RERomine -> RE: The Great McClellan debate from jchatain's thread (11/22/2006 5:07:29 AM)
|
The easiest thing in the world is to point out what went wrong, after it went wrong, thus the phrase "Arm Chair Quarterback". McClellan, believing he was really out number, going up against one of the most audacious commanders to fight on this continent, didn't do that badly. One has to ask how short of a leash did Lincoln have McClellan on? Grant wasn't on the same leash. Under what circumstances would Lincoln have allowed McClellan, Pope, Hooker or Burnside try to maneuver around Lee and get to Richmond, while leaving Washington open? One of the standing orders was they could maneuver, as long as they could cover Washington. The Eastern theater in 1864-65 was different than in 1861-62. Switching places, McClellan might have looked brilliant at Fts. Henry/Donelson, Shiloh and Vicksburg and Grant might have gotten his walking papers after a Peninsula Campaign and Antietam. There is just no way to know how it would have played out differently. Grant also had the knowledge that backing up was not a good career move. By the time the Vicksburg campaign was under way, he had seen McDowell, McClellan, Burnside and Pope had been removed in the East after failures. He subbornly refused to back off when stuck in the swamps in Louisiana, because there were many lessons depicting the price of failure. As far as McClellan's actual campaigns go, that leash comes into play. Sure, he was pushed from the outskirts of Richmond to Harrison's Landing, but he wasn't prepared to give it up. He had a plan to move against Petersburg, but it was vetoed by Halleck and the army was withdrawn. McClellan wasn't permitted to exploit all the casualties that Lee had taken during Seven Days. At Antietam, the plan was to hit both flanks at once. Obviously, that didn't work any better than Lee's similar attempt at Gettysburg. The Union Corps came across as attacking in piecemeal echelon, but that was not the plan. McClellan could have prodded Burnside to attack when he should have, but Lee could have done the same thing on the 2nd day with Ewell. Plans are only as good as their execution and when they fail to be executed, the army commander gets blamed. How many times have we read so and so had a great plan, but somewhere along the line, the execution failed? While I wouldn't rate McClellan as a top notch army commander, he certained appeared to be adequate. No better or worse than Meade at Gettysburg. Meade let Lee get out of Pennsylvannia and had a better chance to stop him than McClellan did, yet Meade kept his job. McClellan might have too if he had been a little less arrogant. I can accept him being classified as an idiot based on that, but not by his actions in the field.
|
|
|
|