Was George B McClellan the Most Underrated General of the U.S. Civil War?

Here Jeb Smith argues that General George B. McClellan was the most underrated army commander of the Civil War. While he does not consider him to be a great general or military genius, he thinks the common portrayal of him as a terrible commander is unjust. No other Northern general, people say, exemplifies the stereotype of an incompetent and timid leader as McClellan does. The author argues that this is an unwarranted perception.

Abraham Lincoln and George B. McClellan in the general's tent during the Battle of Antietam on October 3, 1862.

“No other general in the war commanded more respect and admiration from his men than George McClellan.”

-John Cannan The Antietam Campaign

“Remember that your only foes are the armed traitors,–and show mercy even to them when they are in your power, for many of them are misguided” and later “Bear in mind that you are in the country of friends, not of enemies,–that you are here to protect, not to destroy.”

-George B McClellan May 26 1861 and June 25 1861

Northern Democrats did not see the South as the spawn of Satan but rather as fellow Americans who, in fact, had produced most of the Union leaders up to that point. General McClellan, a Democrat, held tolerant views of the South and sought to avoid needless bloodshed. These perspectives stand in contrast to those of many modern historians and the Republicans of the time, who shaped the narrative to justify the massacres that would follow, as well as the total warfare of 1864 and 1865.

West Virginia and Promotion

“Harley six weeks had elapsed... and in that time he had actually created an army and began the first campaign.”

-George b McClellan Commanding General U.S army May 26 1861

George B. McClellan, nicknamed “Young Napoleon” or “Little Mac,” graduated second in his class of 59 at the U.S. Military Academy in 1846. His class included 20 future full-rank generals, and he later returned to West Point as an instructor.

After the war began, he excelled at organizing militia from three states into a cohesive fighting force and saw his first action as a commander of Union forces in what is now West Virginia. This was a departure from his later reputation as a slow-moving, timid general. During a successful campaign in the mountainous region he launched aggressive attacks, dislodged Confederate forces, and captured key positions. He forced the retreat of Confederate troops fortified in the mountain terrain, all while taking minimal losses and securing large supply bases and many prisoners. This success helped preserve the future West Virginia for the Union and prevented the destruction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. President Lincoln was very impressed, which led to McClellan’s appointment to replace McDowell after the latter’s defeat in the Battle of First Manassas[1], and later as the commander of all Union forces.

Organization of the Army of the Potomac

“In a very real sense, McClellan rescued the Union in these early days from dependency and fear. Someone had to rebuild the army and show the country that there was great hope for the future.”

-S.C. Gwynne Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson Simon and Schuster 2014

The nonmilitary press and President Abraham Lincoln, who was pressured for political reasons, wanted quick action and a fast end to the war. Part of what fueled this was the North's inability (even after First Manassas) to see how determined the South was. They thought this would be a quick, easy conflict. They underestimated the South's resolve to fight and ability to wage war. So, while the press and Lincoln called on Mac for fast action, as a military man Mac understood that the demoralized citizen army needed discipline, training, and organization. He provided these, got rid of poorly-performing generals and instilled spirit and pride in the soldiers while increasing their morale. He came to be loved and revered by his men.

One thing even those who are critical of him admit is that he was a first-rate organizer of the army. Mac took a defeated militia force and turned it into a professional army.

“McClellan had started with…a collection of undisciplined, ill-officered, and un-instructed men, who were, as a rule, much demoralized by defeat and ready to run at the first shot. He ended with the finest army ever seen on the North American continent.”

-James V. Murfin Battlefields of the Civil War

Had the North attacked before they were ready, as Lincoln and the press called for, the result would likely have been further defeats and a shattering blow to national morale. As General Sherman stated, Napoléon took three years to build an army, yet “here it's expected in ninety days, and Bull Run is the consequence.”

Mac's offensive plan, as called for by many in the North, was to mass a large army, some said up to 200,000, to march on Richmond and end the war. The Northern people wanted no mistakes after First Manassas. This was Mac's general plan; one that would take time and preparation. Mac also constructed large fortifications around D.C., which had been left almost entirely unguarded by McDowell, including 48 forts and 480 guns. Given that Mac had to train, organize, recruit, and supply a massive citizen army and transform it into a world-class professional army, the time he took to do so was entirely reasonable.

“When I was placed in command of the armies of the United States, I turned my attention to the whole field of operations, regarding the army of the Potomac as only one, while the most important, of the masses under my command.”

-George B. McClellan 1861

Further, Mac was commander of all armies and planned for a simultaneous synchronized attack across the Confederacy, which would take further time to plan and put in motion. On August 4th, 1861, in a letter to Lincoln, he laid out his plan that included the main attack to be against Richmond but also simultaneously pushing into Missouri and down the Mississippi, and after Kentucky joined the Union to push into Tennessee, seizing Nashville, and also begin capturing coastal cities such as New Orleans, Savannah and Mobile, then move on to Montgomery and Pensacola. Mac wanted one massive assault to wipe out the South and not a prolonged war; this would take time to prepare. In February 1862 he wrote to Secretary of War Stanton, saying “I have ever regarded our true policy as being that of fully preparing ourselves and then seeking for the most decisive results; – I do not wish to waste life in useless battles, but prefer to strike at the heart.” He did not want years of bloodshed to wear down the South, but brief, decisive action to end the war quickly.

Demotion by Lincoln

Just when Mac felt his army was ready, winter had started in, and Mac was bedridden for three weeks around Christmas. Lincoln wanted action now despite the impassable roads (he would not demand Grant move this early in ‘64) and Mac was accused of being timid. This offensive action was attempted in the winter of ‘62 by Burnside, and the results were Fredericksburg and the “mud march,” which ended in Burnside's removal. Grant, in ‘64, would start his spring offensive in April, later than Mac would his Peninsula campaign. As Grant said, the roads in Virginia would not allow large movements of troops before then, leading William Swinton in Campaigns of the Army of the Potomacto write, “It was inevitable that the first leaders should be sacrificed to the nation’s ignorance of war.”

So Mac started at the average time for spring offensives. No other Union army was campaigning during this winter. Yet, because of Lincoln's urgency and what he saw as a too-cautious McClellan, he demoted Mac to simply commander of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln also forced corps commanders he had chosen on the Army of the Potomac. Mac wanted to wait to promote generals until he had seen them in battle. This was not the last time a politician interfered with Mac's plans.

Peninsula Campaign Begins

“Reduced my force by 1/3, after (bless and do not curse) task had been assigned, its operations planned... it frustrated all my plans... it left me incapable of continuing operations which had been begun. It made rapid and brilliant operations impossible.”

-George B McClellan

“Let me tell you that if your government had supported General McClellan in the field as it should have done, your war would have been ended two years sooner than it was.”

-- General Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army and one of the leading military experts of the 19th Century

The Peninsula Campaign began with McClellan's strategic plan for an amphibious operation. Leveraging the North's naval superiority to transport and supply his army, he ultimately aimed for Richmond. Mac anticipated having over 150,000 men for the campaign as he set out for the peninsula. However, once he landed, Lincoln would significantly reduce his army with the other troops spread around the valley, D.C., and the Manassas region.

Mac had wanted more men for the offensive, but Lincoln wanted him to hold men back to guard D.C. Lincoln forced Mac to leave McDowell’s I Corps in D.C. along with the garrison already available. Lincoln now had a garrison of around 20,000 in D.C. and up to 74,000 as far as N.Y. that could be shipped/railed/marched to D.C. if it were attacked. Plus, McClellan had set up world-class fortifications. McClellan, McDowell, Winfield Scott, and every corps commander believed this was more than enough men to guard D.C. and supported McClellan's plan to bring more men, but Lincoln would not allow it for fear of D.C. being attacked. Perhaps out of fear of Stonewall Jackson, it was Lincoln, not the general, who, in this instance, was being overly cautious. In Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan (1864), author George Stillman Hillard wrote, “From the moment the Army of the Potomac landed upon the Peninsula an uneasy sense of insecurity took possession of the minds of the President, the Cabinet, and the members of Congress.”

So Mac landed the army, which was slow-moving because it was massive and carried heavy siege equipment. He faced the largest army the South would field during the war, 88,000 (Grant faced 65,000 in ’64, with a more significant force under him than Mac enjoyed). Once his army landed, he was notified that Stanton had closed all the recruiting depots in the Union. His army would now have to do without either replacements or reinforcements during a major campaign.

This was a massive shock to Mac and the generals in the army. He then was told that McDowell's 40,000 men near Manassas could not be used but must help defend against any possible action towards D.C., despite the fact that Confederates showed no signs of attacking and even burned the bridges south of Manassas as they retreated to defend Richmond. McDowell told McClellan this decision (McDowell protested it) was “Intended [as] a blow to you.” Then McClellan was told the garrison of 10,000 men at Fort Monroe would also be withheld. Even critics of McClellan, like General Heintzelman, said it was a “great outrage” to withhold his army from his command. General Wells said it was the Radical Republicans trying to get Mac to resign. Harper’s Weekly stated, “It is impossible to exaggerate the mischief which has been done by division of counsels and civilian interference with military movements.” Once more, Mac was aggressive, Lincoln and the politicians conservative.

