McClellan Presidency

Yeah if he had died at the "Battle" of Ticonderoga, he'd probably occupy the same place as Nathan Hale, but to the nth degree.

Or in the Saratoga campaign.

Heck, even if he survived its entirely possible he stays loyal.

But I think we should save that for its own thread. Arnold doesn't deserve bumping McClellan out of his own thread.

Wellllll, mostly not at least.
 
Or in the Saratoga campaign.

Heck, even if he survived its entirely possible he stays loyal.

But I think we should save that for its own thread. Arnold doesn't deserve bumping McClellan out of his own thread.

Wellllll, mostly not at least.

McClellan would probably be a one-termer if he was constantly torn between his own position and the very reason why he was voted in in the first place. If the platform of the Democrat Party was to end the war, and he vowed to personally see it to its conclusion, he'd grow weary of the office and probably voluntarily surrender it.
 
1. Lincoln would push Sherman and Grant finish off the remaining Confederate field armies harder than he did in OTL. The difficulty would be whether the ground would be solid enough to allow such campaigning much earlier than was the case.

Either way, by March 4, 1865, the Confederacy is essentially dead anyway. McClellan wouldn't alter that. He might have made peace with the South in 1862 or even 1863; but by the spring of 1865, the CSA was too far gone to save.

2. McClellan would be facing a hostile Congress dominated by Radical Republicans pushing a hard Reconstruction, and he would likely be even more at loggerheads with them than Johnson was. As a Democrat, McClellan would not be offered even the pretence of cooperation. OTOH, he wouldn't be fought by his own cabinet in the same way that Johnson was.

All in all, the continuities would be stronger than one imagines. McClellan was a competent administrator, but was often thin-skinned and prone to imagining conspiracies. He would likely end up a one term failure, unable to fend off a Republican Congress determined to settle a hard peace on the South, impatiently awaiting the opportunity to replace him with Ulysses S. Grant.
 
As some above have mentioned, McClellan was a good administrator and he was a competent Governor of New Jersey later in his career.
Before the Civil War McClellan was a senior executive (president?) of the Illinois Central RR so it would be interesting to see the effect a McClellan presidency would have on the transcontinental railroad.
Would Little Mac the railroad man push it to a faster (and better constructed) completion or would Little Mac the administrator and thin skinned politician actually slow down and hinder its completion?
 
Here are a bunch of scenarios that aren't crazy enough for ASB but aren't plausible enough for more discriminating tastes:

Looking at those I'd rate:

Very plausible: Benedict Arnold is a national hero with monuments and even a place on American currency.

Plausible, but unlikely:
European colonialism in Africa and Asia still stands into the modern world.
Canada falls to the Americans by 1780.

Wildly implausible, but not impossible:
The AK-47 is a piece of junk that nobody wants.
George W. Bush is the best president ever.
Nazis defeat Soviets SOMEHOW.

ASBs:
Confederate victory with an empire that renders them a world power into the modern world.

As to a McClellan Presidency, my initial impression is he would, like as an army commander, freeze up when called to make the hard decisions. There's also his ego and inability to admit errors. Just how good a job did he do as Governor?
 
About Benedict Arnold, is this a fair assessment of him that I saw someone else make on another forum?

'If Arnold had died at Saratoga, he'd be remembered as the second greatest military hero of the American Revolution...behind only Washington.'
 
Instead of Peggy Shippen, he falls for a fire-breathing patriot lady and stays loyal, preferably she is wealthy with family connections that are influential in Congress. He is promoted and after the war attains high political office. As President he approves an alt Louisiana Purchase and winds up eventually on the two dollar bill instead of Jefferson (LOL)
 
We do already have a TL with a Benedict Arnold who stays loyal and becomes President.

If you want a McClellan presidency AND an independent CSA, your best bet is to have the war start going badly the Union in '64, and then have Lincoln's post-election "Victory Now" push backfire horribly into even worse defeats. (Generals hate being subjected to political pressure from their leaders, and there's a reason why.)

This still won't get the CSA Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia or North Dakota, but it at least means McClellan can go back to the Republicans in Congress and say "I wanted to win this war, but that damn fool Lincoln left me with an impossible situation."
 
Here are a bunch of scenarios that aren't crazy enough for ASB but aren't plausible enough for more discriminating tastes:

[snip]

George W. Bush is the best president ever.

I dunno, man. I'd rank that as somewhat less plausible than Confederate President-for-Life and immortal cyborg Benedict Arnold (he defects to the CSA in 1864) leading a fleet of Lime Jell-O zeppelins as air support for Hitler's successful Operation Sea Lion against the British Monarchy, which is in turn ruled by a time-travelling Pauly Shore (who invented time travel after defecting from the Ottoman Empire and winning eleven consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor).
 
Getting back to the "implausible but not ASB" discussion, I nominate (with a hat tip to the late Douglas Adams) the Improbability Engine from the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series as a name for the forum.
 
