Quotes About McClellan

Baboon, ape, gorilla: such epithets were used to describe him by adversaries and even by some allies. The Union general George McClellan, for instance, called him "the original gorilla.

Mixed with this frustration was the suspicion that Northern lives were being wasted because of mismanagement and political meddling, a suspicion reinforced by Lincoln's firing of McClellan, who, despite his poor showing in the field, was widely respected as a military professional. These are the views reflected in Holmes's letter. They were Copperhead views, but one did not need to be a Democrat in the fall of 1862 to share them.

As Franklin temporized, another dispatch arrived from McClellan: "It is important to drive in the enemy in your front, but be cautious in doing it until you have some idea of his force. . . . Thus far our success is complete, but let us follow it up closely, but warily."2

Certainly that thought did not enter into McClellan's calculations. He continued thinking only in terms of how much he might salvage from defeat.

While he correctly judged General McClellan to be defensive-minded, it did not occur to him that General McClellan would give up so easily: that after a single battle—which the Federals won—he would decide to abandon his campaign, cut his losses, and run for safety.

Even as McClellan conferred with his superiors, sounds of renewed battle came from the direction of Chantilly, a country estate a few miles north of Centreville and on the flank of Pope's army.

George McClellan's conviction that he was forever outnumbered was the one constant of his military character.

By some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land.

Sending armies to McClellan is like shoveling fleas across a barnyard, not half of them get there.

If I gave McClellan all the men he asked for, they could not find room to lie down; they'd have to sleep standing up.

The president told the cabinet on June 28, according to Welles, that he had "observed in Hooker the same failings that were observed in McClellan after the battle of Antietam—a want of alacrity to obey, and a greedy call for more troops which could not, and ought not to be taken from other points.

Perhaps that was what the war was really about. Twas an entire nation of runaways, America in 1861, and your place in society depended on what you had run from and when. Perhaps General McClellan was right that the war was not really about slavery. Perhaps it was a struggle between the dreams of men who would run no more.