WI: George McClellan Secretary of War?

The kind of organization that McClellan was good at wasn't the kind that the Sec. of War needed to be doing.

George McClellan was good at organizing and forming an army, but he left a lot to be desired when given a field command. What if Lincoln had chosen to make McClellan his Secretary of War (a position he probably would have been much better suited to) than general-in-cheif? Who would have led the army, would the outcome of the war have been any different without Little Mac leading in the field?
 
Like every general in history? Like Grant standing amidst the shattered remains of his army?

The difference is he didn't get what he asked for and what was needed.

Honest Abe begs to differ:

"He's the quietest little fellow you ever saw. He makes the least fuss of any man you ever knew. I believe he had been in this room a minute or so before I knew he was here. Grant is the first general I have had. You know how it's been with all the rest. As soon as I put a man in command of the army, they all wanted me to be the general. Now it isn't so with Grant. He hasn't told me what his plans are. I don't know and I don't want to know. I am glad to find a man who can go ahead without me. He doesn't ask impossibilities of me, and he's the first general I've had that didn't."

Peninsula Campaign it is then.

The campaign that proved that Fitz-John Porter was the best battlefield leader in the Army of the Potomac and that McClellan made Halleck look a competent battlefield leader?

273,000 of all arms grand aggregate. It's actually a much smaller force by that measure than Grant had in 1864.

Indeed, it's close to what they actually had at the opening of the 1862 campaign season, but much of this force was diverted to protecting Washington etc.

ROFL, no, actually had McClellan driven overland straight for Richmond the way Grant did Johnston would have retreated to Goldsboro instead of fighting him. McClellan had his Grant in Fitz-John Porter, but preferred to eat supper with French nobles as opposed to actually fighting battles and being in a position to judge them.
 
and yet somehow Napoleon managed this without steamships and locamotives?

Hell, the British were supplying a larger force than this thousands of miles away a few years earlier. I fail to see why Americans couldn't do the same 60 miles from their capital....

Actually as the War of 1812 showed even Nappy couldn't manage it for any lengthy duration of time.

Napoleon still had to pay for things, just like the USG. It's just the USG objected to spending the money necessary to win.

Except that it did win.


Dangerous ground here. If McClellan is guilty of overestimating then Grant is doubly guilty of the same thing.

Actually Grant tended to be guilty of *under*estimating the enemy. To be fair, he had an unbroken string of successes and was used to blithering idiots for opponents, Lee was a bit more of an actual enemy than all that, and even so in eight weeks Grant took Lee off the chessboard and left the Confederacy in the hands of Johnston and Hood.

Grant's mistakes at Pittsburg Landing and in the Donelson campaign were due to the unwillingness to believe the Confederate army would attack him before he did them, and in both cases he rallied and managed to inflict crippling defeats on the Confederate army. Fitz-John Porter's string of victories in the Seven Days' were seen by McClellan as a series of defeats by overwhelming numbers instead of a series of tactical victories against an enemy that was heavily outnumbered and conducting blundering, overcomplicated attack plans. Even so, the Peninsular Campaign *was* awesome....for Fitz-John Porter.
 
Honest Abe begs to differ:

"He's the quietest little fellow you ever saw. He makes the least fuss of any man you ever knew. I believe he had been in this room a minute or so before I knew he was here. Grant is the first general I have had. You know how it's been with all the rest. As soon as I put a man in command of the army, they all wanted me to be the general. Now it isn't so with Grant. He hasn't told me what his plans are. I don't know and I don't want to know. I am glad to find a man who can go ahead without me. He doesn't ask impossibilities of me, and he's the first general I've had that didn't."

This. And from here I cede the floor to my Southern colleague, because I've done my time on this one.
 
It's hard to forgive Fitz John his 'last reserve' comment, however.

True. He was still the most competent battlefield leader of the Army of the Potomac, IMHO. And in my view that is akin to Rosecran's one real mistake at Chickamauga, it's overshadowed a career that was actually one of the most successful ones of the war. Porter, like Gouverner Warren was treated shabbily. :mad:
 
It's hard to forgive Fitz John his 'last reserve' comment, however.

I have the nagging feeling I've read something on that contrary to the popular image, but I can't remember it.