Getting back to the "implausible but not ASB" discussion, I nominate (with a hat tip to the late Douglas Adams) the Improbability Engine from the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series as a name for the forum.

Why didn't I remember that? Seconded.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
It is often pointed out that McClellan repudiated the "peace plank" of the Democratic platform, promising to win the war no matter what his party's official position was. However, it is worth pointing out that he released this statement only after The Battle of Mobile Bay and the fall of Atlanta had made it clear that victory was within the Union's grasp. The very fact that McClellan wins the election ITTL indicates that the Confederacy has been more successful on the battlefield in 1864 than was the case IOTL. In such a scenario, would McClellan have maintained a pro-war position? Maybe. . . but maybe not.

McClellan had already shown a willingness to deal with the Copperheads. He publicly endorsed the Copperhead candidate in the 1863 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, George Woodward. Before news of the fall of Atlanta, McClellan's advisors and friends told Democratic newspaper editors such as Manton Marble and others throughout the 1864 campaign that McClellan was committed to end the war through negotiation rather than force.

All of this clearly indicates that McClellan was hedging his bets. Had the Confederacy ended 1864 in a more or less stable military position (i.e. Grant stopped in Virginia, Sherman stopped in Georgia, and the Shenandoah still in rebel hands) it seems likely that McClellan would have been willing to enter into a cease-fire and negotiations with the South.

Now, McClellan would have sincerely desired that these negotiations lead to reunion (as was the case with most of the Peace Democrats, even Clement Vallandigham) and was willing to abandon the Emancipation Proclamation in order to achieve this. But this was a delusion. Jefferson Davis would never have been willing to give up independence under any circumstances, slavery or no slavery, so the negotiations obviously would have failed.

The problem for the Union would have been that, having halted the fighting, it would have been politically impossible to resume hostilities. A large portion of the Republican Party would essentially abandon the fight, since they would no longer have considered the war worth fighting if the abolition of slavery had been dropped as a Union war aim. And with the fighting stopped for at least a few months, morale in the Union forces would have plunged. Desertion would have become much more common. Recruitment would have become much more difficult and resistance to conscription would have become much stronger. The South, meanwhile, would have been greatly strengthened by the cease-fire, the military pressure erased and their financial problems eased. A cease-fire might even have lead Britain and France to finally go forward with their oft-suggested plan to offer mediation of the conflict.

Regarding the argument that Lincoln would have pressed forward with the war between early November and early March, the question is. . . how? The campaign season was at an end and the onset of winter would prevent any major Union offensive. As already pointed out, the very fact that McClellan won the election ITTL indicates that the Confederacy ended 1864 in a much better military position than was the case IOTL, suggesting that any Union offensive during the winter of 64-65 would have easily failed.
 
Let's say that Atlanta falls and Sherman completes his march to the sea and Grant has the Army of Northern Virginia pinned up in Petersburg. McClellan would absolutely continue the war to victory. he would want to be the man who saved the Union, not the one who let it be destroyed.

The much more interesting question is what happens to Reconstruction after the war? McClellan was socially conservative and would have wanted to restore the old order as much as possible. Slavery was at an end, but what do you do with the slaves? I can easily see the radical Republican congress and he butting heads even more so than they did with Johnson. I think McClellan and most Democrats would be opposed to making the former slaves citizens and seriously trying to defend their rights. McClellan would want to keep the wealthy white land owners of the south in their former place.

It would set up as a massive contest of wills between the congress and the President
 
If the war is going well, why would Lincoln not be reelected? What's the incentive for changing horses in mid stream?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Let's say that Atlanta falls and Sherman completes his march to the sea and Grant has the Army of Northern Virginia pinned up in Petersburg. McClellan would absolutely continue the war to victory. he would want to be the man who saved the Union, not the one who let it be destroyed.

I agree, but in this scenario McClellan would obviously have lost the election.
 
I agree, but in this scenario McClellan would obviously have lost the election.

I agree, if the war goes well Lincoln would be elected. I was just following the POD. If McClellan had somehow been elected the above was how I believe he would have acted.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Here's a question. If Lincoln had lost the election and was certain that McClellan would call for cease-fire, what would he have done if it had been clear that a military victory was impossible before McClellan's inauguration? For the purposes of argument, suppose that the Confederates halted Sherman in Georgia in the same way they halted Grant in Virginia, while also retaining control of the Shenandoah Valley. Obviously, there would be no way to bring the war to a victorious conclusion between early November of 1864 and early March of 1865, especially considering the harsh winter that would bring active campaigning to a halt.
 
For those looking for a more specific POD check out this TL from Johnrankins. In it Johnston is more succesful at repelling Sherman and Atlanta isn't taken by him until after the Pres. election. Without the publicity provided by Atlanta's capture as in OTL Lincoln looses to McClellan. What I'd like to know is how McClellan would manage the US army if he had won. Could he get along with Grant or Sherman? I'd imagine he could end up doing like Jeff Davis did an try to micromanage the army which could lead to disaster.
 
Top