Assessing George McClellan can be difficult without understanding some things.
1. He comes to the Army of the Potomac as a junior civilian political appointee general plucked out of the West Virginia backwater after two over-inflated "victories" at a time when the Lincoln administration is looking for someone to whip that mob into shape. McClellan, give him his due, proves to be the right man, at that time; to discipline, organize and train that army. As an organizer and trainer (my opinion) his one fault is that he does not understand cavalry and he loves gadgets too much.
2. Bearing in mind how much his appointment is "political" and not based on seniority or actual career service merit, and that he is placed inside an army full of envious career officers that Lincoln jumped him over. People wonder why McClellan is cautious? He is paranoid about how precarious his position actually is. He knows that he is out in front and that one mistake will be his downfall. I often contrast him with Grant who was far enough away from Washington, such that Ulysses has the advantage of not being in the press as much early, so he can get the country used to his idiosyncrasies and make his big mistakes (Shiloh) early. Also unlike Grant, McClellan is not lucky, nor does he have a super-genius buddy (Sherman) to help him through the rough spots. Porter is a poor substitute.
3. And let us not rag on Pinkerton too much. That poor slob has to rely on untrained people who offer up anecdotes, latrine counting, newspapers (open sourcing) and has to build a secret service from scratch. Plus it is the 1860s, when forensics and data mining is in its infancy. Pinkerton is trying to get intelligence about enemy terrain, military capability and intentions on the fly in the field under a situation where the US Army doesn't even have good maps to show the Virginia countryside as it is (Their few poorly rendered maps are three decades out of date). Road networks? Terrain features? The Army of the Potomac has a topological section working like beavers mapping the country as it marches. Grant will have those new maps two years later and an intelligence service thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers and two years hard work by Pinkerton and others. McClellan does not.
4. By temperament, McClellan (railroad engineer) is a technician. He is by training conservative in his problem solving approach. If he has a procedure such as troop manuals and military science texts (for camps, logistics, and hygiene), he is in his "scientific" element.
He would be a good chief of staff for a fighting general. That should have been his posting. But egos and politics...
1. He comes to the Army of the Potomac as a junior civilian political appointee general plucked out of the West Virginia backwater after two over-inflated "victories" at a time when the Lincoln administration is looking for someone to whip that mob into shape. McClellan, give him his due, proves to be the right man, at that time; to discipline, organize and train that army. As an organizer and trainer (my opinion) his one fault is that he does not understand cavalry and he loves gadgets too much.
2. Bearing in mind how much his appointment is "political" and not based on seniority or actual career service merit, and that he is placed inside an army full of envious career officers that Lincoln jumped him over. People wonder why McClellan is cautious? He is paranoid about how precarious his position actually is. He knows that he is out in front and that one mistake will be his downfall. I often contrast him with Grant who was far enough away from Washington, such that Ulysses has the advantage of not being in the press as much early, so he can get the country used to his idiosyncrasies and make his big mistakes (Shiloh) early. Also unlike Grant, McClellan is not lucky, nor does he have a super-genius buddy (Sherman) to help him through the rough spots. Porter is a poor substitute.
3. And let us not rag on Pinkerton too much. That poor slob has to rely on untrained people who offer up anecdotes, latrine counting, newspapers (open sourcing) and has to build a secret service from scratch. Plus it is the 1860s, when forensics and data mining is in its infancy. Pinkerton is trying to get intelligence about enemy terrain, military capability and intentions on the fly in the field under a situation where the US Army doesn't even have good maps to show the Virginia countryside as it is (Their few poorly rendered maps are three decades out of date). Road networks? Terrain features? The Army of the Potomac has a topological section working like beavers mapping the country as it marches. Grant will have those new maps two years later and an intelligence service thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers and two years hard work by Pinkerton and others. McClellan does not.
4. By temperament, McClellan (railroad engineer) is a technician. He is by training conservative in his problem solving approach. If he has a procedure such as troop manuals and military science texts (for camps, logistics, and hygiene), he is in his "scientific" element.
He would be a good chief of staff for a fighting general. That should have been his posting. But egos and politics...