Though his report on the battle of Antietam is...kind of worrisome. In a "Is this the way the Army of the Potomac expects to win battles?" sort of way.

True. He was still the most competent battlefield leader of the Army of the Potomac, IMHO.

Hancock (as corps commander) vs. Porter...decisions, decisions.

Eh, Porter. Hancock really only gets Gettysburg. Porter has the whole of the Seven Days.
 
Last edited:

67th Tigers

Banned
Actually as the War of 1812 showed even Nappy couldn't manage it for any lengthy duration of time.

Er, you do know the War of 1812 was a US-UK conflict?

Actually Grant tended to be guilty of *under*estimating the enemy. To be fair, he had an unbroken string of successes and was used to blithering idiots for opponents, Lee was a bit more of an actual enemy than all that, and even so in eight weeks Grant took Lee off the chessboard and left the Confederacy in the hands of Johnston and Hood.

Grant's mistakes at Pittsburg Landing and in the Donelson campaign were due to the unwillingness to believe the Confederate army would attack him before he did them, and in both cases he rallied and managed to inflict crippling defeats on the Confederate army. Fitz-John Porter's string of victories in the Seven Days' were seen by McClellan as a series of defeats by overwhelming numbers instead of a series of tactical victories against an enemy that was heavily outnumbered and conducting blundering, overcomplicated attack plans. Even so, the Peninsular Campaign *was* awesome....for Fitz-John Porter.

Read Grant's estimates of the enemy (Grant Papers vol. 4, or wait until I've written it up). Grant estimated he was facing 270,000 men in the theatre. He duly reported repelling over 100,000 men in 168 regiments at Shiloh....

The fact is Grant overestimated the enemy strength massively throughout 1862 and his estimates of troops strengths only gained a semblance of reality quite late in that year when Sherman was detached from him (to McClernand) and McPherson took charge of coordinating intelligence vice Sherman.
 
Hancock (as corps commander) vs. Porter...decisions, decisions.

Eh, Porter. Hancock really only gets Gettysburg. Porter has the whole of the Seven Days.

At a point where relative to the Army of the Potomac the Army of Northern Virginia was stronger in overall leadership and manpower reserve than it would be in 1864, no less. A pity for Porter he served under the ACW's Douglas MacArthur. :(

Er, you do know the War of 1812 was a US-UK conflict?

I've seen the term to refer to the Patriotic War and figured I'd use it thus.

Read Grant's estimates of the enemy (Grant Papers vol. 4, or wait until I've written it up). Grant estimated he was facing 270,000 men in the theatre. He duly reported repelling over 100,000 men in 168 regiments at Shiloh....

The fact is Grant overestimated the enemy strength massively throughout 1862 and his estimates of troops strengths only gained a semblance of reality quite late in that year when Sherman was detached from him (to McClernand) and McPherson took charge of coordinating intelligence vice Sherman.

In reality Grant did repel on the first day a poorly-conducted attack by a larger Confederate force and with two armies attacked on the second to scatter that Confederate army. The Confederate conglomeration of Western forces outnumbered the Army of the Tennessee, especially with Lew Wallace lost.....
 
67th Tigers said:
Read Grant's estimates of the enemy (Grant Papers vol. 4, or wait until I've written it up). Grant estimated he was facing 270,000 men in the theatre. He duly reported repelling over 100,000 men in 168 regiments at Shiloh....

So, no example of it written up elsewhere, easily checked independently for those of us without access to the microfilm or the like?

I'm kind of hoping its written somewhere that isn't dependent on trusting partial historians (for or against).

At a point where relative to the Army of the Potomac the Army of Northern Virginia was stronger in overall leadership and manpower reserve than it would be in 1864, no less. A pity for Porter he served under the ACW's Douglas MacArthur. :(

Yeah. And the mud seems to have stuck...not sure if that's wholly fair or foul, but its disappointing.

In reality Grant did repel on the first day a poorly-conducted attack by a larger Confederate force and with two armies attacked on the second to scatter that Confederate army. The Confederate conglomeration of Western forces outnumbered the Army of the Tennessee, especially with Lew Wallace lost.....

Not by much, at least if we can trust Daniel's book (if you have better, I'm all ears).
 
Last edited:
Who did he screw over by association?

