Maryland Campaign 1862

Currently I'm playing Ultimate General : Civil War. I wonder, how did McClellan managed to be so overcautious... All what he needed to win at Antietam is to release 5th and 6th Corps, lead by Franklin and Porter. Instead he held 15000 soldiers in reserve for nothing. Any motives? Because except for treason, I can't find anything.
 
Currently I'm playing Ultimate General : Civil War. I wonder, how did McClellan managed to be so overcautious... All what he needed to win at Antietam is to release 5th and 6th Corps, lead by Franklin and Porter. Instead he held 15000 soldiers in reserve for nothing. Any motives? Because except for treason, I can't find anything.
That game is amazing I play it too there is really nothing like it
 
Currently I'm playing Ultimate General : Civil War. I wonder, how did McClellan managed to be so overcautious... All what he needed to win at Antietam is to release 5th and 6th Corps, lead by Franklin and Porter. Instead he held 15000 soldiers in reserve for nothing. Any motives? Because except for treason, I can't find anything.
In regards to VI Corps, it was sent close to the front lines, but Sumner got his II Corps smashed, and decided to call off the attack. William B. Franklin, commander of VI Corps, protested and insisted on an attack. However, Sumner had discretion on the matter and convinced McClellan that calling off the attack was necessary along with reinforcements. McClellan sends one of the two divisions of the V Corps, Morell's Division, leaving only a single division in V Corps’ sector.
 
McClellan was notorious for 'giving council to his fears.'"

Very much so, McClellan was great at the science of war, his grand strategy for how the war should play out was actually a really good idea. McClellan's plan called for a bold battle field commander, not a thinker but a doer. McClellan would be great guy to have on your General Staff, he just wasn't a very effective a field commander.
 
Last edited:
Currently I'm playing Ultimate General : Civil War. I wonder, how did McClellan managed to be so overcautious... All what he needed to win at Antietam is to release 5th and 6th Corps, lead by Franklin and Porter. Instead he held 15000 soldiers in reserve for nothing. Any motives? Because except for treason, I can't find anything.
The problem was that McClellan had a bad habit of overestimating his enemies' numbers, which was compounded by the faulty intelligence supplied by Allen Pinkerton and his agency. He held those troops back because he feared a counterattack by Lee's phantom armies.
One thing that I realized was that with Lee's order in their hands, the Union commanders should have been able to make a realistic estimate of Lee's Order of Battle and troop numbers. Someone should have pointed out to Mac that if he had such large numbers of troops, he would have mentioned them in his order; after all, those troops would have been organized into additional commands.
 
IIRC, Lee still had fresh brigades and his sector of the battlefield was easily defended. Throwing more Corps at him with no maneuver finesse was just asking for increased Federal casualties for no gain.
 
IIRC, Lee still had fresh brigades and his sector of the battlefield was easily defended. Throwing more Corps at him with no maneuver finesse was just asking for increased Federal casualties for no gain.
Prove. Sunken Road was almost breached. Another 15.000 of fresh men would've crushed finally rebels
 
Currently I'm playing Ultimate General : Civil War. I wonder, how did McClellan managed to be so overcautious... All what he needed to win at Antietam is to release 5th and 6th Corps, lead by Franklin and Porter. Instead he held 15000 soldiers in reserve for nothing. Any motives? Because except for treason, I can't find anything.

Because he was an excellent army organizer, logistician and trainer. If you wanted to build an army, you wanted George McClellan, if you wanted to lead it to the fight and win the fight, you want someone else.
 
Because he was an excellent army organizer, logistician and trainer. If you wanted to build an army, you wanted George McClellan, if you wanted to lead it to the fight and win the fight, you want someone else.
Perhaps he should have been placed in a permanent position that did not involve actual battles. :p
 
It isn't really just that he didn't commit his reserves to the attack. He also failed to coordinate his attacks, and in so doing he allowed Lee to maneuver his army in a way that allowed Lee to handle each thrust separately. If the Army of the Potomac maintained pressure on the left of his army, Lee would have been less able to respond to Burnside's flanking attack and it potentially could have unrattled the whole thing.

McClellan's headquarters was so far from the battlefield proper that it wouldn't surprise me if he left himself unable to coordinate the appropriate attacks in a timely manner even if he was inclined to do so. The terrain of the area does not favor lines of communication that well on the union side.
 
How many? 2-3? He had no sufficient reserves. A.P. Hill was repulsing Burnside.

Lee still had two fresh brigades by the end of the 17th. As for McClellan's reserves, I'll quote Gene Thorp:

CONAN: Well, OK. Then he failed to use a third of his army in the battle.

THORP: That's what a lot of people say. I'm not exactly clear as to what that means by using a third of the army.

CONAN: There were two corps he never ordered into the fight.

THORP: What corps were those? The 6th Corps had troops that were on the frontline. Irwin's brigade had - I believe it was Irwin's brigade was engaged over by the Dunker Church. There were also some 6th Corps units that were involved in the Sunken Road. And also the 5th Corps, the entire 5th Corps was not even there. One of the divisions was still on the march. They marched 60 miles in three days. They wouldn't get there until the 18th. Another division, Morell's division, had just arrived, which is the only reserve that McClellan had. And then Sykes' division, the Third Division, was actually across the river and advancing up towards the center, alongside of Burnside's troops.

Adding on to this was the fact the Army of the Potomac had already largely used up its long range ordnance.
 
Lee still had two fresh brigades by the end of the 17th. As for McClellan's reserves, I'll quote Gene Thorp:



Adding on to this was the fact the Army of the Potomac had already largely used up its long range ordnance.
Franklin Corps was intact mainly by the 3 p.m. McClellan shouldve replaced battered Sumner 2nd Corps with 6th and tried last, final push around 5 p.m. . But thats my little opinion, so...
 
Last edited:
Franklin Corps was intact mainly by the 3 p.m. McClellan shouldve replaced battered Sumner 2nd Corps with 6th and tried last, final push around 5 p.m. . But thats my little opinion, so...

Franklin's Corps was 6th Corps; Irwin's brigade was at Dunker's Church and others were already in the thick of it at Sunken Road. The Confederates also had close by reserves to deploy if needed:

Landscape.png
 
Top