Jan-Maat’s Reviews > McClellan's War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union > Status Update

"To McClellan The Civil War was a result of the great Whig fear coming to fruition: the forces of passion & extremism - secessionist fire-waters in the South & antislavery fanatics in the North - gaining ascendancy & stirring up irrational fears in the people for personal gain."

At the end of October 1862 the army of the Potomac consisted of just under 160,000 (plus horses etc), by comparison in 1860 Washington had a population of 61,122. Logistics forthe army was a challenge.

After his quartermaster returned from Hagerstown, Reynolds reported that he was only able to replenish the 1st corps's supply of overboard & pants. ' There are no shoes, tents, blankets, knapsacks, or other clothing...this leaves many of the men yet without a shoe'.

- it's one thing to march & to the for your country, another entirely to have to do that without shoes or trousers.

"Nonetheless, Halleck continued to express irrational concern for the safety of Washington".

Sentences very much like this occur often in the book, & yet Washington was their capital, and such concern speaks to a profound lack of faith in McClellan's military operations.

"Delegating tactical management of the battle for Turner's Gap to Burnside, McClellan Then devoted his energies to inspiring the men as they marched past his position"
This consisted of sitting on his horse pointing in the direction that they had to march - the soldiers were very inspired & cheered & broke ranks to hug the horse' legs. War is a strange business.

"The only way the South could win its independence, Lee believed, was through a string of battlefield victories that would exhaust the North's will to fight before Northern manpower & material resources overwhelmed the South."
This seems as fanciful as McClellan's ambition to through a stunning battlefield victory to get the South to return to the Union on the basis of maintaining the pre-war constitution

Not only had Lincoln lost faith in conciliation but his belief that McClellan & his approach to operations were the most effective way to achieve the victories the Northern cause needed was about exhausted as well in July 1862.

The exhaustion of Northern patience with conciliation was not only manifest in the confiscation Act & Lincoln's decision to issue an emancipation proclamation. In the month after the Seven Days Battled extinguished hopes for a quick and to the war, the last vestiges of the conciliatory policy were swept away by two of its former champions, Grant & Sherman.

If he hoped to save Richmond, Lee recognised he had to change the contest from a 'battle of posts' in which Northern superiority in artillery & engineering would be decisive, to a war of manoeuvre, where the odds would be more favourable to the Confederacy.

June 1862. McClellan suffering from maleria & dysentry, his army advancing however on Richmond, McClellan planning through engineering and artillery to batter the enemy into submission. Confederate commander Johnston wounded, Robert E. Lee takes command with full political support. Conscription enacted. By end June Lee has numerical superiority.