One hundred and fiftyfive thousand men for daily duty was what McClellan considered the proper strength of this column, a number since demonstrated by events to be little enough; but the promise of 110,000 to 140,000 effectives was what he had to content himself with at the last, and these he never got en bloc.

By the beginning of April, 1862, the Army of the Potomac was concentrated at Fort Monroe, 121,500 men, or less than 90,000 effectives, all told. The stars which hitherto had been so gracious to McClellan now fought in their courses against him. It needs no argument to prove that a general sent into the field without the confidence of his government departs for his post destitute of the most sustaining force necessary to the efficient performance of his duty, and that to withhold such moral support from him is the greatest injury that can be inflicted upon him and the army which takes its tone from him. Will it be believed that on the 8th of March, when the troops were getting ready for embarkation, the President sent for McClellan early in the morning, and after some fault-finding in respect to matters at Harper’s Ferry, went on to say that it had been represented that his plan of campaign had been conceived with the traitorous intent of removing the defenders of Washington, so that the capital and the government, left defenseless, might be handed over to the enemy ! McClellan resented this accusation (for such it was), and the President, with great agitation, apologized, and disclaimed for himself any such idea; and from the fact that he did not demand McClellan’s resignation on the spot, or have him cashiered at the earliest possible moment, it is to be presumed that the disclaimer was good for what it expressed. This interview, however, was enough to satisfy the commander that, so far from having the confidence of his government, he would be followed by its positive distrust, and that its good wishes in his behalf were out of the question.

Three days after this scene, on the 11th of March, McClellan learned through the newspapers that he had been displaced from the command of the armies of the United States, and that he was restricted to that of the Department of the Potomac. Henceforth unity of action on the part of all the armies was impossible, and a single grand plan of operations was discarded for a bunch of petty plans. Two good generals, said Napoleon, speaking of a divided command, are worse than one poor one; but in this instance the command was parceled out among almost as many leaders as there were columns. The Department of the Potomac included at that time all that part of Virginia east of the Alleghanies and north of the James River, with the exception of Fort Monroe and the country for sixty miles around it. which was styled the Department of Virginia, and was under the exclusive command of General Wool. The District of Columbia, and the States of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, likewise belonged to the Department of the Potomac. During the latter part of March the Department of Virginia was added to McClellan’s command ; but the day after his arrival on the Peninsula this order was countermanded, and he was actually not in command of his immediate base of operations. Nor was he in command of Washington, for that post was taken from him, also; so that when he started on his inarch up the Peninsula this commander was really without the power of enforcing an order either at his base or his depot; his authority was limited to the troops immediately under him. He would have to fight his way to his own department.

McClellan expected to take with him 146,000 men present for duty, this force to be increased by 10,000 from the troops at Fort Monroe, so that he would have altogether 156,000 men ; but a few hours before he sailed he received a letter from the President, which informed him that he had felt constrained to send Blenker’s division to Fremont. McClellan was thus deprived of 10,000 of the men he already had. On the 2d of April he arrived at Fort Monroe, and was greeted the next day by a telegraphic order withdrawing the Department of Virginia from his command, and forbidding him to remove any of General Wool’s troops without that general’s sanction : there went 10,000 more out of the 156,000. Three days afterwards, while his right and left wings were under fire at Yorktown, he received another shot from the rear in the shape of a dispatch from the adjutantgeneral, informing him that, by direction of the President, the whole of McDowell’s corps had been detached from his forces, and the Department of the Rappahannock erected at the cost of his own : there went from 30,000 to 40,000 men at one swoop. In addition to these losses, nine regiments of much-needed cavalry, or 10,000 men, were held back from him ; and, to cap the climax, after all these reductions, and as if to invoke the aid of disease, loss in battle, and desertion in weakening him. on the fatal 3d of April, dies iræ the government had issued its order discontinuing the recruiting of volunteers ; this cut off his recruits. Even at this late day, the remorseless action of the government is so appalling that one can scarcely exert self-control enough to suggest the parallel between this shearing of McClellan and that of the general in the Grand Duchess of Gerol stein.