I wasn't referring so much to being screwed over by association as the Teflon ability to never pay the penalty for screw-ups that were all his fault. On second thought that makes MacArthur the Polk of WWII. I suppose that McClellan was an inverse Patton, then.
 
Not by much, at least if we can trust Daniel's book (if you have better, I'm all ears).

It wasn't by much, but battles can turn as much on mistakes on the enemy side as good actions on the part of one's own. See: Chancellorsville. People consider that a moment of awesome for Lee, not unbelievable stupidity on the part of Joe Hooker, so the same applies with Shiloh, which was won by the USA mainly because Sidney Johnston was a dumbass and Beauregard was too inexperienced to direct the overall battle to where it needed to be.

Due to those mistakes in the earlier part of the battle, there was no chance by the later part to drive Grant's army into the Tennessee, and the casualties taken in that earlier bungling meant Grant's second day of the battle became a major victory. The second day the CSA had no chance, they had one on the first but squandered it thanks to AS Johnston. Shiloh was Grant's nadir as a tactician and is the one battle where his tendency to underrate the Confederacy almost cost him his life, much less his job.
 
Snake Featherston said:
I wasn't referring so much to being screwed over by association as the Teflon ability to never pay the penalty for screw-ups that were all his fault. On second thought that makes MacArthur the Polk of WWII. I suppose that McClellan was an inverse Patton, then.

That's a mental image that must be punishment for something I did. :eek:

It wasn't by much, but battles can turn as much on mistakes on the enemy side as good actions on the part of one's own. See: Chancellorsville. People consider that a moment of awesome for Lee, not unbelievable stupidity on the part of Joe Hooker, so the same applies with Shiloh, which was won by the USA mainly because Sidney Johnston was a dumbass and Beauregard was too inexperienced to direct the overall battle to where it needed to be.

This is true - though I'm not sure if even a more experienced Beauregard would be better. Beauregard was not all that good a general.

Due to those mistakes in the earlier part of the battle, there was no chance by the later part to drive Grant's army into the Tennessee, and the casualties taken in that earlier bungling meant Grant's second day of the battle became a major victory. The second day the CSA had no chance, they had one on the first but squandered it thanks to AS Johnston. Shiloh was Grant's nadir as a tactician and is the one battle where his tendency to underrate the Confederacy almost cost him his life, much less his job.

Yeah. Can't fault his "Lick 'em in the morning though." attitude though.
 
This is true - though I'm not sure if even a more experienced Beauregard would be better. Beauregard was not all that good a general.

I disagree with that. He was the one that actually understood what a general was supposed to do, planned Shiloh, and fought Shiloh. His idea that the Yankee would have retreated would likely have held true with anyone except Grant or Thomas. His defense of Charleston in 1863 was brilliant, and his defense of Petersburg in 1864 was his finest hour.

Unfortunately he ran afoul of Davis......:(

Yeah. Can't fault his "Lick 'em in the morning though." attitude though.

It was that attitude and the "There is no better place to die than right here" attitude that puts Grant and Thomas ahead of the rest of the US generals.
 
I disagree with that. He was the one that actually understood what a general was supposed to do, planned Shiloh, and fought Shiloh. His idea that the Yankee would have retreated would likely have held true with anyone except Grant or Thomas. His defense of Charleston in 1863 was brilliant, and his defense of Petersburg in 1864 was his finest hour.

Unfortunately he ran afoul of Davis......:(

First Bull Run plan, anyone?

I'll give him this: Tactically, he might have been fine. But his plan for Shiloh seems iffy even before things go wrong even from that.

The main problem with Beauregard is that he had an active imagination more and an active pen at the same time. When just focusing on actually doing something right, he seems to have been at least acceptable.

Defensively. Offensively, we have way too little to work with other than his failed Shiloh plan and his fantasy ideas.

Beats Sidney Johnston left right and center though. Johnston might have been division command material, maybe.

It was that attitude and the "There is no better place to die than right here" attitude that puts Grant and Thomas ahead of the rest of the US generals.
Something beyond mere stubbornness, I think. Confidence and conviction and the cool-headedness to DO something in those crisis situations turns it from "well, any idiot could dig in" to...well, only an idiot stood in their way.

