By Chester G. Hearn
The relationship between Abraham Lincoln and George B.
McClellan was difficult at its best, and complicated by political and military
needs and wants. It was a relationship
strained by differing strategies, mistrust, and egotism. It is a relationship that has been examined
and studied many times over, but a subject that never gets old. And thus Chester G. Hearn has added his tome,
“Lincoln and McClellan at War” to the ever growing library.
An 1846 graduate of Military Academy at West Point, and having
won a couple of minor battles early in the war, McClellan was elevated to the
command of The Army of the Potomac after the disastrous Federal defeat at Bull
Run, and later to the post of General-in-Chief of the entire Federal Army,
replacing the aging and infirm Winfield Scott. McClellan created an army from
nearly nothing, oversaw its training, supplied and fed it. Mr. Hearn’s thesis: having built the greatest army in the world McClellan
did not want to use it to fight offensively, but rather preferred defensive
fighting. This can be summed up in a
quote from Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Killer Angels, “To be a good soldier you must love the army.
But to be a good officer you must be willing to order the death of the thing
you love.” In short McClellan was not
willing to risk an offensive strategy and order the death of the army that he
was largely responsible for creating. On
the other hand Lincoln, who schooled himself in the art of military science,
preferred an offensive instead of a defensive strategy. Hearn points out that ultimately their differences
in how best to prosecute the war is what eventually led to McClellan’s
dismissal.
I am not a McClellan apologist, but I do feel that Mr. Hearn
frequent usage the moniker “Little Mac” demonstrates a slight bias against
McClellan. I can’t blame him for that,
in a contest between Lincoln and McClellan you would be hard pressed to find
anyone without a bias against McClellan, and McClellan certainly gave his
enemies plenty of ammunition to use against him.
Exhaustively researched, and expertly written, “Lincoln and
McClellan at War” spans the length, depth and breadth of the relationship
between these two towering personalities in American history and is an
excellent primer on the Lincoln-McClellan relationship.
ISBN 978-0807145524, Louisiana State University Press, ©
2012, Hardcover, 280 pages, Maps, End Notes, Bibliography &
Index. $45.00. To purchase this book
click HERE.
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