Dithering

This article will no doubt set Dimitri's teeth on edge, combining as does his favorite general, George Brinton McClellan, and his least favorite author, Doris Kearns Goodwin (as well as Abraham Lincoln and the One):

On the Charlie Rose Show, presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin said President Obama mustn't be rushed to make a decision. After all, she noted, Lincoln waited until the right time to make the Emancipation Proclamation. I'm curious how a Pulitzer-Prize winning historian who has written a fantastic book on Lincoln's political genius would make such a poor analogy -- not merely because of the incongruity of the conflicts, but because it's a tragic example of dithering that cost lives.

The Emancipation Proclamation did indeed require good timing, thus it followed on the heels of the victory of the Battle of Antietam. But Lincoln had already set his mind on freeing the slaves -- the wording and political support merely needed to be solidified. He already knew of his strategy. The person who was causing the delay was in fact General George B. McClellan, whose willingness to delay action and refusal to do so allowed enemy forces to prepare and react.

McClellan's, shall we call it, dithering, caused Antietam to become the bloodiest day of the Civil War, in fact, the single bloodiest day in American military history. General Lee had said of him, "He is an able general but a very cautious one. His army is in a very demoralized and chaotic condition, and will not be prepared for offensive operations—or he will not think it so—for three or four weeks."

George Meets David?

I'm playing with a new camera this evening, so I'll keep it short.

For you McClellan lovers (hi, Dimitri!) -- and Bush haters (hi, everyone else!) -- here's an article guaranteed to raise your blood pressure, by Mackubin Thomas Owens, one of my favorite military writers: Our Generals Almost Cost Us Iraq. Here's a taste:

In late 2006, President Bush, like President Lincoln in 1862, adopted a new approach to the war. He replaced the uniformed and civilian leaders who were adherents of the failed operational approach with others who shared his commitment to victory rather than "playing for a tie." In Gen. David Petraeus, Mr. Bush found his Ulysses Grant, to execute an operational approach based on sound counterinsurgency doctrine. This new approach has brought the U.S. to the brink of victory.

Have a nice day.

George McClellan, Whining Jerk

I'm sorry. George Brinton McClellan just makes my blood boil. It isn't so much what he does or doesn't do. It's the fact that he's a jerk, and an insubordinate one at that. Alternately a blowhard and, when thing's don't go right, a whining loser whose immediate reaction is to blame everyone but himself. Consider this June 25, 1862 telegram to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton:

I regret my great inferiority in numbers but feel that I am in no way responsible for it as I have not failed to represent repeatedly the necessity of reinforcements, that this was the decisive point, & that all the available means of the Govt should be concentrated here. I will do all that a General can do with the splendid Army I have the honor to command & if it is destroyed by overwhelming numbers can at least die with it & share its fate.

But if the result of the action which will probably occur tomorrow or within a short time is a disaster the responsibility cannot be thrown on my shoulders -- it must rest where it belongs. . . .

Assume, for the sake of argument, that McClellan's fantasies about relative numbers were correct. Assume further that Lincoln was dead wrong not to send every man east of the Appalachians to the Peninsula. Even so, can someone explain to me, please, why the man who dictated those words shouldn't have been fired on the spot?

Thanks, Brett!

Some time ago, Brett Schulte reviewed and recommended Russel Beatie's volume on the beginning of the Peninsula Campaign. I told Brett that I doubted I had the stamina or the interest to read 700 pages covering a 90-day period, which did not even get me to Seven Pines. I confessed, however, that the only book on the Peninsula Campaign that I had read was Stephen Sears's To the Gates of Richmond, which was highly critical of McClellan. I inferred from Dimitri's heated but cryptic posts that there were other points of view, particularly regarding troop numbers. Did Brett have a recommendation on another book on the Campaign?

In response, Brett was kind enough to recommend Brian K. Burton's Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles, which I finally got around to ordering and received on Thursday.

Although I have only just cracked the book, this is clearly a well-done work. I could not resist turning first to the book's Appendix A, entitled "Union and Confederate Troop Strengths," which is alone worth the price of admission.

However, Burton's conclusion -- that "the two armies were very close in effective strength," perhaps within 1,000 men -- does not absolve McClellan. Burton himself concludes that responsibility for the ridiculously inflated estimates of Confederate troop strength produced by Pinkerton lies with McClellan:

The first substantial overestimate of Confederate numbers occurred in early August 1861 and was McClellan's alone. Pinkerton's first strength report, while an overestimate, was not as high as McClellan's, and Little Mac then told Pinkerton to make his estimates high. Moreover, as Pinkerton improved his estimates of the number of rebel regiments -- to the point where he was only 20 percent or so off -- he stopped using regiments to estimate strength and instead resorted to irrational methods.

Burton tentatively concludes "that McClellan believed his own numbers, there was no attempt to deceive people in Washington." However, that only convicts McClellan of stupidity at best and moral cowardice at worst.

I will read with interest Burton's take on McClellan's decision to board the Galena on June 30. Stephen Sears's withering criticism has stuck with me: "The truth of the matter is that George McClellan had lost the courage to command." We shall see. In the meantime, thanks, Brett, for a great lead!

McClellan Accepts

Just a small footnote to Scott Johnson's post at Power Line that touches on the 1864 Democratic platform.

I'm no fan of George McClellan, but to his credit he tactfully but firmly repudiated the most offensive portions of the platform when he accepted the Democratic nomination that year. Here's the key portion of McClellan's letter of acceptance (emphasis added):

The Union was originally formed by the exercise of a spirit of conciliation and compromise. To restore and preserve it, the same spirit must prevail in our councils and in the hearts of the people. The reestablishment of the Union, in all its integrity, is and must continue to be the indispensable condition in any settlement. So soon as it is clear, or even probable, that our present adversaries are ready for peace upon the basis of the Union, we should exhaust all the resources of statesmanship practiced by civilized nations, and taught by the traditions of the American people, consistent with the honor and interests of the country, to secure such peace, reestablish the Union, and guarantee for the future the constitutional rights of every State. The Union is the one condition of peace. We ask no more.

Let me add what I doubt not was, although unexpressed, the sentiment of the convention, as it is of the people they represent, that when any one State is willing to return to the Union it should be received at once with a full guarantee of all its constitutional rights. If a frank, earnest, and persistent effort to obtain these objects should fail, the responsibility for ulterior consequences will fall upon those who remain in arms against the Union, but the Union must be preserved at all hazards. I could not look in the face my gallant comrades of the army and navy who have survived so many bloody battles, and tell them that their labors, and the sacrifices of so many of our slain and wounded brethren, had been in vain, that we had abandoned that Union for which we have so often perilled our lives. A vast majority of our people, whether in the army and navy or at home, would, as I would, hail with unbounded joy the permanent restoration of peace on the basis of the Union under the Constitution, without the effusion of another drop of blood, but no peace can be permanent without Union.

Mercifully, Sherman having already taken Atlanta, McClellan's candidacy was dead on arrival.