McClellan was now cut down to less than 80,000 fighting men ; yet with these he was expected, over roads whose badness is indescribable, to operate against an intrenched army ; to break his way, without the aid of the navy, through the fortifications of Yorktown, which Keyes averred were “ of the strongest ever opposed to an invading force in any country ; ” to fight every foot of his advance ; and, this done, to defeat the whole Army of Virginia, reinforced to the last man, and then to take the fortified capital of the enemy: and all this knowing that, in consequence of the stoppage of recruiting, whenever a man fell his loss could not be made good. He has been taunted with his incessant cry for more troops, and it is true that his iteration was pushed to a point where it became damnable ; but the retrospection of thirty years still places the blame where he placed it, upon the government. The administration that has invited the confidence of its people by putting a great undertaking in a man’s hands is bound to maintain this confidence before the world until he himself destroys it. To place him in a position of confidence, when it has no confidence, is to deceive the people and wrong him ; and this the administration did. In vain do its apologists set forth that Franklin’s division of 13,000 men was sent from McDowell to McClellan in April, that another 13,000 were dispatched from the same corps in June, and that Dix in the mean time had lent him 10,000 more. It was not so nominated in the bond, for when McClellan left Washington all these troops were his, and made his in order to effect the accomplishment of plans which had been devised by him and accepted by the government as the best for the country. By what standard of good faith and by what standard of official duty can the abstraction of these forces, and the peddling of them back again at the will of the abductors, be defended ? It is one thing to send forth an army strong at the start, and another to dispatch it weak, and afterwards to forward driblets. Apart from the derangement of accepted plans resulting from the latter course, it makes a general irresolute, for he knows not what to rely upon, and it provokes unseemly importunity on his part, as this very ease clearly testifies : it places him in a false position, and subjects him and his army to the ills that follow inevitably from false positions. Worse than all, it is not keeping faith. The government was never able to give an explanation of its conduct that was satisfactory to the country, nor to exculpate itself from the blame of neglecting to carry out the precautionary plans for securing the Valley from invasion ; it failed, too, to justify the stoppage of recruiting on the eve of opening the year’s campaigns, when men were eagerly offering themselves, and its neglect to employ the navy, after leaving McClellan under the delusion that he was to enjoy its coöperation. On the other hand, McClellan’s importunity, when it had ceased to be availing, overstepped the limits prescribed by self-respect and his official character, and weakened the moral force of his position by provoking accusations of querulousness, half-heartedness, disposition to shirk vesponsibility, and indisposition to act. Action, action, was what the country was looking to him for, and it refused to be comforted with either promises or complaints. McClellan was a greatly injured man, it is true, but neither in his personal character nor in his character of military leader did he rise superior to a situation in which Washington, Marlborough, and Wellington had set him clear examples. He sulked in his tent when the enemy had delivered himself into his hand, and when he should have been smiting that enemy hip and thigh. The country began to echo the lament of Madame de Créqui: “This is not the son that I had in my head. ! ”

The strategical and tactical conditions of the Peninsula require notice. The adoption of this route to Richmond was unfortunate. The cardinal principle in strategical operations is, to operate upon the enemy’s communications without exposing one’s own. This principle could not be applied on that line. An advance from Urbana would certainly have threatened the communications of the Confederates in the Peninsula, and would have compelled these forces to retire. The true line, of course, was the one which McClellan had pointed out in his Memorandum, the line of the James River, with a base of operations on the south bank; but be could not avail himself of this one, for in response to the feeling all over the land, which deepened daily, against the inactivity of the army, the President had issued an order specifying the 18th of March as the day on which active operations were to begin ; and on that day, and for weeks afterwards, the James was closed by the Merrimac, With the Manassas line in the air exposing both flanks of an advancing column, and with no fortified base supporting, forbidden to advance from Urbana, McClellan had nothing left but Hobson’s choice. The Peninsula offered security, but security was all that it did offer. This line was what military men call an exterior one ; that is, it did not operate upon the enemy’s communications directly, but acted from without and upon his front. An army acting in the latter manner has to push and pound its way against the whole available force of the enemy, and does so in the hope of breaking through this front and effecting a lodgment within the hostile line, in which case the advancing line would be instantly changed from an exterior to an interior one.

