WI: McClellan w/ better Military Intelligence?

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doesn't even have good maps to show the Virginia countryside as it is (Their few poorly rendered maps are three decades out of date).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...
 
Your pod was what if McClellan had better intelligence. McClellan literally captured Lee's plans, which showed his troop strength,
No they didn't.

Special Orders, No. 191
Hdqrs. Army of Northern Virginia
September 9, 1862

1.The citizens of Fredericktown being unwilling while overrun by members of this army, to open their stores, to give them confidence, and to secure to officers and men purchasing supplies for benefit of this command, all officers and men of this army are strictly prohibited from visiting Fredericktown except on business, in which cases they will bear evidence of this in writing from division commanders. The provost-marshal in Fredericktown will see that his guard rigidly enforces this order.
2.Major Taylor will proceed to Leesburg, Virginia, and arrange for transportation of the sick and those unable to walk to Winchester, securing the transportation of the country for this purpose. The route between this and Culpepper Court-House east of the mountains being unsafe, will no longer be traveled. Those on the way to this army already across the river will move up promptly; all others will proceed to Winchester collectively and under command of officers, at which point, being the general depot of this army, its movements will be known and instructions given by commanding officer regulating further movements.
3.The army will resume its march tomorrow, taking the Hagerstown road. General Jackson's command will form the advance, and, after passing Middletown, with such portion as he may select, take the route toward Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient point, and by Friday morning take possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, capture such of them as may be at Martinsburg, and intercept such as may attempt to escape from Harpers Ferry.
4.General Longstreet's command will pursue the same road as far as Boonsborough, where it will halt, with reserve, supply, and baggage trains of the army.
5.General McLaws, with his own division and that of General R. H. Anderson, will follow General Longstreet. On reaching Middletown will take the route to Harpers Ferry, and by Friday morning possess himself of the Maryland Heights and endeavor to capture the enemy at Harpers Ferry and vicinity.
6.General Walker, with his division, after accomplishing the object in which he is now engaged, will cross the Potomac at Cheek's Ford, ascend its right bank to Lovettsville, take possession of Loudoun Heights, if practicable, by Friday morning, Key's Ford on his left, and the road between the end of the mountain and the Potomac on his right. He will, as far as practicable, cooperate with General McLaws and Jackson, and intercept retreat of the enemy.
7.General D. H. Hill's division will form the rear guard of the army, pursuing the road taken by the main body. The reserve artillery, ordnance, and supply trains, &c., will precede General Hill.
8.General Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the commands of Generals Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws, and, with the main body of the cavalry, will cover the route of the army, bringing up all stragglers that may have been left behind.
9.The commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws, and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body of the army at Boonsborough or Hagerstown.
10.Each regiment on the march will habitually carry its axes in the regimental ordnance—wagons, for use of the men at their encampments, to procure wood &c.

By command of General R. E. Lee
R.H. Chilton, Assistant Adjutant General
You can guess his troop strength, of course, but you have to have a decent approximation of how many troops each division has- and the whole point of this thread is that McClellan doesn't.

4. By temperament, McClellan (railroad engineer) is a technician. He is by training conservative in his problem solving approach.
So in many respects, having better military intelligence would probably make McClellan's position worse. Basically, McClellan wasn't prepared to sustain the numbers of casualties to get the war over with quickly that the political leadership saw as acceptable. His approach was based almost entirely around manoeuvring the enemy out of their positions. The government may decry his numbers, but they don't have anything to contradict them. With accurate locations and numbers, they'll be piling even more pressure on McClellan to go straight at the enemy. This may well mean that McClellan gets sacked or transferred out in favour of a more aggressive general. In turn, that general could run up a lot of casualties for comparatively little result. It's a shame we never got the thread modelling an 1862 version of the Overland campaign: I would have liked to see the outcome.
 
No they didn't.