“In General McClellan’s opinion, the way to defend Washington was to attack Richmond; and the greater the force thrown against the rebel capital, the greater the security of our own.”

-George Stillman Hillard Life and Campaigns of George B McClellan 1864

Mac was now forced to revise his plans because of Lincoln's caution. In the revised plan, McDowell would advance on Richmond from the north with his 40,000 men and better protect against an attack by Confederate General Joe Johnston if he went north to Washington. However, as Mac argued, the attack on Richmond would force the Confederate army to defend their capital rather than launch a desperate attack on D.C. This disagreement delayed the start of the campaign, with Lincoln getting his way.

“Notwithstanding all that has been said and written upon this subject, I have no hesitation in expressing the opinion, that had not the President and his advisors stood in such ungrounded fear for the safety of Washington, and had not withheld McDowell's forces at a time when their absence was a most serious blow to the plans of General McClellan, the close of the year would have seen the Rebellion crushed, and the war ended.”

-- Allan Pinkerton, chief of the Union Intelligence Service, 1861-1862

Yorktown

Mac moved up the peninsula towards Richmond and was promised McDowell’s men if D.C was free of threat. His army's first encounter was with Confederate General John Magruder and a small Confederate force at Yorktown. Magruder skillfully deceived Mac into believing his force was larger than it actually was. He accomplished this by repositioning the same troops in various locations, acting aggressively, continuously moving small units, using ammunition freely, and setting up dummy defensive positions. This convinced Mac that the Confederate force was more significant than it truly was, prompting him to settle in for a siege while he awaited the arrival of his heavy artillery. Mac was concerned that his inexperienced troops might fail in an assault during the first battle of the campaign, which could damage their morale. Mac eventually captured Yorktown and 80 heavy guns without losses, but the delay gave the Confederates time to organize troops to defend Richmond.

Advance on Richmond

Mac then started to push toward Richmond, and the Confederates gave way. The Union army captured both supply and ordnance during this advance. Mac is criticized for slow movement with a smaller Confederate force in front of him, yet he relied upon his friend and “expert” spy Alan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Whatever the value of Pinkerton’s other information, one area in which he failed was in accurately assessing enemy troop numbers. He gave Confederate force numbers from various agents as 160,000, 123,000, 180,000, and even 200,000 in Richmond. And on August 6, Federal General Halleck gave estimates of 200,000 around Richmond. Some northern newspapers working independently gave even higher estimates than Mac did. Because of this, Mac actually believed he was outnumbered.

This was common during the war, with generals thinking the force opposing them was more extensive than it really was. Since this was his information, he believed he was not being cautious but aggressive and daring to continue the campaign, even if at a slow/careful pace. At the time, the enemy numbers were not certain. Mac also waited for his heavy siege artillery to come up from the back, as it was needed to attack Richmond's prominent forts at the Confederate capital.

But without a doubt, the advance was working. Richmond was preparing to evacuate. It forced the Confederates to scuttle the ironclad Virginia, which caused a loss of morale throughout the Confederacy. Confederate General Joe Johnston called General Ewell from Jackson to help in Richmond. McDowell was advancing unopposed north of Richmond. Mac had achieved better success than McDowell, Burnside, Hooker, or Meade advancing on Richmond.

“It was not until 1864 that another Union army, led by Grant, would get as close to Richmond as McClellan did in the spring of 1862.”

--Great Campaigns: The Peninsula Campaign David G. Martin Combined Books PA 1992

The next time the Federals would get this close was under their top general, U.S. Grant. They also fought against a weakened Southern army in ‘64 with a much larger Federal army.

But this time, three things saved Richmond and stopped Mac from capturing the Confederate capital and being hailed as a hero. All three had to happen to stop Mac; two of them were very unlikely and could not have been foreseen.

1] Jackson in the Valley

“The most significant contrast between the Virginia campaigns of Grant and McClellan is that Early's offensive did not accomplish its ultimate objective–to relieve the pressure on Lee's army at Petersburg, Jackson's campaign in the Shenandoah valley did. Unlike McClellan before him, Grant would not be forced to alter his designs on the James River one iota.

-Thomas Rowland George B. McClellan and Civil War History

Unlike Lincoln, Mac saw Jackson's valley campaign as a diversion by Lee (now in command of the Southern Army) to pull federals away to help protect Richmond. Richmond was saved because of Jackson's brilliance in the valley. He outmaneuvered and outfought a force over three times the size of his own (17,000- 60,000), defeating them in multiple battles while also threatening D.C.

Jackson knew Lincoln was concerned with protecting D.C. Hence, he knew that aggressive maneuvers would pull men from the peninsula and help save Richmond. Jackson kept 71,000 additional men away from the Richmond attack with his victories and aggressive maneuvering. Lincoln was constantly scared by what Jackson might do, and this prevented McDowell and other troops from helping Mac; the withholding of McDowell would prove decisive.

2] Lincoln Recalling Troops to the Valley

“[It was] Jackson's campaign, and the insane terror it inspired in Washington, which was the true cause of the failure on the peninsula.”

-Colonel Ferdinand Lecomte, quoted in George Stillman Hillard Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan 1864

Because of Jackson, Lincoln recalled troops to defend Washington and the valley. He also held back McDowell's 40,000 from the attack on Richmond. This “Changed the whole nature of the confrontation near Richmond,” and “The Confederacy was truly handed an amazing gift.” Mac would have rather left Jackson to clear out the valley and even attack D.C. if he wished. Mac had built massive forts with a large garrison to protect the capital.

“Here is the true defense of Washington, it is here on the banks of the James.”

-McClellan to Halleck August 4th, quoted in George Stillman Hillard Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan 1864

After Pinkerton reported a large number of enemy forces to McClellan, he paused his attack due to McDowell's absence. McDowell was supposed to launch an assault on Richmond from the north to prevent the Confederates from mounting counterattacks. McDowell described his recall to the valley as “a crushing blow to us.” Even Lincoln told McClellan, “If you believe you are not strong enough to take Richmond, just know that I do not ask you to try. Just know.”

3] Lee Replaces Joe Johnston

General Joe Johnston, the commanding Confederate general, was injured and replaced by Robert E. Lee. This would change the entire campaign. Mac had been slowly pushing Johnston back towards Richmond, but Lee would take the initiative and attack Mac.

Lee vs Mac

Lincoln’s maneuvers significantly reduced the Mac forces near Richmond attempting to trap Jackson in the valley. Heavy rains swelled the Chickahominy River and created a split the Potomac army, and Lee saw his opportunity.

Lee, whom many consider not only the premier general of the South but of the war, recalled Jackson from the valley to help in the offensive vs. Mac, now with a force nearly equal to his.

Lee would strike the smaller portion of Mac's army and threaten its supply line under General Porter. Porter was supposed to be supported by McDowell from the north to meet up with his flank coming south from Manassas. Had Mac's plan been allowed, the attack would not have been possible. However, when Lincoln sent McDowell to the valley to trap Jackson, Porter was vulnerable, and Lee pounced, enabling its strategic success.

“General McClellan wished and had advised that reinforcements should be sent him by water, as their arrival would be more certain. Now that the James River was open, they might have been sent by that route... Richmond could have been approached by the James, and we should have escaped the delays and losses incurred by the bridging of the Chickahominy, and should have had the army massed in one body instead of necessarily being divided by that stream... the capture of Richmond could not be carried out because to the president’s distempered fancy Washington was not safe... McClellan was commanded to extend his right wing to the north of Richmond, in order to establish the communication between himself and General McDowell. This was running a great risk in case General McDowell should not come, because it exposed our right in a way no prudent officer would have done; and, as General McDowell did not come, the enemy did not fail to take advantage.”

-George Stillman Hillard Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan 1864

Lee attacked in multiple bloody battles, resulting in high losses on both sides. Mac would cause high casualties to Lee during the campaign, inflicting more losses than he received. However, Mac, going from “expert” information, believed he was outnumbered and was in danger of being cut off without help from the north. With Lincoln recalling so many of his troops, he ordered a retreat off the peninsula. Mac telegraphed D.C., stating, “If I save this army now, I tell you plainly I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington...you have done your best to sacrifice this army.”

The retreat on the peninsula was dangerous, yet McClellan and Porter skillfully conducted it to save their forces from disaster. Mac would withdraw by night and defend a favorable position by day. It was a major strategic victory for the South yet a tactical victory for the Union. Lincoln called it a “half defeat.” Given the force size and causalities suffered, Mac performed better than the future Union commanders of the Army of the Potomac.

-Peninsula campaign stats

-Union Forces 105,000 Casualties 23,900 approx.

-Confederate Forces (inc. Jackson) 88,500 Casualties 29,600 app.

Antietam/Mac Takes Command

“I must have McClellan to reorganize this army and bring it out of chaos...there is no man in this army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops into shape half as well as he can.”