If a stern chase is a long chase, in nautical parlance, so is the pursuit of an enemy by a column acting on an exterior line. Strategy gives place to brute force, and the grandest successes of distant and bloodless movements are cast aside for the precarious and unfruitful results which must be won at the very point of the bayonet. A glance at the history of this campaign clearly illustrates these remarks, and leads to the inference that it would have been better to wait until the effect of Burnside’s operations became apparent, or until the Monitor had tried successful conclusions with the Merrimac. But the country was in no humor for any more waiting, and its impatience was diverted by a siege at Yorktown, in which irredeemable time was lost, and by a barren victory over a Con federate rear guard at Williamsburg. What the effect of adopting the line of the James would have been in 1862 is demonstrated by what actually occurred in 1864. The Confederate army was forced to come out and attack us on a field of our own choosing, a field which was the scene of its surrender.

If the strategical conception of this campaign be closely observed, it will be found radically defective in another respect. One great and fundamental maxim in the art of war is to concentrate all disposable forces, and to act with the whole of them against a part only of those of the enemy. Had McClellan remained in command of the armies of the United States, there is good reason to suppose that this would have been observed. Had the Department of the Potomac, even, been preserved in its integrity, he would have carried out this principle, for his plan unmistakably required it. But the breaking up of this department into three small ones, and the retention of the Department of Virginia, rendered application of the rule hopeless. Whereupon the spectacle was presented of five different armies operating upon five different lines against Richmond. Could anything be more inviting to an eager enemy? Stonewall Jackson rose to the occasion, and made short work of clearing the Valley. He did more : he prevented the junction of McDowell with McClellan. Hinc illæ lucrinice !

On the 12th of May the Merrimac was destroyed, and the James was open. Two courses at once presented themselves to the army : to abandon the line of York River, cross the lower Chickahominy, gain the James, and adopt that river as its line of supply; or to use the railroad from West Point to Richmond as such a line, in which case the army would have to cross the Chickahominy above White Oak Swamp instead of below. McClellan’s choice was the former of these lines, but he was not to determine where his army was to be led. The Aulic Council at Washington composed of the President, the Secretary of War, Stanton, and the congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, attended to that part of the business itself, and the general was informed that McDowell had been ordered to march on Richmond by the overland route and effect a junction with him ; for which purpose he was to keep his right wing extended to the north of that city. This settled the question ; for, as such an attitude would be impossible with the base on the James River, he had to take to the swamp, “the like of which,” said Secretary Stanton, “we did not imagine existed this side of the Isthmus of Darien until we got into it.”

In order to effect this junction with McDowell, three corps remained on the north bank of the Chickahominy, while, in order to threaten Richmond, two corps crossed to the south bank. The army, therefore, lay across the Chickahominy, was severed by it; and this position, at all times inconvenient and risky, was perilous in the extreme until communication between the sundered portions had been established by the construction of many bridges. The right wing was thrust out towards the northwest, like a great outstretched tentacle. Its weakness lay in its being so long drawn out, and in its further extremity being en l’air and exposed to the assault of the enemy whenever he chose to exert a crushing force. He could move, too, around this flank and take the right wing in rear. Nevertheless, the ground was well chosen, as events proved, and when the enemy did attack he found this flank resting on Beaver Dam Creek, covered with earthworks, and so securely placed that, do what he might with greatly superior forces, he failed to dislodge it by direct attack.