Special Orders, No. 191
Hdqrs. Army of Northern Virginia
September 9, 1862

1.The citizens of Fredericktown being unwilling while overrun by members of this army, to open their stores, to give them confidence, and to secure to officers and men purchasing supplies for benefit of this command, all officers and men of this army are strictly prohibited from visiting Fredericktown except on business, in which cases they will bear evidence of this in writing from division commanders. The provost-marshal in Fredericktown will see that his guard rigidly enforces this order.
2.Major Taylor will proceed to Leesburg, Virginia, and arrange for transportation of the sick and those unable to walk to Winchester, securing the transportation of the country for this purpose. The route between this and Culpepper Court-House east of the mountains being unsafe, will no longer be traveled. Those on the way to this army already across the river will move up promptly; all others will proceed to Winchester collectively and under command of officers, at which point, being the general depot of this army, its movements will be known and instructions given by commanding officer regulating further movements.
3.The army will resume its march tomorrow, taking the Hagerstown road. General Jackson's command will form the advance, and, after passing Middletown, with such portion as he may select, take the route toward Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient point, and by Friday morning take possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, capture such of them as may be at Martinsburg, and intercept such as may attempt to escape from Harpers Ferry.
4.General Longstreet's command will pursue the same road as far as Boonsborough, where it will halt, with reserve, supply, and baggage trains of the army.
5.General McLaws, with his own division and that of General R. H. Anderson, will follow General Longstreet. On reaching Middletown will take the route to Harpers Ferry, and by Friday morning possess himself of the Maryland Heights and endeavor to capture the enemy at Harpers Ferry and vicinity.
6.General Walker, with his division, after accomplishing the object in which he is now engaged, will cross the Potomac at Cheek's Ford, ascend its right bank to Lovettsville, take possession of Loudoun Heights, if practicable, by Friday morning, Key's Ford on his left, and the road between the end of the mountain and the Potomac on his right. He will, as far as practicable, cooperate with General McLaws and Jackson, and intercept retreat of the enemy.
7.General D. H. Hill's division will form the rear guard of the army, pursuing the road taken by the main body. The reserve artillery, ordnance, and supply trains, &c., will precede General Hill.
8.General Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the commands of Generals Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws, and, with the main body of the cavalry, will cover the route of the army, bringing up all stragglers that may have been left behind.
9.The commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws, and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body of the army at Boonsborough or Hagerstown.
10.Each regiment on the march will habitually carry its axes in the regimental ordnance—wagons, for use of the men at their encampments, to procure wood &c.

By command of General R. E. Lee
R.H. Chilton, Assistant Adjutant General
You can guess his troop strength, of course, but you have to have a decent approximation of how many troops each division has- and the whole point of this thread is that McClellan doesn't.


So in many respects, having better military intelligence would probably make McClellan's position worse. Basically, McClellan wasn't prepared to sustain the numbers of casualties to get the war over with quickly that the political leadership saw as acceptable. His approach was based almost entirely around manoeuvring the enemy out of their positions. The government may decry his numbers, but they don't have anything to contradict them. With accurate locations and numbers, they'll be piling even more pressure on McClellan to go straight at the enemy. This may well mean that McClellan gets sacked or transferred out in favour of a more aggressive general. In turn, that general could run up a lot of casualties for comparatively little result. It's a shame we never got the thread modelling an 1862 version of the Overland campaign: I would have liked to see the outcome.

I'm not going to refight Antietam. My expertise is more naval and air, but I think McClellan has problems with getting his intent across to some of his corps commanders (especially Burnside). Plus he is terrain blind because his cavalry is not doing its job, so real time scouting is not there for him as it is with Lee.

I'm more interested in the observation that with better intelligence, McClellan would have much more pressure put on him. Actually, between Stanton and Lincoln, himself, who had independent contacts and friends who could check on what McClellan reports to them, they do have a better overall "feel" for ground truth. Let's put that aside for a moment for a more fundamental understanding of McClellan and the operational art as he saw it or as it was taught to him.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/419386/pdf

Let me summarize that a bit by noting that the West Point that taught McClellan engineering also taught him the Napoleonic method of war as analyzed by Jomini. I am not sure if Dennis Mahan was the filter (I doubt it, too early.) The only Clauswitzian besides Grant is Sherman and both of those guys are in the doghouse at the moment and don't even know they are Clauswitzians before Clauswitz shows up.
 
