Seven Pines - What If?

What if Johnson wasn't wounded at Seven Pines, and Lee didn't get the opportunity to take command?

What if instead McClellan is too ill to command at all, or failing that we manage to get McClellan wounded or killed, and replaced by a more aggressive subordinate on the spot? Perhaps Sumner would work?

It seems to me like the position of the Union army at this time is such that you wouldn't need a great commander to take Richmond at this juncture, just one who wasn't afraid to use his men aggressively or at least not passively. Without McClellan's nerves, there's a confident and organized Union army at the gates of Richmond, and the Confederates, if little else changes, will probably mess up the initial engagements as OTL in their attempts to repulse the Union.

If Richmond does fall here, then where would that leave the Confederacy?
 
The CSA is an ex-parrot. Even if Davis and the cabinet escape, their government has lost all credibility. The transportation and industrial center of the CSA is lost. Foreign recognition is impossible and even if the field commanders want to continue the fight the armies will melt away and the state governors (who were always jealous of their own powers) will start looking to make deals. All rats overboard. Only we now have a Civil War that ends without an Emancipation Proclamation, no established war aim for the immediate abolition of slavery, and not even a firmly settled policy on treatment of human contraband. Slavery is doomed, but the means of its abolition and the course of Reconstruction are now subject to Mothra-sized butterflies. Let the fun begin.
 
That sounds like an interesting plotline. Are there any TL's that explore that in detail? It's totally not my area of expertise, and it's the kind of speculation you don't see a whole lot of in the few pop-history books I've read on the civil war.
 
Sorry, I thought this was about John Denver, and his reaction when his beloved 'Starwood in Aspen' was felled...
 
The EP was a war measure meant to either encourage them to return to the Union to keep their slaves or, failing that, to strike at the economic heart of the South; without a stalemate in the East, there's no raison d'etre for emancipation.

If Richmond fell, the next place where you could use as a base to supply an army would be along the Roanoke River in North Carolina, but good luck defending it without the resources of Virginia.

To me, the most interesting effect of this TL is the 1864 election; with quick readmission of former Confederate states to the Union, a decisive battlefield victory under his belt, the respect of the army, and explosive personal charisma, I think McClellan could draw on a very wide base of support for his 1864 campaign and make Lincoln a one term president.
 
The EP was a war measure meant to either encourage them to return to the Union to keep their slaves or, failing that, to strike at the economic heart of the South; without a stalemate in the East, there's no raison d'etre for emancipation...
To me, the most interesting effect of this TL is the 1864 election; with quick readmission of former Confederate states to the Union, a decisive battlefield victory under his belt, the respect of the army, and explosive personal charisma, I think McClellan could draw on a very wide base of support for his 1864 campaign and make Lincoln a one term president.
This is one of the great ironies of the war. McClellan's hesitancy seems to have been in part (psychological speculation alert) due to his dislike for the Abolitionists. By failing to win the war in the Peninsula Campaign, which he might well have done, he prolonged it and made abolition a sure thing. Slavery was doomed anyway, of course, but a victory in May 1862 - Lincoln came to the decision that emancipation was necessary only later that summer - might have permitted its continuation a little longer as part of an overall peace settlement. (And as the Conqueror of Richmond, McClellan would have had serious political capital to influence things that way.) So McClellan made a hash of his political calculations as well as his military ones.
 
Except the PoD I was going for was trying to remove McClellan...

Because from what little I've read, at every juncture McClellan lacked the will and mindset to take Richmond, to the point that it would be almost impossible for him to do so. You'd need to have his plans implemented by a more capable and aggressive commander. And a clever general could then take much of the credit. Perhas McClellan would have a rival?
 
There's no need for psychological speculation about McClellan's 'will' to take Richmond; Lincoln disastrously interfered with the deployment of forces across the Virginia theatre and left his main field army in a hideously vulnerable position, then vetoed the concept of operations that would capture the city three years later when McClellan proposed it. Removing McClellan is unnecessary with Johnston opposite him, especially if Lincoln doesn't screw everything up for the 1862 general offensive; if there's one thing McClellan can do (and really, he's highly underrated among Civil War generals), it's lay siege.
 
That doesn't seem to match with the McClellan who continuously overestimated Confederate forces and was cautious to a fault at every engagement. His advance up the peninsula was sluggish at best - a swifter commander might have cost Johnson far more in his retreat, and caused the Confederates to remain on the back foot. But either way, he did eventually reach Richmond. There, he more or less passively took Lee's attacks, and this wasn't Lee at his strategic best by any means - and McClellan fell back on the very cusp of victory.

Furthermore, no matter what I think Lincoln and McClellan will always clash in terms of personalities. I feel like Lincoln, as long as he has to work with a commander he doesn't really trust, will probably interfere in some way.

Edit...

And either way, the What if question I had was explicitly removing McClellan, for better or worse - or at least preventing him from getting the credit for Richmond. Undoubtedly he'd still get a good deal of the credit, but I think it would be an interesting scenario to see him sidelined at the last moment and thus denied the "glory" of taking Richmond itself. That might have fascinating ramifications for his later political career, if he feels snubbed by Lincoln and under-acknowledged for his work in building the Army that took Richmond.
 
His advance up the Peninsula was hamstrung by the command situation Lincoln set up; by removing him as General-in-Chief, and later McDowell's corps from his command, Lincoln made it impossible for McClellan to outflank the Confederate position at Yorktown, and as he got further up the Peninsula, Lincoln's insistence on using the York River railroad as his main supply line, and then the Fredericksburg and Potomac railroad for reinforcements (which Lincoln then diverted to a goose chase in the Valley, as a result of his wholly irrational fear for Washington), Lincoln undermined the whole concept of the campaign and put McClellan in a vulnerable position, with his corps spread out and separated by natural obstacles like the Chickahominy River and White Oak Swamp.

Also, for what its worth, the definitive operational history of the Seven Days, Extraordinary Circumstances, rates Lee's strategic performance very highly, marred though it was by poor coordination and the inherited organization. McClellan was not on the cusp of victory; parrying an attack doesn't set you up for victory when you're in a highly vulnerable position, being attacked from multiple angles.

The best thing might have been for McClellan to remain General-in-Chief, while someone else commanded the Army of the Potomac directly; whatever his tactical ability, he was certainly a better strategist, and dividing the two roles lets the respective officers specialize. Combined with a march on Chattanooga, he could get the glory of not just the capture of Richmond, but the fall of the whole Confederacy.
 
I feel like for that you would need a (only slightly) different McClellan, one who could earn and keep Lincoln's trust. It seems like a lot of the problems you're describing stem from the two men having a poor working relationship at best.
 
After being wounded at Seven Pines, I think that uncle Joe became less aggressive . Johnston was attacking at Seven Pines, and he probably have continued to attack. However, I don't think he would have been aggressive as Lee. There would probably be a stalemate, and Lee could take command in Northern Virginia.
And if Johnston was transferred to Mississippi, he would have been more forceful in the Vicksburg campaign.
 
That sounds like an interesting plotline. Are there any TL's that explore that in detail? It's totally not my area of expertise, and it's the kind of speculation you don't see a whole lot of in the few pop-history books I've read on the civil war.

This timeline: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-union-forever-a-tl.159784/

McClellan is thrown from his horse at Yorktown and breaks his spine upon a roadside fence and is paralysed forcing him to relinquish command to Edwin Vose Sumner who advanced aggressively and the Confederacy is defeated far earlier than OTL.

I remain skepticle about Sumner's suitability or capability to achieve such results but that's neither here nor there.
 
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