On the 24th of May the army was fairly upon the Chickahominy and in occupation of both banks, when, as if to intensify the imminence of peril, McClellan received a dispatch from the President, saying that, in consequence of General Banks’s critical position, he had been compelled to suspend McDowell’s junction with the Army of the Potomac. The cause of this was the irruption of Stonewall Jackson into the Valley, and his overthrow of two of the dispersed columns. There being no intrenched camp at Manassas, he had matters all his own way. it will be observed that this order did not revoke the one which directed McDowell to effect the junction, but merely suspended it. Had the later order revoked the former one, McClellan would have been at liberty to pursue his original intention of moving on to the James River. As it was, he remained fast in the swamp, and with insecure dispositions, which his antagonist, General Joseph E. Johnston, one of the most astute and vigorous of American commanders, would not fail to comprehend and take advantage of. McClellan had not long to wait to be convinced of this fact; for on the 31st, in full confidence of driving him into the swamp and destroying him, while the Federal right wing remained helpless spectators on the north bank, Johnston precipitated upon McClellan’s isolated two corps the whole available force of his army. The attack was a complete failure.

Another month dragged along, with the ignis fatuus, McDowell’s corps, still as far off as ever. McClellan had resolved to advance upon Richmond, on the south bank, and on the 25th of June this movement was actually begun, when the torpidity of the army was rudely broken by the long-threatened catastrophe. Lee, who had succeeded Johnston, crossed the Chickahominy in force, and fell upon the exposed flank of the right wing at Mechanicsville. This attack was poorly executed. Stonewall Jackson did not even appear on the field, and the Confederates from Richmond were dreadfully cut up. One would suppose that the depletion of the enemy’s lines would have moved McClellan to urge forward his advance, already begun upon the 25th, but Jackson’s presence on the Federal flank and his impending junction with the Richmond column were sufficient to compel the withdrawal of the Federals, who fell back six miles to Gaines’ Mill, at the heads of the bridges, where was fought one of the most obstinate and bloody battles in the annals of any people. Again Stonewall Jackson was tardy ; he seemed also confused; and the Union troops crossed the Chickahominy during the night, destroying the bridges behind them. The Confederates were completely baffled, but they had one consolation, — they had rid the north bank of their foe, and it was evident that he was moving from his position on the south bank. Where was he going? It did not take them long to find out, and, recrossing the Chickahominy, they strained every nerve to head off McClellan from the James, towards which his columns Were now unmistakably directed. Longstreet and A. P. Hill were to do the heading off; Stonewall Jackson was to pursue. This general overtook the Federal rear guard at White Oak Crossing, but it was safe on the further bank of the stream. Again Jackson had been too late, and it was now apparent even to his corporals that Jackson hanging on the heels of a skillful and concentrated foe was a different man from Jackson chasing the dispersed and raw generals of northern Virginia. Chary of encountering the Federal columns he became at Gaines’ Mill, and chary he remained throughout the whole operation. Not so Longstreet, who attacked violently at Glendale, but who nevertheless failed to arrest the movement towards Malvern Hill, where, in a grand action which did little credit to Lee’s judgment or generalship, the Federals repulsed him with frightful loss, and retired to the James at Harrison’s Landing. General Lee committed the unmilitary fault of despising his enemy, and suffered for it.

The connection between character and the results of character is manifested by no captain more than by McClellan, and it must be apparent to all that what he lacked was decision of character, and what he had in fatal plenitude was the predominance of one idea or plan to the exclusion of present opportunity. It took him a long time to come to a decision ; when he did so, it possessed him entirely and unduly. Therein lay his great weakness. There are three elements with which every commander-inchief has to do : his government, which represents the country, and which also controls his supplies; his army, which executes his plans ; and his enemy, whom he is to destroy. The Napoleonic maxim that moral force in war is three fourths of the game must not be restricted to strategy and tactics, but is to be taken for what it is upon its face, a maxim of ethics applicable to war. The first duty of McClellan, then, was to put himself right with the administration; or, if that could not be done, to retire in favor of one whose acceptability would call forth its unstinted support. It must have been evident to McClellan, on January 12, 1862, that already he was the quarry of a cabal in the highest quarters, against whose enmity he had nothing to oppose but the unsubstantial popularity of the hour. Yet this popularity was founded more upon what was expected of him than upon what he had done. It rested upon the unknown future, which was the very subject in question ; but he bore himself as one above the blows of fortune. Let us not he hard upon .him. It was natural for him to treat this cabal with contempt, for it was one of those exasperating combinations which torment the existence of every rising general, and which are relegated to limbo by the first military success.