So in many respects, having better military intelligence would probably make McClellan's position worse. Basically, McClellan wasn't prepared to sustain the numbers of casualties to get the war over with quickly that the political leadership saw as acceptable. His approach was based almost entirely around manoeuvring the enemy out of their positions. The government may decry his numbers, but they don't have anything to contradict them. With accurate locations and numbers, they'll be piling even more pressure on McClellan to go straight at the enemy. This may well mean that McClellan gets sacked or transferred out in favour of a more aggressive general. In turn, that general could run up a lot of casualties for comparatively little result. It's a shame we never got the thread modelling an 1862 version of the Overland campaign: I would have liked to see the outcome.

As I see it an Overland Campaign in 62 would probably run into the same problem as the Peninsula campaign. The Confederates have a larger reserve pool than 64 and the Union political situation is more toxic impacting generals.
 

I don't disagree with much of what you said.

I will emphasize "one mistake" it really would have doomed McClellan. In the Peninsula if you lose one battle his supply lines get cut, as happened at Gaines' Mill and at Glendale for instance if he lost the battle his army would have been destroyed. Then you have the Antietam campaign where your army is the only thing protecting Washington if you lose the Union is doomed. Just something to keep in mind, I'm not sure many other generals had this much stress put on their soldiers other than maybe Meade-Gettysburg.
 
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As I see it an Overland Campaign in 62 would probably run into the same problem as the Peninsula campaign. The Confederates have a larger reserve pool than 64 and the Union political situation is more toxic impacting generals.
To be honest, I can’t see the Army of the Potomac going by the route Grant took in 1864. It is more likely to go through the Orange and Alexandria railroad route (which the politicians in Washington preferred- it kept the AoP between Washington and the AoNV. Aside from that, this plan is still likely to fail as the O&A railroad struggled to keep the AotP supplied each time they tried the route.

I would also like to argue against your point that the Union political situation was more impacting in 1862 than 1864. In fact, I’m fairly certain that the politics in the Eastern Theater worsened after McClellan’s removal and had very harmful impacts on Grant’s Spring Offensive of 1864 (Grant’s plan to invade North Carolina replaced with the Overland Campaign, the Red River campaign, being saddled with political generals, etc.)
 
Let me summarize that a bit by noting that the West Point that taught McClellan engineering also taught him the Napoleonic method of war as analyzed by Jomini. I am not sure if Dennis Mahan was the filter (I doubt it, too early.) The only Clauswitzian besides Grant is Sherman and both of those guys are in the doghouse at the moment and don't even know they are Clauswitzians before Clauswitz shows up.

This is true. Most everyone was trying to re-fight Napoleon's campaigns, or at least emulate his successes. Halleck was especially Jomnian in his thinking (and Buearegard was outright Napoleon complex!!) and kind of failed to see the forest for the trees in crushing the rebellion. Mac himself suffered from this, both in temperment (seeing himself as indispensible) and in his chronic concern for strategic points rather than maneuvering into battle to fight the rebels effectively.

Added to that his fears of being removed, he could never strike a lethal blow against the rebel army.

I would also like to argue against your point that the Union political situation was more impacting in 1862 than 1864. In fact, I’m fairly certain that the politics in the Eastern Theater worsened after McClellan’s removal and had very harmful impacts on Grant’s Spring Offensive of 1864 (Grant’s plan to invade North Carolina replaced with the Overland Campaign, the Red River campaign, being saddled with political generals, etc.)

There's also that people forget that Grant's army was qualitatively dropping. Men's enlistments were expiring, which made them more fearful of being killed, making offensives stall. Many of the new drafts were less than credible as soldiers, and he lost so many men to expired enlistments and desertion he had to conscript the gunners from around Washington to act as infantry! That and he was saddled with men who were by no stretch of the imagination military incompetents, and were known to be rather lacking in military skill.

Banks whole Red River fiasco was a political stunt that nearly cost the Federals dearly, and Butler bogged down outside of Petersburg against an inferior force. Heck, Sheridan came within a hair of complete disaster in the Shenandoah Valley, and was only saved because the rebels were at the literal end of their rope!

Grant had just as many pitfalls as McClellan did IMO, but he handled them with more skill.
 
