WI: McClellan dead in 1861?

What if Little Mac had not survived his bout of Typhoid Fever in late 1861 and died before 1862?

Who would replace him?
 
Does it really matter?

If OTL is anything to go by, it will be a long string of mediocrities until Grant can be brought east. Do the exact names make a lot of difference?
 

67th Tigers

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Does it really matter?

If OTL is anything to go by, it will be a long string of mediocrities until Grant can be brought east. Do the exact names make a lot of difference?

Yes, because the Confederacy was broken in the East by that "long string of mediocrities", and Grant was a pretty awful general whose one saving grace was the inability to recognise defeat.

In McClellan's case it really matters. If I may quote his two senior opponents:

"McClellan, by all odds! I think he is the only man on the Federal side who could have organized the army as it was. Grant had, of course, more successes in the field in the latter part of the war, but Grant only came in to reap the benefits of McClellan's previous efforts. At the same time, I do not wish to disparage General Grant, for he has many abilities, but if Grant had commanded during the first years of the war, we would have gained our independence. Grant's policy of attacking would have been a blessing to us, for we lost more by inaction than we would have lost in battle. After the first Manassas the army took a sort of 'dry rot', and we lost more men by camp diseases than we would have by fighting."

- Robert E. Lee

"There was no Union general whom we so much dreaded as much as McClellan. We would always tell when he was in command by the way the Union troops were handled, and the number of our dead and wounded. We received the blows, and we knew who dealt the heaviest ones. We were sorry when we heard he had been restored to command, after we had defeated Pope, and were glad when we was retired.... [McClellan] had, as we thought, no equal."

- unattributed Republican Confederate General (almost certainly James Longstreet) to Hugh McCulloch, 1874
 
Without McClellan, Lincoln would have turned, eventually, to Burnside. Burnside was one of Lincoln's favorites and a man he greatly admired. Other than Edwin Vose Sumner is the main choice but Sumner was not a man who was cut out for army command - for health reasons as much as ability. Otherwise someone from the west, Buell or Halleck probably, maybe even Fremont or Nathaniel P. Banks.
 
Yes, because the Confederacy was broken in the East by that "long string of mediocrities", and Grant was a pretty awful general whose one saving grace was the inability to recognise defeat.

The thing is that nobody managed to use McClellan's deadly weapon to deadly effect until Grant.

McClellan, hampered by political problems among other things - the debates about his abilities notwithstaning, failed to make much of an impact of Joe Johnston, was driven away from Richmond by Lee and removed from command after his very successful campaign in Maryland because he had lost the trust of Lincoln.

Burnside foolishly squandered the initiative and allowed the Confederates to entrench but attacked frontally anyway. Joe Johnston said of Fredericksburg "What luck some people have. Nobody will ever come to attack me in such a place."

Hooker, talented in many aspects and possessing the abilities to use the army to deadly effect, choked and lost control at the crucial moment allowing Lee to secure his greatest victory.

Meade performed well enough to win at Gettysburg but then muddled around in the Mine Run Campaign and failed to utilize the army fully.

Not until Grant arrived with his single-minded determination to engage the enemy whenever and wherever they met until the enemy could no long engage was the Army of the Potomac utilized as the deadly weapon it was trained to be.
 

67th Tigers

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The thing is that nobody managed to use McClellan's deadly weapon to deadly effect until Grant.

His strategy in the western theatre was implemented successfully, although more slowly than he planned. Grant's inability to seize Vicksburg in 1862 notwithstanding.

McClellan, hampered by political problems among other things - the debates about his abilities notwithstaning, failed to make much of an impact of Joe Johnston, was driven away from Richmond by Lee and removed from command after his very successful campaign in Maryland because he had lost the trust of Lincoln.

It's questionable whether Lincoln ever lost confidence in McClellan's abilities. He was defending him right to the end. What is true is that he was an extremely unpopular President that would have lost the House of Representatives if all, rather than just some, of the states had voted in November 1862. The decision to sack McClellan after he had successfully cut Lee's army in two and was about to swing his entire weight onto Longstreet and destroy Lee in detail is likely more motivated by party political reasons.

Of course, we tend to ignore the northern Virginia campaign of October-November 1862....

Burnside foolishly squandered the initiative and allowed the Confederates to entrench but attacked frontally anyway. Joe Johnston said of Fredericksburg "What luck some people have. Nobody will ever come to attack me in such a place."

Hooker, talented in many aspects and possessing the abilities to use the army to deadly effect, choked and lost control at the crucial moment allowing Lee to secure his greatest victory.