-Abraham Lincoln

“General McClellan has again assumed the supreme command of the army... His reception by the officers and soldiers was marked by the most unbounded enthusiasm. In every camp his arrival was greeted by hearty and prolonged cheering... Already his... visit to our camps has wrought a remarkable change in the soldiers. His presence seemed to act magically upon them; despondency is replaced by confidence, and all are glad that McClellan will, hereafter direct them.”

-Ellis’s Leaves from the Diary of an Army Surgeon, p. 214, quoted in George Stillman Hillard Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan 1864

Lincoln's selection of the aggressive Republican general John Pope to lead the army led to the embarrassment at Second Manassas. Pope was then exiled to Minnesota to fight Indians, and Lee turned his attention to an invasion of the North. Meanwhile, Mac had to reorganize Pope’s defeated, demoralized army that was integrated into his command and try to restore morale. Mac was reinstated in command of Pope's army and the Army of the Potomac on September 2nd.  The effect was immediate:

“The effect of the news was instantaneous. All of a sudden the federals forgot their defeat, weariness, and hunger and exploded into triumphant hurrahs, multitudes of caps were thrown in the air.”

-John Cannan The Antietam Campaign

Slow to Meet Lee?

A common criticism of McClellan during the Antietam campaign is that he was slow to move the army out to confront Lee's invasion, which allowed Lee to enter Maryland. Lee entered Maryland around September 4-7. Mac had just taken control of a disorganized, defeated army on the 2nd, and “worked a minor miracle in the next few days as he restored the army's morale and organization, and equally significant, its pride and sense of purpose.” No other man in the army could have restored morale and cohesion as quickly as Mac did before the Battle of Antietam. He had reorganized his army and marched to meet Lee by September 9th. Lee had expected a longer time for Mac to prepare, and his fast reaction spoiled Lee's plan to capture Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In his article Showdown on South Mountain historian Dennis Frye wrote, “Pennsylvania was Robert E Lee's target in September 1862. But Maryland and George McClellan got in the way.”

Mac had other reasons to be cautious. General Halleck advised General McClellan to be watchful regarding Washington, D.C., and to wait until General Lee's intentions were fully understood. Halleck believed that Lee was attempting to draw McClellan out, rather than planning a direct attack on D.C. Additionally, McClellan received continual reports from his cavalry regarding enemy troop strength, estimating between 60,000 and 120,000 soldiers. General Porter estimated Lee's army to be 100,000, while General Sumner's assessment was 130,000. This information was accepted by the Union high command, who believed that Lee must have been reinforced in preparation for an invasion.

Mac moved west, forcing Lee to fall back to link with Jackson from Harpers Ferry. Mac helped lead the attack at the Crampton’s Gap, Turner’s Gap and Fox's Gap battles—all victories. At Turner's Gap, CSA losses were 2,300 and USA losses 1,800, even though the attack was up a mountain and through rough terrain. On Sep 16th, Mac trapped Lee by a flank maneuver on Lee's left and captured the road to Hagerstown, forcing Lee's northern invasion to end. Frye wrote, “Lee saw his invasion crumbling. The most important matter now was not Pennsylvania, but preservation of the army.” Mac even took the unpredictable and aggressive General Stonewall Jackson off-guard, causing him to say “I thought I knew McClellan, but this movement puzzles me.”

The Battle of Antietam

The two armies met near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17th. The “cautious” Mac would assault the Confederate lines, leading to the bloodiest day of the war. Mac's plan was to attack both the Confederate left and right simultaneously, followed up with a massive reserve attack in the center.

While not a complete failure the attack failed to destroy Lee, partly due to Burnside's late arrival at the battle. Burnside delayed his assault on the Confederate right, “throwing off the whole plan,” and allowing Lee to shift reinforcements along his line to meet Union forces in the center and left. McClellan sent a half dozen couriers to Burnside to push him to strike more swiftly and threatened to relieve him of command. Yet, Lee's army was nearly breaking in all three sectors.

Mac did not show tactical genius and made some mistakes, but in the end, it was a strategic victory for the North and a tactical draw. He rested on the 18th to resupply (artillery near out of ammo) and gave orders to attack come daylight on the 19th, but the Confederates had left. The battle sent Lee's wounded army back to Virginia and, more importantly, ended any hopes the Confederacy had for European involvement in the war. Thus Frye wrote that “George McClellan saved the union.”

“A man who could take a demoralized army, as McClellan took the combined forces that had been defeated under Pope in front of Washington at the second Bull Run, restore its discipline by the magic of his name and his swift reconstruction of its shattered organizations, and then lead it to victory within fourteen days, after an almost unexampled celerity of movement against the enemy who had crushed it two weeks before--such a man is not to be spoken of or thought of as wanting in the force and vigor of a great general.”

-- George T. Curtis, U.S. Commissioner, historian

Antietam stats

Union Forces 87,000 Casualties 12,401

Confederate Forces 47,000 Casualties 10,316

McClellan Allowed Lee to Escape?

Lincoln heavily criticized Mac for not destroying Lee's army and not following him back into Virginia. However, Mac had sent Porter to harass the enemy retreat, which had initial success, capturing 40 Confederate artillery pieces. However, A.P. Hill counter-attacked, pushing the Union men back across the Potomac. Hill said it was “The most terrible slaughter...a lesson to the enemy, and taught them to know it may sometimes be dangerous to press a retreating army.”

Often, retreating armies fought significant rearguard actions to prevent their own destruction. Civil War battles rarely ended with the destruction of one or other army, only in 1865 when the South was near defeat was an army nearly annihilated. The assumption it could happen in 1862 points more to the expectations of the early-war North than realistic military goals. When the army was criticized for not destroying Lee's forces, a soldier in the Army of the Potomac replied. “Think the rebel army can be bagged? Let them come and bag them. Easy to talk about.” Historian John Cannan said the counter attack showed the federals that the rebels “still had a formidable bite.” Dennis Frye, who studied the Antietam campaign for over 50 years, wrote that ideas that Lee could be easily destroyed were “Myths created by politicians” not accurate judgments based on historical truth.

Further, the Federals were low on supply and had just fought two large-scale engagements. Lee knew where Mac would be unable to supply his army and planned his withdrawal accordingly. Mac was also working off his cavalry’s and Pinkerton's estimates of the Confederate strength. Thinking the Confederates still had equal force, he chose not to push the attack or risk a loss on Maryland soil that would endanger D.C. and the outcome of the war.

Far from defeated, after Lee had fallen back to Virginia he planned to continue the attack again. He sent Stuart’s Cavalry to create a bridgehead at Williamsport, Maryland, to renew the invasion. However, Mac had anticipated this move and sent his own cavalry along with the 6th Corps to prevent such a move. As argued by Dennis Frye, Mac outthought Lee in Maryland.

Later in October, Mac's quick and aggressive move into the Warrenton, Virginia area surprised Lee, splitting Lee's army. Both Lee and Longstreet were concerned. However, Lincoln had given the order two days before, and Mac was removed from command.

Conclusion

“There are strong grounds for believing that he was the best commander the army of the Potomac ever had.”

-Francis Palfrey Antietam, Fredericksburg

While I would not go as far as the above quote does, I would say Mac was the most underrated general of the war. He does not get credit where he should and gets the blame where he should not. I do not see Mac as cautious to a fault as claimed. It was often Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck being over-cautious about protecting D.C. that interfered with Mac's plans. And his military intel let him down, not his over-cautious nature.

“Look at his campaign in Western Virginia in 1861,–a part of his military career conveniently ignored by his enemies. Here he had a separate command, a defined field of action and was not hampered and trammeled by interference from Washington; and do we see any signs of indecision and want of promptness here? On the contrary, we observe the happiest combination of judgement in design and vigor in execution: one skilful and powerful blow was instantly followed by another, and the result was absolute and permanent military success.”

-George Stillman Hillard Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan 1864

Lincoln and the press wanted aggression, and the results were First Manassas, Burnside at Fredericksburg, Pope at Second Manassas, and later Hooker at Chancellorsville. No general of the early war could handle the tandem of Jackson and Lee. Extreme events withheld Mac from the capture of Richmond in ‘62.

A fair critical comparison between Mac and Sherman/Grant is favorable to Mac. Later, when Grant/Sherman gained victories, it was more because of the Confederate armies' reduced capability to offer resistance than their ability to be outgeneral Mac.

I believe the real reason for Lincoln's disappointment with Mac was the North's high expectations. Underestimating the resolve of the South and their leadership, the North desired one battle and one victory in Virginia, which would win the war for them. But it took years for them to realize their error, though doubt began early as Lincoln wrote to his friend Carl Schurz in 1862, “I fear we shall at last find out that the difficulty is in our cause rather than in particular generals.”

“McClellan's relationship with Lincoln is central to any understanding of why historians judge him as a flawed personality...Lincoln has attained a stature that sets him apart from other mortals”

-Thomas J Rowland George B McClellan and Civil Har History: In the Shadow of Grant and Sherman Kent State University Press

Historians may have viewed McClellan negatively because he opposed and disagreed with Lincoln. He committed the “unpardonable sin” of running against Lincoln in the 1864 election on a peace platform aimed at ending the bloodshed. In 1864 George Stillman Hillard wrote, “The real reasons for which General McClellan was removed were political, and not military.” Historian Dennis Frye said “The Republicans could not allow McClellan to be a victor. They could not allow that to happen. They needed to do everything they could to smear McClellan.”