When, however, on the eve of departure with his army to the seat of war, the President virtually questioned his fidelity, McClellan should have looked the situation squarely in the face, and have met it by asking on the spot to be relieved of his command. He could have done so with honor, for the responsibility of the act would be upon the President; and it would have been the best thing for the country, for his retirement, under such circumstances, would be a substantial appeal to it, and who can doubt the effect upon the people ! Had this appeal fallen flat, he would have but to bide his time until the set of incompetents who afterwards took their tricks at the wheel had run their courses, when he would have been recalled with enthusiasm, as was yet to be done before the coming leaves had fallen. Had this appeal been effective, he would have been reinstated in short order in complete mastery of his army, and with full power to carry out his plans, and there would have been an end forever to the Aulic Council which wrought such untold evil upon the republic. But McClellan was a man with the over-sensitiveness and the extreme consciousness of duty which are such frequent characteristics of men of breeding. He was the victim of this very sensitiveness and susceptibility to the calls of duty. He could not, on the moment, see his way out, and he went on in obedience to what he verily believed to be the call of God and of the people to save the country. Then followed the inevitable. The government which lacked confidence in him and feared his popularity showed to the world this lack of confidence, and made no concealment of its reluctance to support him, and, having raised him up, cast him down twice. Had McClellan possessed the decisive character of a Washington or a Marlborough, he would never have put it into the power of politicians, by his first error, to accomplish his downfall.

So much for his indecision of character, which, it is needless to say, manifested itself in minor matters, and particularly after taking the field. The great defect of his mental constitution was the domination of one idea, which depended upon the future for its realization, and which excluded all others that were excited by the immediate and urgent present. Never did a general have more opportunities to attain his end than McClellan had after his arrival upon the Chickahominy, and never did a general so persistently let them slip through his fingers. This was due to the fact that his establishment upon the James was such an all-controlling motive that he sacrificed everything else to it. Several of the writers assert that this design was an afterthought, and that he had no intention of casting off the Pamunkey as a line until he was cut off. Our reading of the Memorandum, official documents, and his private correspondence leads to a contrary conclusion: that this design had been constantly uppermost in his mind; that he regarded the James as his immediate goal, and looked upon the Chickahominy as a vexatious episode. However it be, the conclusion is inevitable, that the opportunities of the Chickahominy were rejected for the promises of the James.

As a tactician, McClellan was not quick to comprehend the situation, lacked fertility of resources, shrank from taking the initiative, and had not the art of drawing victory from defeat, or even of profiting by victory. Thus, the battle of Fair Oaks demonstrated that the massed force of the Confederates, led by so able a general as Johnston, was unavailing to dislodge two of the Federal corps, reinforced by a third, from the south bank of the Chickahominy, and it has been asked, Why, with the knowledge of this fact, was McClellan’s pursuit not more vigorous and protracted, when the tables were turned, or why did he not concentrate his whole force instantly upon that bank, and enter Richmond on the heels of the distressed Confederates? It is no answer that the badness of the roads prevented a Federal pursuit, for it did not prevent a Confederate retreat; nor is it an answer that the exhausted Federals would encounter the enemy’s fresh reserves, for McClellan’s own fresh reserves, overwhelming in number and flushed with victory, would certainly be more than a match for Johnston’s feeble reserves, depressed by defeat. There is little comprehension of the situation or vigor of execution here.

Again, and in respect to the operations on the north bank. General Lee made his attack upon the Federal right flank at Mechanicsville, on the 26 th of June. To do so, he had to denude Richmond of the great mass of its defensive troops, and Stonewall Jackson’s corps was miles away northward. Four hostile corps were thus absent from McClellan’s front on the south bank. He certainly was aware of this, and must assuredly have inferred that what were left could make no effectual resistance. The battle of Mechanicsville had demonstrated the security of the Federal position there, and that, had McClellan strengthened Porter sufficiently, the junction between Lee and Jackson would have been prevented, with the possibility of the former being driven into the Chickahominy, and the latter thrown back to the northwest. General Webb was present at an interview after the battle, when, on the ground, Fitz John Porter suggested his being reinforced, in which case he asserted his capability of holding the Confederate army in his front while McClellan should take Richmond. In other words, he urged McClellan to continue his advance, already begun, on the south bank.

