AHC: Grant and MClellan in Virginia.

Your challenge is to make Ulysses S Grant and George McClellan become partners in the fight against Lee in the wilderness. I know that at the Start of the war, when McClellan was recruiting that Grant had the chance to be recruited with him, so, i do not want that here, but rather for McClellan to remain the commander of the AotP, with Grant as commander in chief and to fight Lee in Virginia(essentially, McClellan instead of Meade). Is it possible, and can it be done?
 
Well, does it matter if the battles of the Wilderness happen later? If not, then the POD is Grant being more openly drunk after Shiloh, and Lincoln fires him. Grant, frustrated, metamorphoses into a Democrat. As such, with the failing condition of the war in the west Lincoln is forced to give democrats such as McClellan more slack, even when McClellan is defeated by Lee several times. Finally Lincoln fires McClellan and focuses on the west. The new west centered policy of the Union means that Lee advances up into Maryland in 1864. Lincoln is decisively defeated by the Democrats in the election, and newly inaugurated President Grant reinstates McClellan for the Army of the Potomac. They advance south against Lee, fighting several battles in the Wilderness.;)
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Easily. Grant asked for McClellan to be assigned to him (probably to take the Army of the James, but the Army of the Potomac is possible). Lincoln blocked it (and also blocked Franklin's assignment to the Washington defences and a number of other pro-McClellan officers being reinstated). Just have to give Grant a little more freedom....
 
Easily. Grant asked for McClellan to be assigned to him (probably to take the Army of the James, but the Army of the Potomac is possible). Lincoln blocked it (and also blocked Franklin's assignment to the Washington defences and a number of other pro-McClellan officers being reinstated). Just have to give Grant a little more freedom....

McClellan actually ignored it altogether and deliberately snubbed Grant. To be fair to McClellan the 1850s army was a tight-knit bunch and there needed only be rumors that Grant was an unreliable drunkard enough to ensure a stuck-up little aristocrat like McClellan would ignore him. McClellan was the most Confederate US general in this regard.
 
This would end badly, and it would be a replay of Grant under Halleck all over again. McClellan was a stickler for military protocol, Grant was not always, and on a series of technicalities McClellan might well wind up re-assigning Grant west due to incompatibility with each other. Or alternately Lincoln decides he likes Grant better, sacks McClellan circa 1863 and Lee's army ceases to exist in the ATL Wilderness Campaign of 1863. :eek:
 

67th Tigers

Banned
McClellan actually ignored it altogether and deliberately snubbed Grant. To be fair to McClellan the 1850s army was a tight-knit bunch and there needed only be rumors that Grant was an unreliable drunkard enough to ensure a stuck-up little aristocrat like McClellan would ignore him. McClellan was the most Confederate US general in this regard.

*Grant asked for McClellan in 1864*.

In 1861 McClellan didn't "snub" Grant. He wasn't in St. Louis at the time.
 
So what happens if McClellan says Yes, or if Lincoln lets him back in?

I would always get the feeling that McClellan would not like it if someone else is above him in the food chain. I know he resented Halleck for that, as well as Lincoln.
 
Easily. Grant asked for McClellan to be assigned to him (probably to take the Army of the James, but the Army of the Potomac is possible).

Grant said in his memoirs - "There were also other and minor points, minor as compared with the great importance of the question to be decided by sanguinary war - the restoration to duty of officers who had been relieved from important commands, namely McClellan, Burnside, and Fremont in the East, and Buell, McCook, Negley, and Crittenden in the West."

Obviously Grant was a great believer in second chances. There's no indication of where or how important of command he considered assigning these men to.
 
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