“However patriotic the abolitionist radicals in the north may have been, the very last thing they wanted was for Little Mac to win in the battle for Richmond....the abolitionists would lose their influence.”

-S.C. Gwynne Rebel Yell The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson Simon and Schuster 2014

“There is a political element connected with this war which must not be overlooked.”

-Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War Dec 26 1861 quoted in George Stillman Hillard Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan 1864

Lincoln acknowledged that he made many errors that undermined McClellan's chances for success. After McClellan, Lincoln refrained from becoming directly involved with his generals. It appears that some historians have unfairly attributed Lincoln's military shortcomings to McClellan.

“At this moment a considerable portion of his countrymen have their minds barred against all arguments and considerations in defense of General McClellan, by political prejudice. To deny him all military capacity is part of the creed of a great political party. Most supporters of the present administration hold it to be a point of duty to disparage and decry him.”

-George Stillman Hillard Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan 1864

Jeb Smith is the author of four books, the most recent being Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About The Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, And Liberty. Before that, he published The Road Goes Ever On and On: A New Perspective on J. R. R. Tolkien and Middle-earth and also authored Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War, written under the name Isaac C. Bishop. Smith has authored dozens of articles in numerous publications, including History is Now Magazine, The Postil Magazine, Medieval History, Medieval Magazine, and Fellowship & Fairydust, and has been featured on various podcasts.

Major Battles and Casualties of Union Generals vs Lee

Union commander/ Battle/ Union Losses/ Lee loses/ Union causality per confederate causality

Pope- Second Manassas 13,879 Lee 8,353 1.65 per

Hooker- Chancellorsville 17,100 Lee 12,151 1.43 per

Burnside- Fredericksburg 13,353 Lee 4,576 2.95 per

Grant- Wilderness 18,400 Lee 11,400 1.61 per

Grant- Spotsylvania 18,000 Lee 12,000 1.5 per

Grant- Cold Harbor 12,737 Lee 4,594 2.8 per

Grant- Total 49,100 Lee 27,900 1.75 per

Meade- Gettysburg 23,049 Lee 28,063 .82 per

Meade- Total [above/Grant] 72,049 Lee 55,963 1.29 per

McClellan- Peninsula 15,849 Lee 20,133 .78 per

McClellan - Antietam 12,401 Lee 10,316 1.2 per

McClellan - Total 28,250 Lee 30,449 .92 per

McClellan was the only Union general to give more casualties than taken when faced with Lee. His average over two battles was only bested once by a Union commander, by Meade (who performed worse overall) at Gettysburg. Mac fought against Lee with, if anything, less of a manpower advantage than Grant would have later on. He also faced the Army of Northern Virginia while it had Jackson, was well supplied, and the South had high national morale, unlike what Grant faced.

How many other Union commanders can claim over two battles with Lee to have won a tactical victory on the first and a strategic victory and a tactical draw on the second while inflicting heavy losses? It is no wonder Lee said Mac was the best he faced. And famed Confederate John Mosby, the “gray ghost of the Confederacy,” said that McClellan was the best Union commander “by all odds.”

[1] The two battles at the same site were referred to as First and Second Manassas by the Confederacy, First and Second Bull Run by the Union. I will stick to Manassas throughout, except that where quotations from the Union side refer to Bull Run this will be left unchanged.

The Worst Union General? Major General Ambrose Burnside

Delving into the character of General Ambrose Burnside, the man whose facial hair lives on as “sideburns” in the vernacular, threatens to lose many readers from the start. Most Civil War enthusiasts would consider him a prime candidate to be named the worst Union general in the war and with some merit. And, no question, he made a series of wild miscalculations and poor judgments.

Lloyd Klein explains.

Ambrose Burnside, 1862 (on the left).

“All the world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.”

― Oscar Wilde

Burnside was actually a very talented man who was grossly miscast in the war. Baseball fans recognize that a pitcher who loses 20 games in a season must be thought of highly because a bad pitcher would never get the opportunity to keep losing; that may be a good analogy to keep in mind when reading about him. The commonly held view that he was always on hand to lose a battle will absolutely be demolished by this in-depth study, although some will not willingly part with that cherished myth.

His father had been a slave owner in South Carolina who freed his slaves and moved to Indiana. Ambrose graduated from West Point, served in garrison duty at the end of the Mexican War, served under Braxton Bragg in Nevada and California, and was the recipient of an Apache arrow through his neck in Las Vegas. He was promoted to first lieutenant and sent to duty in Rhode Island. There he resigned from the army, became commander of the state militia, got married, and went into business, with no expectation of seeing military service ever again. But you know, life can be funny sometimes; our destiny is often beyond our control.

Burnside relinquished his U.S. Army commission to fully dedicate himself to perfecting the Burnside carbine, a groundbreaking breech-loading firearm (as seen in the patent drawing). He ingeniously crafted a unique brass cartridge for this carbine, designed to hold both bullet and powder, with a notable absence of a primer. To load the weapon, users would open the breech block by manipulating the twin trigger guards, inserting the cartridge. Upon pulling the trigger, the hammer struck a separate percussion cap, creating a spark. A hole in the cartridge base ignited the black powder, with the conical cartridge expertly sealing the barrel-breech junction. Unlike many contemporary breech-loaders prone to gas leaks upon firing, Burnside's design triumphantly eliminated this issue.

President Buchanan's Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, entered into a substantial contract with the Burnside Arms Company to outfit a substantial portion of the Army, mainly cavalry, prompting Burnside to establish extensive manufacturing facilities. However, these plans were marred when allegations arose that Floyd accepted bribes to terminate the $100,000 contract with Burnside. This revolutionary concept took time for the military to grasp, and by the time its value was recognized, Burnside had already sold the patent. In 1857, the Burnside carbine triumphed in a competition at West Point, outclassing 17 other carbine designs. Nevertheless, government orders for these carbines were initially sparse. This changed with the outbreak of the Civil War, resulting in over 55,000 carbines being requisitioned for Union cavalrymen. It became the third most widely used carbine during the Civil War, surpassed only by the Sharps carbine and the Spencer carbine.

In 1858 he ran for Congress as a Democrat in Rhode Island and lost. Newly married and out of a job, he needed to find a way to support his young family. So, Burnside went west looking for a job, any job. And he was hired as the Treasurer of the Illinois Central Railroad. Anyone who doubts that the Goddess of History doesn’t have a mordant sense of humor will find this coincidence a bit much. So, consequently, his new boss became George B. McClellan, and in his position, he began working directly with its corporate attorney, one Abraham Lincoln.

The Start of the Civil War

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Burnside was a colonel in the Rhode Island Militia. He raised the 1st Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry Regiment and was appointed its colonel on May 2, 1861. Notably, two companies of this regiment were armed with Burnside carbines. In less than a month, he advanced to brigade leadership within the Department of Northeast Virginia. His performance during the First Battle of Bull Run in July was unremarkable, but he temporarily assumed division command in lieu of the wounded Brig. Gen. David Hunter.

And so suddenly, Ambrose Burnside, inventor, failed politician and businessman, Indian fighter, and fledgling railroad executive, found himself a brigadier general in the Army of the Potomac. Initially tasked with training troops in the nation's capital, his destiny took a sharp turn that autumn. Burnside was entrusted with leading three brigades within the North Carolina Expeditionary Force. Their mission: to seal the North Carolina coast to shipping as part of the naval blockade. Collaborating closely with maritime experts, Burnside orchestrated an impressive amphibious operation that indeed achieved an 80% closure of the coastline. His significant promotion to Major General on March 18, 1862, played a pivotal role in later events during the war. His brigades were officially amalgamated to form the IX Corps, and he earned recognition as one of the Union generals who contributed to Union victories.

1862

In a context where career professional soldiers ruthlessly vied for advancement, an extraordinary occurrence transpired after McClellan's Peninsula Campaign failure: Burnside was offered command of the Army of the Potomac.  He declined, citing his lack of experience in leading an army of that magnitude, resulting in John Pope assuming command. Still, the other generals looked up to him.  In the lead-up to the Second Battle of Manassas, a fellow Major General, Fitz-John Porter, repeatedly conveyed messages to Burnside, questioning Pope's competence. Burnside, concurring with Porter's assessments, forwarded them to higher-ranking authorities, a crucial factor in Porter's later court-martial, during which Burnside testified in his defense.

And after the debacle of Second Manassas, once again he was offered command, and once again, Burnside declined, citing his inexperience as the reason. He acknowledged his shortcomings as a military officer. President Lincoln pressured him on several occasions, but Burnside stood firm in his belief that he wasn't capable of leading such a sizable army, a belief ultimately vindicated by history. He repeatedly declined, saying, "I was not competent to command such a large army as this."