Meade performed well enough to win at Gettysburg but then muddled around in the Mine Run Campaign and failed to utilize the army fully.

All these can be laid at Washington's door. Their obsession with operating via Fredericksburg hamstrung operations. Even Grant had to operate with that restriction, and indeed HAD to pay the butchers bill since his preferred plan (move around the seaborne flank to the James and enact McClellan's July 1862 plan against Petersburg) was blocked.

Not until Grant arrived with his single-minded determination to engage the enemy whenever and wherever they met until the enemy could no long engage was the Army of the Potomac utilized as the deadly weapon it was trained to be.

Grant wrecked the Army of the Potomac. It may have been justified (eggs, omlettes etc.) but he certainly did wreck it.
 
"McClellan, by all odds! I think he is the only man on the Federal side who could have organized the army as it was. Grant had, of course, more successes in the field in the latter part of the war, but Grant only came in to reap the benefits of McClellan's previous efforts. At the same time, I do not wish to disparage General Grant, for he has many abilities, but if Grant had commanded during the first years of the war, we would have gained our independence. Grant's policy of attacking would have been a blessing to us, for we lost more by inaction than we would have lost in battle. After the first Manassas the army took a sort of 'dry rot', and we lost more men by camp diseases than we would have by fighting."

- Robert E. Lee

As I have pointed out before, Lee did not say this. John Singleton Mosby said it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Pj0sAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR15&dq=%22McClellan,+by+all+odds!+I+think+he+is+the+only+man+on+the+Federal+side+who+could+have+organized+the%22&hl=en&ei=3IeiTM-fB8P58AaGtIjtCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22McClellan%2C%20by%20all%20odds!%20I%20think%20he%20is%20the%20only%20man%20on%20the%20Federal%20side%20who%20could%20have%20organized%20the%22&f=false

- unattributed Republican Confederate General (almost certainly James Longstreet) to Hugh McCulloch, 1874

For something that's "almost certain" you seem to be the only one confident the quote comes from Longstreet. For that matter, you seem to be the only one who says the unnamed general was a Republican. McCulloch certainly didn't say he was a Republican.

http://books.google.com/books?id=dh...&resnum=4&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
 
Grant wrecked the Army of the Potomac. It may have been justified (eggs, omlettes etc.) but he certainly did wreck it.


It didn't look all that wrecked at Appomattox.

That sounds like the Eric Frank Russell character "For years we have been making triumphant retreats before a demoralised enemy who is advancing in utter disorder".
 
All these can be laid at Washington's door. Their obsession with operating via Fredericksburg hamstrung operations. Even Grant had to operate with that restriction, and indeed HAD to pay the butchers bill since his preferred plan (move around the seaborne flank to the James and enact McClellan's July 1862 plan against Petersburg) was blocked.
I have to agree that the Union's failure to make use of their naval superiority to outmaneuver the ANV was probably their biggest mistake in the entire Eastern Front. With the state of civil war weaponry, an attack through northern Virginia could not be anything other than a nasty, bloody affair that would cost too many Union lives. Instead of using their navy to bypass some of the Confederacy's best defensive terrain, (or at least launching a two-pronged attack) Lincoln insisted and trying to sledgehammer through it.

If McClellan had been a bit more aggressive and/or had Lincoln's full support, the Peninsular Campaign probably could have taken Richmond and essentially ended the war 1862. Even if the campaign failed, the Union should have used the strategic mobility granted by their control of the seas to cause all kinds of problems for the Confederacy. Confederate cavalry raiders would be nuisances compared to sea-mobile Union raiders, and every soldier the Confederacy has guarding its coastline against raiders is one less soldier on the frontlines.
 
Might a more aggressive general, with the enemy's plans as happened in OTL have actually trapped Lee after Antitham in 1862?

If that did not happen might the Democrat in 1864 have been a more obvious copper head and lost more heavily
 

67th Tigers

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Might a more aggressive general, with the enemy's plans as happened in OTL have actually trapped Lee after Antitham in 1862?

No, McClellan was incredibly aggressive in the campaign, but the opportunity had already passed by the 16th September (Franklin squandered the opportunity two days earlier). Lee was crossing the Potomac and his actions at Antietam were that of a rearguard covering the withdrawal of the logistics of his army.

If that did not happen might the Democrat in 1864 have been a more obvious copper head and lost more heavily

Depends on how willing Lincoln was to put the army in the polling stations as he did OTL.
 
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