There's also that people forget that Grant's army was qualitatively dropping. Men's enlistments were expiring, which made them more fearful of being killed, making offensives stall. Many of the new drafts were less than credible as soldiers, and he lost so many men to expired enlistments and desertion he had to conscript the gunners from around Washington to act as infantry! That and he was saddled with men who were by no stretch of the imagination military incompetents, and were known to be rather lacking in military skill.
Full agreement here. People seem to ignore the fact that the Army of the Potomac was 1/3 green, 1/3 veteran and 1/3 veteran whose enlistments would expire through the campaign.
Banks whole Red River fiasco was a political stunt that nearly cost the Federals dearly, and Butler bogged down outside of Petersburg against an inferior force. Heck, Sheridan came within a hair of complete disaster in the Shenandoah Valley, and was only saved because the rebels were at the literal end of their rope!
While I would agree with most of what you said, when was Sheridan on the verge of disaster? Are you referring to the Battle of Cedar Creek?
 
While I would agree with most of what you said, when was Sheridan on the verge of disaster? Are you referring to the Battle of Cedar Creek?

Cedar Creek yes, but Early had been running roughshod over Federal forces in the Valley for a while. At Cedar Creek Early could have possibly routed the Federal forces (and thus ended Sheridan's career) but his troops were too worn out to follow up on their earlier attacks. Would have been the cherry on top for the other setbacks of 1864.
 
Cedar Creek was a special case of a surprise attack on an overconfident army in camp that had not put out pickets and patrols. It could have been Stonewall Jackson's men in camp surprised and they would have run. Sheridan's qualities as a leader are actually highlighted by the way he gathers up subordinates, personally rallies, and at the same time chains down through the command hierarchy of his army the stand and fight and then immediate counterattack orders that routes Early's men. Maybe Jackson or Lee could have pulled that off, but for certain, only two other generals in the American Civil War did pull off a similar performance. Grant and Sherman; one at Shiloh, and the other at Atlanta.
 
Cedar Creek yes, but Early had been running roughshod over Federal forces in the Valley for a while. At Cedar Creek Early could have possibly routed the Federal forces (and thus ended Sheridan's career) but his troops were too worn out to follow up on their earlier attacks. Would have been the cherry on top for the other setbacks of 1864.
Though VI and XIX Corps was forced to fall back a rather good distance and suffered heavy casualties, they were not routed at all. Horatio G. Wright did an excellent job of rallying and reorganizing the Union lines while his delaying actions bought time to solidify his lines.
 
In Sheridans case I mean that he nearly faced a career ending loss if he lost that battle. I don't mean to point to Cedar Creek to say that he was a bad commander, merely that the Confederates kept dishing out unhappy surprises to the Union even in 1864.
 
McClellan literally had Lee's war plans during the Confederate Offensive in 1862 yet still failed to achieve a decisive victory.

Intelligence had nothing to do with McClellan sucking.

Wasn't there some consideration these "lost orders" were a plant?
 
Wasn't there some consideration these "lost orders" were a plant?
Oh good God, not this conspiracy theory nonsense!

Plenty of scholars have addressed the Lost Order before, and there is no evidence of it being a plant. D.H. Hill had recently come under Jackson's command, and had just been made independent again by the order, and Jackson, not knowing if a separate copy of the order had been sent to Hill, decided to send an order to make sure that Hill received it. That, according to Hill, is the only copy he ever received. As it turned out, Lee did have a separate copy of the order sent to Hill, and that was the copy that was lost.

The mystery surrounding what happened exactly with the copy was that Chilton, Lee's staff officer responsible for delivering the order, couldn't clearly remember after the war what happened with it. The reason that the order wasn't marked as having been delivered, well, the simplest explanation is that D. H. Hill was telling the truth that he never received the order. Chilton may have sent a courier who lost it and failed to report it, or Chilton may have discarded the order himself after realizing it was redundant. Chilton's faulty memory and shoddy staff work (Lee’s staff officers were not particularly good-especially Chilton) are at the heart of the mystery.

For more info:
https://www.nps.gov/mono/learn/histo...-to-battle.htm
 
Oh good God, not this conspiracy theory nonsense!

No, what I meant was McClellan thought the orders were phonies. Most of his officers thought they were genuine but it took time to convince McClellan of that and the wasted time couldn't be made up...
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
McClellan's lack of reliable intelligence contributed to his caution, but was not the full reason for it. He was simply a naturally cautious general. Assuming he had a perfectly accurate picture of Lee's (or Johnston's) defending force, I can't see him suddenly becoming Napoleon and launching a bold offensive.
 
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