During the Battle of Antietam, Burnside assumed command of the Right Wing of the Army of the Potomac, overseeing the I Corps and his own IX Corps at the outset of the Maryland Campaign. However, McClellan separated these two corps during the battle, stationing them at opposite ends of the Union battle line and restoring Burnside's authority solely over the IX Corps. Burnside, implicitly refusing to relinquish his control, operated as if the corps commanders were first Maj. Gen. Jesse L. Reno (who was killed at South Mountain) and subsequently Brig. Gen. Jacob D. Cox, directing orders through them to the corps.

At Antietam, the fact that Burnside delayed his attack on the Union left flank until the afternoon, particularly in the context of the stone bridge over Antietam Creek, the Rohrback Bridge now known as Burnside Bridge, likely influenced the battle's outcome. A cumbersome command arrangement contributed to Burnside's sluggishness in launching his attack and crossing the Rohrback, later Burnside's Bridge, positioned on the southern flank of the Union line. This delay allowed Confederate forces to reinforce and ultimately repulse the Union breakthrough. Sears suggested in Landscape Turned Red that the problem was that Burnside felt he was demoted and was piqued.  But its hard to imagine Burnside allowing a Union loss for that reason, and even harder to imagine that Lincoln would choose him to be the next Commander in Chief a month later if it were true.

The real story is far more complicated. McClellan sent his engineer to position Burnside but did so incorrectly. Rodman’s small force has to move on its own to Snavely’s Ford, which was the best downstream ford; this was too far away at this point for an alternative route. The idea that the Union forces could have waded across the Antietam Creek was based on a post war remark by out old friend, Henry Kyd Douglas. It was picked up by historians over the 20th Century, including Catton, who used it to make Burnside appear incompetent. The best guess is that it was not true, that there was just one ford, and it was far from ideal for a cross-river crossing under fire. This very complicated story is told in these two links: https://www.historynet.com/sculpting-a-scapegoat-ambrose-burnside-at-antietam/ and https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/assault-on-burnsides-bridge-at-the-battle-of-antietam/In the afternoon, Burnside's corps advanced against the Confederate right. At this critical moment, Jackson's subordinate, Maj. Gen. A. P. Hill, arrived at the last minute from Harpers Ferry McClellan might have secured victory if Burnside had acted differently. The cumbersome command arrangement contributed to Burnside's sluggishness in launching his attack and crossing Burnside's Bridge, positioned on the southern flank of the Union line. This delay allowed Confederate forces to reinforce and ultimately repulse the Union breakthrough.

Burnside failed to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the area and failed to exploit numerous easily accessible fording sites beyond the reach of Confederate forces. Instead, his troops were repeatedly forced into assaulting the narrow bridge, under the threat of Confederate sharpshooters on elevated terrain. McClellan, growing impatient, sent couriers to urge Burnside forward, even ordering, "Tell him if it costs 10,000 men he must go now." Despite this, Burnside didn't receive reinforcements, and the battle ended with missed opportunities. He further increased the pressure by sending his inspector general to confront Burnside, who reacted indignantly: "McClellan appears to think I am not trying my best to carry this bridge; you are the third or fourth one who has been to me this morning with similar orders.” The IX Corps eventually broke through, but the delay allowed Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill's Confederate division to come up from Harpers Ferry and repulse the Union breakthrough. McClellan refused Burnside's requests for reinforcements, and the battle ended. 

Astonishingly, Burnside was offered command once more, despite his poor performance at Antietam.

Fredericksburg

Lincoln issued the order to remove McClellan on November 5, 1862, and on November 7, 1862, he selected Burnside to take his place. Burnside reluctantly complied with this directive, the third such instance in 1862, partly due to the courier's message that if he declined, command would instead be given to Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, whom Burnside had an aversion to. It is instructive that he was offered this position and compelled to accept the third time given his own reluctance and, as history shows, his lack of preparation for the position.  The fact is, no one in the Union Army had ever been prepared for such a role, and he was as accomplished as anyone in senior leadership.

Burnside on taking command moved his army from near Culpepper to Falmouth within a few days, a pretty monumental achievement. His plan was to then make a direct attack on the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia, avoiding Lee’s forces who were then in Culpepper. Burnside arrived in Falmouth by November 19, but the pontoons that he planned to use to cross the Rappahannock were delayed. He had ordered pontoon bridges from DC, but they were not delivered for weeks by the Quartermaster Department.  General Halleck acknowledged afterward that he had opposed the movement and had not hurried their supply. The loss of time allowed Lee to position Longstreet on Marye’s Heights.

The Assault on Marye's Heights resulted in a casualty rate estimated at 15-20% for Union troops, contributing to a total Union casualty count of 8,000. By comparison, Pickett’s charge had 6000 Confederate casualties of 12,500 engaged, or close to 50%. Malvern Hill had 8000-9000 casualties on both sides combined, or about 16-18%. Numbers aside, these figures tell us that attacks of entrenched or prepared positions in the Civil War were challenging, and the technology didn’t exist to overcome those odds.

It is so obvious to us, 160 years later, that this was a disastrous move. It wasn’t obvious to Burnside. Burnside’s decision to escalate the initial diversionary attack into a full-scale frontal assault on Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg was a costly and unsuccessful move. Why smart people make decisions that don’t work out can be perplexing, and General Burnside at Fredericksburg gives us a chance to see how external pressure and internal self-delusion impact our choices.

Several factors influenced Burnside's decision-making. There was a breakdown in communication and coordination among Union commanders. Burnside received reports of limited success in the diversionary attack on the Confederate right flank, leading him to believe that a more aggressive assault on Marye's Heights was needed to divert Confederate attention. Pressure to achieve a decisive victory and optimism may have clouded his judgment.

Burnside believed in his numerical advantage and hoped to dislodge the Confederate defenders through overwhelming force. Given the circumstances, Marye's Heights seemed the most promising target due to its proximity to the shelter of Fredericksburg and the less steep terrain. These factors, combined with the changing dynamics of the battlefield and the desire for a breakthrough, led Burnside to escalate what was originally intended as a diversionary attack into a full-scale frontal assault on Marye's Heights. I think none of the Civil War commanders understood that artillery had changed war a great deal and still believed that brute force attacks could overcome any defense; see Lee at Gettysburg, Grant at Cold Harbor. I also think Burnside was not a strategic genius and had exactly one plan in mind, and when it failed, he panicked.

Several of Burnside's subordinate commanders, including General William B. Franklin, expressed reservations about the frontal assault on Marye's Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg. Franklin, in particular, was critical of the plan and argued against it. He believed that attacking Marye's Heights directly would result in high casualties and was unlikely to succeed. Hooker, Sumner, and several others told Burnside it was futile, but he continued to order piecemeal attacks.

The Battle of Fredericksburg is not a moment of shining glory for General Burnside. The battle and the subsequent ill-fated offensive led to Burnside's officers voicing vehement complaints to the White House and the War Department, citing his incompetence. Burnside attempted a Spring offensive, only to encounter hindrances stemming from poor planning and organization. The Spring Offensive was known as the Mud March. Although conceptually clever, it was highly impractical for January in Virginia. Burnside's plan was quite similar to Hooker's strategy in the Battle of Chancellorsville, aiming to outmaneuver Lee using the upriver fords on the Rappahannock. Burnside intended to execute this with his cavalry, which had thus far delivered lackluster performances in the war. However, heavy rains in January transformed the roads into impassable mud, forcing the plan's abandonment

After Fredericksburg

Burnside offered his resignation, but Lincoln declined, proposing that there might still be a role for him within the army. Consequently, Burnside was reinstated as the head of the IX Corps and dispatched to command a relatively inactive department, a quiet region with limited activity. Lincoln's rationale was that Burnside couldn't get into significant trouble there. However, he swiftly found himself embroiled in a major political controversy.

Burnside was assigned to the Department of the Ohio, which encompassed the states of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois. Burnside issued a series of orders in a region with divided loyalties and sentiments, seeking to suppress "the expression of public sentiments against the war or the Administration." General Order No. 38, in particular, declared that "any person found guilty of treason will be tried by a military tribunal and either imprisoned or banished to enemy lines." On May 1, 1863, Ohio Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham, a prominent opponent of the war, held a large public rally in Mount Vernon, Ohio in which he denounced President Lincoln as a "tyrant" who sought to abolish the Constitution and set up a dictatorship. Burnside had dispatched several agents to the rally who took down notes and brought back their "evidence" to the general, who then declared that it was sufficient grounds to arrest Vallandigham for treason. This led to the arrest and trial of Ohio Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham, a prominent war opponent, further fueling political discord. A military court tried him and found him guilty of violating General Order No. 38, despite his protests that he was simply expressing his opinions in public. Vallandigham was found guilty of violating General Order No. 38, and sentenced to imprisonment for the duration of the war. This turned him into a martyr by antiwar Democrats. Lincoln had to extricate the entire Republican administration from the fallout that Burnside had produced.