The next day, the conditions so clear to Porter’s mind were repeated with greater emphasis. The mere statement of Lee’s movement shows that it was a false one. Now, it is a military principle that when your enemy is making a false movement you should not strike him until he has completed it ; but then you must do so. On the afternoon of the 27th, at Gaines’ Mill, Lee had completed his false movement, and its falsity was apparent, for he now had McClellan’s whole army between him and Richmond : he was in the toils, and so fast in the gripe of the Tartar, Porter, that he could not have got away to the relief of Richmond, or even to secure his own safety, for retreat before Porter would have been disaster. Why did not McClellan seize the golden opportunity, and, bursting through Magruder’s thin lines, enter the capital ? Those who heard the cry at the bridge head that evening, “ McClellan ’s in Richmond ! ” and listened to the storm of cheers which broke from the lips of Porter’s worn-out fighters at the news that what they had been fighting for had really been accomplished, have been asking the question ever since. Magruder said that this could have been done ; Porter had urged its execution the night before, and that McClellan had it in contemplation is shown by his dispatch of the 23d of June to Fitz John Porter. This dispatch is as follows : “ The troops on this side [that is, on the south bank] will be held ready either to support you directly, or to attack the enemy in their front. If the force attacking you is large, the general would prefer the latter course, counting upon your skill and the admirable troops under your command to hold their own against superior numbers long enough for him to make the decisive movement which will determine the fate of Richmond.”

One thing is certain : the Confederates were open to counter-attack. There were two places where this could be made, — on the north bank and on the south. There was, too, a choice between two modes of operation : either by an overwhelming concentration at Gaines’ Mill, followed by a furious assault, or by an advance on Richmond from the position on the south bank. Neither was done, and either could have been done. After the battle of Savage’s Station, General Sumner retired with the greatest reluctance, so convinced was he that, properly reinforced, he could push the advantage of the day to the rout of the enemy. At Glendale, the unsupported Longstreet could have been destroyed, and it is ever to be deplored that McClellan abandoned Malvern Hill. The country would have forgiven everything could it have beheld its camps pitched on that victorious field ; the morale of the troops would have been heightened by occupying the scene of their triumph ; the effect upon the enemy would have been correspondingly depressing, and the word “ retreat ” would not have impaired the moral effect of a glorious victory nor have detracted from its renown.

It would be unjust to close a notice of McClellan without recalling those personal qualities which lent such weight to his official character. He was exceedingly pure and honest, and in a volunteer army, drawn almost to a man from the reputable classes of society, this went for a great deal. The men respected him ; they believed in his truthfulness, and his fidelity to the cause was never questioned by them. It must be borne in mind that the armies of those days were popular armies, and that they represented the body of the people as truly as Congress itself does. The testimony which an army of this kind bears to its commander is conclusive, and the testimony which the Army of the Potomac offered was its unstinted affection and confidence. His soldiers took great pride in him, and a common expression among them was, “ He’s a thoroughbred.” He was an excellent disciplinarian, and possessed the faculty of speedily making soldiers out of raw material. No army was ever in better tone than was the Army of the Potomac when McClellan was its chief. He was, too, a lovable man, and a notable care-taker of his men, he himself seeing to it that they received the few comforts their lot permitted. He went much among them, and, on their part, they never grew tired of seeing and cheering him. No one who saw McClellan riding down the ranks of the Pennsylvanians, on the morning of Malvern Hill, can ever forget the spectacle ; it was very pathetic. The tired and smitten remnant of a division which had entered the fight a few days before, thirteen thousand strong, was lying on the ground, asleep or resting, when, at the approach of McClellan, it rose to its feet as one man. Cheers mingled with sobs and blessings broke from the men’s lips. They clung around his horse like bees, and implored him not to let the day go by without sending them to the front once more. It was evident that he was greatly touched, and his bearing was full of sympathy, withal courtly.