Thomas and Grant were the sort that felt crisis was just an opportunity to bring out the big guns, in a way that's hard to describe (at least for me).
 
First Bull Run plan, anyone?

I'll give him this: Tactically, he might have been fine. But his plan for Shiloh seems iffy even before things go wrong even from that.

The main problem with Beauregard is that he had an active imagination more and an active pen at the same time. When just focusing on actually doing something right, he seems to have been at least acceptable.

Defensively. Offensively, we have way too little to work with other than his failed Shiloh plan and his fantasy ideas.

Beats Sidney Johnston left right and center though. Johnston might have been division command material, maybe.

Something beyond mere stubbornness, I think. Confidence and conviction and the cool-headedness to DO something in those crisis situations turns it from "well, any idiot could dig in" to...well, only an idiot stood in their way.

Thomas and Grant were the sort that felt crisis was just an opportunity to bring out the big guns, in a way that's hard to describe (at least for me).

I think the big problem was basing that idea on Napoleon's ideas for Waterloo and forgetting who exactly it was that *won* Waterloo. Admittedly he carried it out rather well as far as that went, but forgot that Wellington had Blucher just as Grant did Buell.

I think, though, that Beauregard is the only Confederate general who might actually qualify as competent as a general on both the offensive and the defensive. He executed brilliant defensive campaigns (but then so did Lee) and his strategic offensives were not quite the clumsier and ad hoc things of the Lee-Hood kind offensive with less chicanery than the Bragg type of offensive. Lee's tactics worked primarily because he had a psychological edge over enemy generals when on the offensive, and Bragg.......was too much on brag and too little on result. Joe Johnston was good at retreating and winning the battle of alternate histories but not as far as what he actually did, as opposed to Beauregard who had some real achievements to his merit.

That Beauregard was a Creole from Louisiana is only partially relevant to my respect for him..... ;)
 
I think the big problem was basing that idea on Napoleon's ideas for Waterloo and forgetting who exactly it was that *won* Waterloo. Admittedly he carried it out rather well as far as that went, but forgot that Wellington had Blucher just as Grant did Buell.

Yeah. Add in other factors (green troops, bad terrain...) and it all went to pieces.

I think, though, that Beauregard is the only Confederate general who might actually qualify as competent as a general. He executed brilliant defensive campaigns (but then so did Lee) and his strategic offensives were not quite the clumsier and ad hoc things of the Lee-Hood kind offensive with less chicanery than the Bragg type of offensive.

While I'm not convinced of this, its certainly a sign a what if where he and Davis are on working terms can be used to produce something.

I think anyone would suffer from having Polk as a #2 the way Bragg did, though. Beauregard might be able to counter Polk's poison spreading through the army better, but Polk himself was Lincoln's best general.
 
Yeah. Add in other factors (green troops, bad terrain...) and it all went to pieces.

I think it was the combination of bad terrain and Beauregard putting too much trust in Johnston to actually be a general, not a glorified colonel. Which admittedly was a sign of how inexperienced everybody was at the time (as Grant very obviously did not expect an attack. Even though nobody entrenched, the strategic surprise was there, his memoirs be damned in that case. The sign of his skill is in not going into panic mode and directing the battle the whole way through and rather mercilessly exploiting Confederate mistakes).

While I'm not convinced of this, its certainly a sign a what if where he and Davis are on working terms can be used to produce something.

I think anyone would suffer from having Polk as a #2 the way Bragg did, though. Beauregard might be able to counter Polk's poison spreading through the army better, but Polk himself was Lincoln's best general.

True, though I was thinking more about Beauregard in command in Virginia, where his skill and less bloody means of waging war would have been better than Johnston the master of retreating and writing memoirs and Lee the slightly milder John Bell Hood. I can't see Beauregard being so stupid as to launch a Malvern Hill and he did more with less than most CS generals did.

Against McClellan that combination might have actually been far deadlier than Lee's extremely risky strategy that in actual fact did produce a sequence of victories for Fitz-John Porter. A factor that tends to be overlooked.

The OP, of course, runs aground that McClellan was more abrasive and autocratic than Stanton, whose leadership can best be summed up as a J. Edgar Hoover of the 19th Century, minus the cross-dressing.
 
Top