Lincoln and Grant faced a dilemma concerning Burnside, pondering whether he posed a greater hindrance as a general in the field or in political administration. Initially, he was dispatched to relieve Knoxville, a relatively manageable task since only 2,300 troops opposed him. However, it still necessitated the return of all three brigades from Knoxville to force the Cumberland Gap's surrender. The strategic intent of the Knoxville campaign was to prevent Burnside's reinforcement of the besieged Federal forces at Chattanooga. Longstreet’s movement forced Burnside back into the defensive works in Knoxville. Burnside effectively outmaneuvered Longstreet at the Battle of Campbell's Station and successfully reached safety in Knoxville, where he endured a brief siege until the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Fort Sanders outside the city. It should be noted that General Burnside, widely seen as incompetent by modern enthusiasts, defeated Longstreet, widely seen as stellar, in this one-against-one campaign. There were extenuating circumstances, such as favorable terrain and supply routes, of course; but that is history. Longstreet then began a siege but it wasn’t very effective. After the first week, Longstreet learned of Bragg’s defeat at Chattanooga. Longstreet realized that time was not on his side, so he ordered an assault a few days later, but it failed miserably. Then, General Longstreet, who had bested him at Marye's Heights, launched an attack, preventing disaster despite being besieged. Grant sent Sherman to assist, but Longstreet had already withdrawn to Virginia. Longstreet's siege ended when Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman led the Army of the Tennessee to Knoxville, entered the city, and relieved Burnside.  Longstreet withdrew his men and later rejoined Gen. Robert E. Lee’s command in Virginia.

Later, Grant, thinking he could better monitor Burnside in the east, brought him back to Virginia. Unfortunately, Burnside's performance at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House and later at the Battle of the Crater was subpar.

During the Overland Campaign, Burnside's actions were less than stellar. At the Wilderness, timely attacks over three days could have secured victory, but Burnside failed to launch them. On the second day, had this union general moved rapidly when ordered (or even at all), AP Hill’s corps might have been destroyed. But once again, he was too slow to recognize the potential.

The blame for the Union's failure at the Battle of the Crater initially fell on Burnside, but it was later lifted. Burnside had been ordered to change the attacking troops at the last minute by Meade. General Ambrose Burnside was the corps leader of the Union assault. He was relieved of command for the final time for this failure. Brigadier General Edward Ferrero's division of black soldiers sustained very high casualties, perhaps because the Confederates refused to accept them as prisoners when they tried to surrender. He and  General James H. Ledlie were drinking rum throughout the battle in a bunker behind the lines. A division of United States Colored Troops under Ferrero trained to lead the assault. The plan was for one brigade to go left of the crater and the other to the right. A regiment from both brigades was to rush perpendicular to the crater. Then, the remaining force was to seize the Jerusalem Plank Road just 1,600 feet behind the line.

But the day before, Meade ordered Burnside not to use the black troops in the lead assault. Instead, Ledlie’s division was chosen but no one told them what to do once the explosion occurred. Meade did not let them charge because he thought if it failed then it would receive political backlash in the north and only prove Lincoln's message as false. He was aligning military goals with political ones. The USCT instead charged behind the lead troops. Tactically, Union troops entered the crater instead of going around it.  There, they were trapped in a hole with no support on the flanks. The ANV began shooting surrendering troops, perhaps due to racial animus. Ledlie was forced to resign by Meade and Grant.

Post-war Accomplishments

Burnside exhibited his intelligence and abilities in all of his positions after the war. He was elected Governor and later served as a US Senator from Rhode Island, chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He even attempted to mediate an end to the Franco-Prussian War.
It is remarkable that as accomplished as he was both before and after the war, his legacy among Civil War enthusiasts is so diminished. Grant remarked that Burnside was "unfitted" for army command, a sentiment shared even by Burnside himself. It should be recognized that Grant fired handfuls of generals during the war who did not live up to his standards, but he always kept Burnside around. Despite his affable personality and diverse talents, Burnside's Civil War decisions showcased his weakest contributions to history. However, astute historians recognize his deeper well of aptitude.

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Ulysses Grant versus Robert Lee: US Civil War Generals

On April 6, 1865 Union forces managed to capture a considerable chunk of Lee’s army at the Battle of Sailor’s Creek. And by April 8, Union cavalry had cut off Lee’s further retreat to the west. Grant wrote Lee with a summons to surrender. The Confederate general demurred for as long as there seemed a chance to break out and continue the retreat. But when one key subordinate assured him that the situation was hopeless, Lee said sadly, “Then there is nothing left me but to go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

Richard Bluttal tells us about the US Civil War generals.

A reproduction of a Thomas Nast painting showing the surrender of General Lee to General Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865.

On that day in April 1865, Lee arrived at the McLean house about one o'clock and took a seat in the parlor. A half hour later, the sound of horses on the stage road signaled the approach of General Grant. Entering the house Grant greeted Lee  in the center of the room. The generals presented a contrasting appearance, Lee in a new uniform and Grant in his mud-spattered field uniform. Grant, who remembered meeting Lee once during the Mexican War, asked the Confederate general if he recalled their meeting. Lee replied that he did, and the two conversed in a very cordial manner, for approximately 25 minutes. The subject had not yet gotten around to surrender until finally Lee, feeling the anguish of defeat, brought Grant's attention to it. Grant, who later confessed to being embarrassed at having to ask for the surrender from Lee, said simply that the terms would be just as he had outlined them in a previous letter. Aside from Grant and Lee, only Lt. Colonel Marshall and perhaps a half dozen of Grant’s staff officers were present for most of the meeting. Approximately a dozen other Union officers entered the room.

briefly, including Captain Robert Todd Lincoln. Few besides Grant left detailed accounts of what transpired and while some accounts disagree on the details, there are many key consistencies.

Terms

The heart of the terms was that Confederates would be paroled after surrendering their weapons and other military property. If surrendered soldiers did not take up arms again, the United States government would not prosecute them. Grant also allowed Confederate officers to keep their mounts and side arms. Although Lee agreed to the terms, he asked if his men could keep their horses and mules in the

cavalry and artillery. The Confederate army provided weapons and military property, but the men provided their own mounts. Grant indicated he would not amend the terms but would issue a separate order allowing that to happen. Lee said he thought that would have a happy effect on his men. By 3:00p.m., the formal copies of the letters indicating the terms and acceptance of the surrender were signed and exchanged, and General Lee left the McLean House to return to his camp. Horace Porter, one of Grant’s staff officers recorded that Lee paused at the top of the stairs and energetically “smote” his hands together three times. Grant and his staff followed him and removed their hats as a respectful, farewell gesture which Lee returned in kind before riding down the stage road.

The Start

This war opened with a clash between half-armed farmers and half-trained soldiers. From the beginning materials and industry were complete in  the North and throughout the war were lacking in the South. The South did not have the type of industrial advancement as the North. If was lacking in methods of transportation such as railroads. The Northern soldier was compelled to fight in his enemy’s country, but he was compelled to devastate it as well as conquer it.

The story of Grant and Lee is a very complex one. You are talking about two of the greatest generals in our history who had so much in common as education and training but there were differences in terms of character and military tactician.  

The author Bruce Caton explains it best in his article Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts. “The most obvious difference was in terms of early childhood. Lee was tidewater Virginia, and in his background were family, culture, and tradition. . . the age of chivalry transplanted to a New World which was making its own legends and its own myths. He embodied a way of life that had come down through the age of knighthood and the English country squire. Lee stood for the feeling that it was somehow of advantage to human society to have a pronounced inequality in the social structure. There should be a leisure class, backed by ownership of land; in turn, society itself should be keyed to the land as the chief source of wealth and influence. It would bring forth (according to this ideal) a class of men with a strong sense of obligation to the community; men who lived not to gain advantage for themselves, but to meet the solemn obligations which had been laid on them by the very fact that they were privileged. He was Virginian all the way.

Grant, the son of a tanner on the Western frontier, was everything Lee was not. He had come up the hard way and embodied nothing in particular except the eternal toughness and sinewy fiber of the men who grew up beyond the mountains. He was one of a body of men who owed reverence and obeisance to no one, who were self-reliant to a fault, who cared hardly anything for the past but who had a sharp eye for the future.

Contrast

And that, perhaps, is where the contrast between Grant and Lee becomes most striking. The Virginia aristocrat, inevitably, saw himself in relation to his own region. He lived in a static society which could endure almost anything except change. Instinctively, his first loyalty would go to the locality in which that society existed. He would fight to the limit of endurance to defend it, because in defending it he was defending everything that gave his own life its deepest meaning. The Westerner, on the other hand, would fight with an equal tenacity for the broader concept of society. He fought so because everything he lived by was tied to growth, expansion, and a constantly widening horizon. What he lived by would survive or fall with the nation itself. He could not possibly stand by unmoved in the face of an attempt to destroy the Union. He would combat it with everything he had, because he could only see it as an effort to cut the ground out from under his feet.”