A study of the Peninsular campaign, from its preliminaries to its completion, leads to the following conclusions as to the strength and weakness of McClellan as a military leader. His personal character, as has been seen, was beyond reproach and inspired respect in the hearts of his troops, and his sympathetic yet soldierly manners won him their love and confidence. In his purely military character, he stands among the greatest organizers of armies known to military history, and, judging from the plans submitted to the government, he was in the main a sound strategist. Such were the elements of his strength. It was as a politician and tactician that he exhibited weakness. It has already been shown that, of the three parties with which a commander-in-chief has to do, his government is the foremost. The members of a government are from civil life and from active life, and for them there is no success without action ; their days have been passed before the world, and nothing is more offensive to them than the prudent reticence and secrecy of a commander. Ignorant of the art of war, they cannot see why an army cannot take the field in winter as well as in summer, as is illustrated by the President’s General War Order, No. 1, which directed that the 22d of February, 1862, should be the day for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States; and by his Special War Order, No. 1, commanding the Army of the Potomac to seize and occupy a point on the railroad southwestward of Manassas, and to move upon the same day, — a day when the gun-wheels were so firmly frozen in the mud that it would have required pickaxes to dig them out, and the men in bivouac would have perished. McClellan was not lacking in self-control so much as he was in the tact requisite to deal with such men. There was, however, some reason in the cry for action of these men and of the people, of whom they stood in mortal dread, for he might at least have made an early attempt to reduce or turn Norfolk, which was in a milder climate, and thus open the James and obviate an advance by the Peninsula. In trusting to his popularity McClellan betrayed a want of knowledge of human nature ; for when men are tired with waiting, they become, like children, unreasonable and unjust. Of his constant cry for reinforcements mention has been made already. Its monotony alone would have augmented vexation, but when coupled with promises, while unfulfilled ones strewed his path, the people began to waver, and the exasperation of the Committee on the Conduct of the War grew apace. When Marlborough fell under the displeasure of the politicians, he retorted by forcing the lines of the Mehaigne, whereupon every man of them had to rise in his place in Parliament and dutifully eat his leek. Perhaps McClellan thought he would turn the tables upon his politicians by a similar action. But he was no Marlborough ; he did not have the political capacity for a commander-in-chief.

As a tactician, he had an unerring eye for favorable positions whereon to fight, and he took things coolly. His great fault was the one already indicated, that of allowing the single strategical idea which filled his mind to prevail over present tactical conditions. A check or even a fancied derangement of his plans unsettled him. As illustrative of this grave defect, observe that his advance upon Richmond, already begun, was changed into a retreat to the James by Lee’s attack at Mechanicsville, and this in spite of Fitz John Porter’s solicitation that he turn not back from the plough unto which he had put his hand, now that the conditions were infinitely more favorable than when the order to advance was given. His action was tantamount to making the depletion of his enemy a reason for not attacking him ; or, to illustrate it by a homely example, the moment that he became aware that his adversary had been discarding trumps, he threw up the game. At Yorktown, it is said that a reconnoitring party pushed its way through the enemy’s works, but that no assaulting columns were in readiness. If so, he never should have undertaken a siege. It is apparent that he was not quick to take advantage of circumstance, and that he was wanting in the bulldog tenacity which the meekest of commanders must display some time or another. He shrank from taking the initiative, and wasted time in tentatives. He was a hard hitter when on the defensive, but he left too much to his corps commanders, with the exception of Porter. The pursuit by the Confederates, which culminated in the colossal blunder of the attack on Malvern Hill, ought not to enhance the reputation of General Lee or his subordinates, Longstreet excepted. On the other hand, several men on our side gained great glory from this retreat, but no one approaches Fitz John Porter in this respect.

The promise that McClellan gave as a general in West Virginia did not hold good on the Peninsula, any more than the promise of great things by Stonewall Jackson in the Valley was made good by him on the same field. Salutary results might be drawn from a comparison of the deeds of McClellan and of Grant on this line: it would not inure to the disadvantage of McClellan, and yet, for all this, he was not a great captain.

Eben Greenough Scott.