George B. McClellan

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George Brinton McClellan signature

George Brinton McClellan (born December 3, 1826 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † October 29, 1885 in Orange , New Jersey ) was an American officer and politician . He was Commander-in-Chief of the Union Army in the Civil War from 1861 to 1862 , Abraham Lincoln's Democratic opponent in the presidential election of 1864 and Governor of New Jersey from 1878 to 1881 .

Life

Early life

The son of surgeon George McClellan attended the military academy in West Point , New York , which he left in 1846 as a pioneer officer and second best of his class. From 1846 to 1848 he took part in the Mexican-American War . In 1853/54 he led the surveying expedition for the Pacific Railroad Surveys in the Washington state area .

In 1855 McClellan went to Europe to study the military there. Among other things, he was an observer at the British headquarters during the Crimean War . After his return to the USA, he designed the McClellan saddle based on the European model , which remained in use by the US cavalry until the last mounted troops were disbanded. After his military retirement in 1857, he first worked as a senior railroad engineer for the Illinois Central Railroad and later became President of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad .

Civil war

George B. McClellan

On 23 April 1861 McClellan was a major general of the state militia of Ohio reactivated. On May 14, he was accepted into regular service as a major general in command of the Army of Occupation in West Virginia and commander of the Ohio Military Area. After the defeat of the Union troops under General Irvin McDowell in the First Battle of the Bull Run , he was given supreme command of the Potomac Army on July 25, 1861 , which had to bear the brunt of the fighting that followed. From November 5, 1861 to March 11, 1862 he was also Commander-in-Chief of the Army . As the army commander in chief, he proved to be an excellent organizer; but also as an all too hesitant military leader. He formed the demoralized troops into a powerful army, but then hesitated to use them. He was prone to sometimes grotesque misjudgments of the balance of power, in that he repeatedly overestimated the strength of the opposing troops and requested reinforcements. It was only at the massive urging of the government that he advanced against the Confederate capital of Richmond , Virginia , in March 1862 . In the so-called Peninsula Campaign , he won most of the battles against the outnumbered Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lees , but withdrew unsuccessfully from Virginia after the seven-day battle .

McClellan was called to Annapolis to organize a new army. On September 17, 1862, he fought General Lee in the bloody Battle of Antietam in a tactical draw that turned out to be a strategic victory with Lee's retreat from Maryland, but failed to defeat the weakened opponent (whom he again believed to be much stronger than him in truth) was to be pursued and thus possibly put an early end to the war. This renewed hesitation cost him command of the Potomac Army; Abraham Lincoln replaced him with Maj . Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside .

After the civil war

McClellan left the army and went into politics. In 1864 , the Democratic Party placed him as a rival candidate for incumbent Republican President Lincoln; at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago he prevailed by a large margin against Thomas H. Seymour from Connecticut . His running mate as a candidate for the vice presidency was George H. Pendleton , a congressman from Ohio . During the election campaign, McClellan advocated ending the war against the South through negotiations, which would have resulted in recognition of the secession . Due to the war weariness in the north, McClellan already looked like the sure winner by the summer. It was not until the news of General William T. Sherman's conquest of Atlanta eight weeks before the presidential election (see Atlanta campaign ) that there was a clear change in opinion, because a victory over the Confederation was now within reach. The idea of ​​negotiating with the South then became so unpopular that McClellan Lincoln was clearly defeated by only 45% of the vote.

After his electoral defeat, McClellan made extensive trips to Europe, from where he did not return to the United States until 1868. Then he was chief engineer of the Port Authority of New York and from 1872 to President of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad . He remained active in the Democratic Party and won the election for governor of New Jersey in 1877 against former Republican incumbent William A. Newell . McClellan held the office from 1878 to 1881 and died four years later. McClellan's memorials are located in front of Philadelphia City Hall in Philadelphia and on Connecticut Road in Washington, DC . A summit of the Cascade Range in King County, Washington , McClellan Butte , is named after him.

Works

  • The Armies of Europe . Philadelphia 1861.
  • Report of the organization and campaigns of the army of the Potomac . New York 1864.
  • McClellan's Own Story , 1877 (autobiography)

literature

  • Doris Kearns Goodwin , Team of Rivals. The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln , Deckle Edge, 2005, ISBN 978-0-684-82490-1 .
  • Michael Hyatt, 5 Characteristics of Weak Leaders (And How Not to Be One), in: Michael Myatt, Blog, April 29, 2016, available online
  • Stephen W. Sears: George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon , New York 1988.

Web links

Commons : George B. McClellan  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files
Wikisource: McClellan's 1864 campaign hit “Little Mac! Little Mac! "  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John H. and David J. Eicher: Civil War High Commands. Stanford University Press, 2001, accessed January 14, 2021 (McClellan's life data, p. 372).
personal data
SURNAME McClellan, George B.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McClellan, George Brinton (full name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION American officer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1826
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH October 29, 1885
PLACE OF DEATH Orange , New Jersey