They both graduated from West Point, Lee earlier due to age. At the age of 18, Robert leaves for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, which had earned one demerit. Robert E. Lee graduates second in his class from West Point. While at the military academy, Lee is one of six students in his graduating class to never receive a demerit. His classmates note his drive for perfection and focused, secluded personality with the nickname "Marble Model." As one of the top cadets, Lee is able to choose the branch of service for his first assignment and elects to work for the Army’s Engineer Corps. Lee, second in his West Point class, an engineering officer, a career military officer, truly was a great general. As a tactician, he was head and shoulders above Grant.  Good defensively, Lee was even better on the offensive. He was bold and decisive, a calculating gambler. Can anyone who has studied the Battle of Chancellorsville deny it? Splitting his army on several occasions, he surprised his opponents and won the day. Lee was a master of the holding attack; a tactic George Marshall would later instill as the only tactic taught at the Army War College prior to World War II. Lee  fought in the Mexican American War (1846-1848) as one of General Winfield Scott’s chief aides. He was instrumental in several American victories through his personal reconnaissance as a staff officer, which allowed him to discover routes that the Mexicans hadn’t defended because they thought it was impossible to pass through the terrain.General Scott later wrote that Lee was “the very best soldier I ever saw in the field”.

In 1839, seventeen-year-old Hiram Ulysses Grant received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. It changed the course of his life—and his name. Grant always disliked his first name and was commonly known by his middle name. He wanted to swap his first and middle names when he entered the Academy. However, Congressman Thomas Hamer had submitted Grant’s application to West Point under the name “Ulysses S. Grant.” Hamer knew the boy as Ulysses and, at a loss for his middle name, chose “S” because Grant’s mother’s maiden name was Simpson. Later on, as result of military victors in the West, the USG becomes unconditional surrender Grant.

West Point

Grant’s experiences at West Point and as a young officer provided both formal and incidental preparation for his later career and gave him insights into future Civil War comrades and foes. Grant, for his part, was a keen observer of human nature who believed that attending West Point at “the right time”—he encountered more than 50 future Civil War generals there—together with his experiences in Mexico, proved “of great advantage.” In addition to teaching “practical lessons,” the Mexican War introduced him to “older officers, who became conspicuous in the rebellion.” More important and what developed into a major military strategy was his proficiency in being a quartermaster, one whose prime responsibility is managing supply trains and transportation  in a hostile environment, this became essential during the Civil War.

Surviving drawings and paintings from Grant’s West Point years show early signs of what the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz called a “special gift” common to successful painters and generals alike: namely, a remarkable visual memory. After Grant studied a map, his staff officer Horace Porter recalled, “it seemed to become photographed indelibly upon his brain.” Besides having an incredible gift of memory, he also excelled in horsemanship. Grant experienced combat for the first time on May 8, 1846, at the Battle of Palto Alto during the Mexican American War. Grant served as regimental quartermaster, but yearned for a combat role; when finally allowed, he led a charge at the Battle of Resaca de la Palma. . He demonstrated his equestrian ability at the Battle of Monterrey  by volunteering to carry a dispatch past snipers, where he hung off the side of his horse, keeping the animal between him and the enemy. 

Historians increasingly have pointed to the importance of Grant's experience as an assistant quartermaster during the war. Although he was initially averse to the position, it prepared Grant in understanding military supply routes, transportation systems, and logistics, particularly with regard to "provisioning a large, mobile army operating in hostile territory," according to biographer Ronald White. Grant came to recognize how wars could be won or lost by crucial factors that lay beyond the tactical battlefield. Serving as assistant quartermaster made Grant a complete soldier, and learning how to supply an entire army gave Grant the training to sustain large armies. This experience as a quartermaster will later benefit him In the Civil War.

After his victory at Donelson, Grant never failed to base his strategy upon supply, more than often than not the latter strategy upon supplies Lee based his upon search, after supplies and consequently suffered chronically from a shortage of supplies and a dispersion of forces. In the object of the campaign Grant eclipsed Lee, not only because his army was stronger, but because it was better organized and supplied.

From his training and time spent at West Point a number of  characteristics were greatly enforced such the ability to develop lucid orders, even in the heat of battle.  General Meade’s chief of staff commented that “there is one striking feature of Grant’s orders; no matter how hurriedly he may write them on the field, no one ever has the slightest doubt as to their meaning or even has to read them over a second time to understand them.” His study of maps and creating artwork at West Point was extremely useful. James McPherson attributes to Grant a “topographical memory.” He “could remember every feature of the terrain over which he traveled and find his way over it again; he could also look at a map and visualize the features of terrain he had never seen. . . . Grant could see in his mind the disposition of troops over thousands of square miles, visualize their relationship to roads and terrain, and know how and where to move them to take advantage of topography.” His perseverance was that of history, in 1864–65, Grant demonstrated his perseverance as he carried out his campaign of adhesion against Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, achieving all his goals within a year.  Grant was a simple man who dealt with the facts as he found them. While his contemporaries saw the war in all its complexities and too often took counsel of their fears, from Belmont to Appomattox Grant saw the main chance, stuck to it, and thus led his armies to victory.” When President Lincoln brought Grant east from his triumphs at Vicksburg and Chattanooga to confront Lee, Grant refused to back off, waging a bloody war of attrition which last exactly a year. His focus, early in the war was to defeat, capture or destroy opposing armies, not simply occupying geographic positions, was critical to his success.

War tactics

Grant had no fear of using all the resources that were available to him. Remember the North always enjoyed a substantial edge in manpower and almost every manufacturing category, He recognition and deployment of these resources stands as one of his achievements. Grant was decisive. Colonel James F. Rusling of the quartermaster general’s staff recalled that in the winter of 1863–64, a quartermaster officer approached Grant for approval of millions of dollars of expenditures for the coming Atlanta campaign, and Grant approved the expenditure after briefly examining the papers involved. Questioning Grant’s swift decision, the officer asked him if he was sure he was right. Grant replied, “No, I am not, but in war, anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong, we shall soon find out and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money and may ruin everything.”

Grant has gone down to history as a bludgeon general, a general who eschewed maneuver and who with head down, seeing red, charged his enemy again and again like a bull: indeed an extraordinary conclusion, for no general, not excepting Lee, and few generals in any other war, made greater use of maneuver in the winning of his campaigns, if not of his battles. Without fear of contradiction, it may be said that Grant’s object was consistent; strategically it was to threaten his enemy’s base of operations.’ Lee acted on the spur of the moment and never once brought fruition, because he acted so impulsively as to  be unprepared to take full advantage of them.  The Seven Days campaign ended in the disaster of Malvern Hill, the Second Manassas campaign in that of Antietam and the Chancellorsville campaign led to Gettysburg.

War was very simple to him, you have a job to do, you go out and do it to your fullest. One of his biographers said of him “His success was the success of sheer common sense-----which is almost the same thing as generalship—and of American Democracy. “  Here is a man who is not only capable but self-reliant, and  its self-reliance which nearly always wins over a superior, because it relieves him of onus of a work which he himself can not control.  His honesty and modesty towards himself endowed him with wisdom; he could discover his own mistakes and was never stampeded by his success. Grant’s outlook was simpler and consequently more all-embracing. He sees the war as a whole far more completely than so than even Lee saw it.  He is the preeminent grant-strategist, while Lee is the preeminently the field strategical. His orders are simple , direct and unmistakable. Lee’s more often than not are vague and frequently verbal.

He relied on his staff for detail not ideas, which was his job. He was able to bear in mind a clear picture of the topography of the country he operated in. This would enable him to work out a strategic problem mentally with more certainty than could one who does not have this ability.  When others were at their wits ends Grant was perfectly calm and collected.  With the Vicksburg campaign, in the time that a plan was essential General McPherson offered him a glass of liquor, Grants response. “Mac, you know your whiskey won’t help me to think; give me a dozen of the best cigars  you can find…. I think by the time I have finished them I shall have this job pretty nearly planned. “

As  Bruce Catton later goes on saying, “Each man had, to begin with, the great virtue of utter tenacity and fidelity. Grant fought his way down the Mississippi Valley in spite of acute personal discouragement and profound military handicaps. Lee hung on in the trenches at Petersburg after hoping itself had died. In each man there was an indomitable quality. . . . the born fighter's refusal to give up as long as he can still remain on his feet and lift his two fists. Daring and resourcefulness they had, too, the ability to think faster and move faster than the enemy. These were the qualities which gave Lee the dazzling campaigns of Second Manassas and Chancellorsville and won Vicksburg for Grant.”

Grant was a mass of contradictions: loved order and yet could find no place in an orderly world. He hated war, and yet found his place there above all his fellows. He went to West Point not to be a soldier but because he was determined to escape the life of a tanner, and West Point did that for him. He never failed to look at every problem from the simplest point of view, and to answer it in the simplest possible manner. He has said he watched the progress of the Army of the Potomac ever since it was organized and has been greatly interested in reading the accounts of the splendid fighting it has done. This is very illuminating for a few generals who had to face his problems would have troubled to find the time to examine those of others hundreds of miles away.  

Flaws

Grant also had his flaws. As a tactician, he was horrible. He seemed to know only one tactic – the frontal assault. Time and time again, he threw troops at entrenched positions, only to suffer incredible casualties. At Vicksburg, he attacked strong fortifications and suffered accordingly. Did he learn to try other methods? No. At Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor he did it again on an even grander scale, suffering even grander casualties. Grant seems to be one of those Civil War generals, of whom there are quite a few, who did not understand the changes the rifled musket forced on tactics. Frontal assaults no longer worked, but many a general seemed to think if only another division were thrown in, the result would be different. 

Grant’s modesty, lucid orders, topographical memory, full use of his staff, perseverance, full use of Union resources, minimizing support personnel, full use of assigned generals, decisiveness, moral courage, political common sense, focus on enemy armies, maneuverability, and intelligent aggressiveness all combined to make him the best general of the Civil War and to demolish the myth of “Grant the Butcher.” Grant was one of the greatest generals in American history.

Lee

On April 18, 1861, as rising star in the U.S. Military, Lee is called to a meeting with Francis Blair, a close associate of Abraham Lincoln. Blair offers Lee command of the Union Army, but Lee declines the offer, unwilling to fight against his home state of Virginia. Lee next seeks the advice of his former commander and Director of the War Department, Winfield Scott. Lee explains his divided loyalties to Scott, but his superior refuses to allow him to "sit out" the war.  On  April 20, 1861 After days of deliberation, Lee resigns from the United States Army. He states in a letter to his Union-supporting sister, Anne Marshall, that "with all of my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizens, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home." Just two days later, the governor of Virginia assigns Lee to command the Virginia forces for the Confederate Army.  This is perhaps where the contrast between Lee and Grant is so striking. As historian Bruce Catton says, “the Virginia aristocrat, inevitably, saw himself in relation to his own region. His first loyalty would go to the locality in which that society existed. On other hand the Westerner would fight with an equal tenacity for the broader concept of society, “ or for his country. Lee was a Virginian first and a Confederate second. This trait was harmful, even though he was not the commander-in-chief, due to his crucial role as Jefferson Davis’s primary military advisor throughout the war.

As Catton states, “So Grant and Lee were in complete contrast, representing two diametrically opposed elements in American life. Grant was the modern man emerging; beyond him, ready to come on the stage, was the great age of steel and machinery, of crowded cities and a restless burgeoning vitality. Lee might have ridden down from the old age of chivalry, lance in hand, silken banner fluttering over his head. Each man was the perfect champion of his cause, drawing both his strengths and his weaknesses from the people he led. Yet it was not all contrast, after all. Different as they were--in background, in personality, in underlying aspiration--these two great soldiers had much in common. Under everything else, they were marvelous fighters. Furthermore, their fighting qualities were really very much alike.” Despite his lack of manpower and material, Lee’s military genius was the principal factor in keeping the Confederacy alive. He was a legend in his own lifetime. In May 1862 Stonewall Jackson wrote, “Lee is the only man I know whom I would follow blindfold. “ His soldiers, to whom he was either ‘Uncle Robert’ or ‘Marse Robert’ idolized him.

For another difference, Lee was not a good quartermaster. The Army of Northern Virginia was always poorly equipped. Much of its equipment and supplies were taken from the Army of the Potomac after their numerous victories, but there was never enough. Not all of this blame can be laid at the feet of Lee, though. The Confederacy was woefully short of the industry needed to supply its armies, and the Northern blockade prevented adequate supplies from being imported as the war dragged on. Some may lay additional fault on the South’s lack of railroads to deliver supplies. Virginia, however, did not suffer from this lack. Finally, northern Virginia was fought over so much that it simply could not feed the army. Lee was also determined to include Europe in his war with the North. On April 7, 1865 he said to General Pendleton; “ I have never believed we could, against the gigantic combination   of our subjugation, make good in the long run our independence unless foreign powers should directly or indirectly, assist us.”

Strategist?

Another major difference, was Lee as a strategist. In a word, he was not. His concern was northern Virginia and nothing else. Throughout the war, he resisted attempts by Jefferson Davis to draw forces from the Army of Northern Virginia to reinforce the western armies. Lee was obsessed with the operations in Virginia and urged that additional reinforcements be brought to the Old Dominion from the West, where Confederates defended ten times the area in which Lee operated.  Only once did it happen, when Longstreet went west and fought at Chattanooga, but not without Lee’s efforts to stop it. He also opposed attempts to make him commander in chief of Southern forces until it was too late for it to be of any benefit. Lee’s Civil War strategy concentrated all the resources he could obtain and retain almost exclusively in the eastern theater of operations. His approach overlooked the strength of the Confederacy in its size and lack of communications, which required the Union to conquer and occupy it. He often refused requests by President Jefferson Davis to comply with requests to send critical reinforcements to the West. Lee was obsessed with Virginia and the moral aspects of the war. His one and only grand strategy was to terrify Washington. This would have been a perfectly sound object had his army been well trained and provided with a grand siege train, which was greatly limited in materials and funding.  Only once did Lee agree to send a portion of his army west. He delayed for two weeks from Virginia which caused many of them to arrive only after the Battle of Chickamauga and without their artillery.

Additionally, and most importantly, Lee failed to realize that the Confederacy’s best hope of survival was to hold out. Since the South had a lack of fighting men compared to the North, its best hope was to keep casualties to a minimum, to live to fight another day. Lee’s offensive tactics ensured the Army of Northern Virginia sustained greater casualties than it could afford. Had he fought defensively most of the time, Lee would have saved soldiers who could fight again, perhaps outlasting the North’s will to win. That Lee though loyal to Virginia, was at heart disloyal to the Confederacy is absurd. To him the base of the Confederacy was but the base of Virginia because the only form of attack he really understood was the moral offensive, and Virginia enabled him to carry this out.

While the North was compelled through force of circumstances to develop its resources the South, relaying on Europe for its munitions of war, failed to do so, with the result, that more and more did Southern policy develop into a political game of chance.

Conclusion of the war

Lee was successful only at winning battles. He never had a conception of how to take battlefield victories and turn them into victory in war, unlike U.S. Grant and W. T. Sherman, who both came to realize that individual battles were themselves meaningless — what mattered was winning the war. In this area Grant, in particular, completely out-classed Lee. Sherman proved better at achieving goals without the waste of battle — but battle was what graduates of the U.S. Military Academy had been trained to think was how wars were won.

Lee ceased being “successful” (except at not-losing) when Grant was put in charge of all Union armies because Grant, unlike Lee, had a conceptual strategy and (some) subordinates he could trust to execute it out of his sight. But the decisive theatre of war was not Virginia, even though this is where nearly all the focus of study on the U.S. Civil War stands. The Western Theatre contributed far more to the collapse of the Confederacy first by splitting the Confederacy in two, logistically and economically, and then destroying Southern morale via Sherman’s destruction of the Confederate back yard — all of it effectively unopposed, because Sherman was a master of achieving his ends without uselessly killing his men in meaningless battles.

In the words of the General who defeated him, the legend of Lee as a “great general”, is much overrated and a product of the lovers of the “lost cause”. His use of Napoleonic tactics caused Lee to lose more men than all of his other generals combined. Lee himself said that even in victory that he never did anything that would “last longer than the battle that occurred that day.” His blunders at Gettysburg cost him that battle and was the beginning of the end for his army of northern Virginia. “It is all my fault”, Lee said to the men of what was left of Pickett’s division after he sent them to their slaughter.

Lee rejoins his family in Richmond, where Mary has been living since 1861. That summer they will move to the country in Derwent, Virginia.In a letter to Jefferson Davis, Lee blames the loss of the war on the moral condition of his men. He believes that the troops had been getting letters from home indicating that they no longer supported the war, leading the soldiers to lack aggressiveness and the grit necessary to win battles.

The Lee family moves to Lexington, Virginia, where Lee assumes the role of President of Washington College. Lee overhauls the curriculum, requires weekly progress reports for all of the students, and encourages the females in his family to attend church services in the hopes that "if the ladies would patronize it that the students would be more interested in going." The college has since changed its name to Washington and Lee University. 
Lee assembles notes, letters and data in an effort to defend his actions and his Army of Northern Virginia, but never writes. Lee discusses the failures of Gettysburg in conversations with his peers at Washington College, attributing the loss to his commanders J.E.B. Stuart and Richard Ewell.
Lee is summoned to give testimony to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. In his testimony, Lee expresses his concern over the social and political structure of the country and his doubts that African Americans should have civil rights. Above all, he expresses a desire to be left alone.

After suffering a severe stroke on October 12, 1870 Lee dies in the company of his family. Lee's coffin is paraded through the small town of Lexington, Virginia. The procession, filled with former Confederate soldiers, Washington College students and state politicians, makes its way past the Virginia Military Institute for a small service.

Grant became a national hero, and the Republicans nominated him for president in 1868. A primary focus of Grant’s administration was Reconstruction, and he worked to reconcile the North and South while also attempting to protect the civil rights of newly freed black slaves. While Grant was personally honest, some of his associates were corrupt and his administration was tarnished by various scandals. After retiring, Grant invested in a brokerage firm that went bankrupt, costing him his life savings. He spent his final days penning his memoir which was published the year he died and proved a critical and financial success.

What do you think of Grant and Lee? Let us know below.

Now read Richard’s article on the role of baseball in the US Civil War here.