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McClellan's Reluctance

© Craig E. Hutchison

Abraham Lincoln pored over books on military strategy. He even thought about taking charge of the army and leading the troops into battle himself. The reason Lincoln remotely thought about this was because his generals would not move, particularly George McClellan. McClellan had a well-fed, well-equipped army which outnumbered the nearest Confederate forces three to one. He had a great reluctance to risk failure which some historians attribute to a personality flaw. President Lincoln was exasperated.

Lincoln was urged by many to replace McClellan, but he decided to stick with the general for at least a little while longer. Lincoln was becoming very impatient, though, and he uttered his now famous statement: "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time, provided I could see how it could be made to do something." A new Secretary of War was appointed, Edwin Stanton, and he exclaimed that he would force McClellan to fight. The President issued General War Order Number One on January 27, 1862, calling for a movement of all land and naval forces on Washington 's Birthday, February 22.

McClellan offered a counterplan: instead of a frontal attack at Manassas Junction, he proposed to float his army down the Chesapeake Bay, march overland to Richmond before the Confederates could block him. Lincoln did not like the plan, but exclaimed: "I don't care, gentlemen, what plan you have, all I ask is for you to just pitch in!" This plan began badly when it was discovered that the boats provided to carry the men through a lock on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal were six inches too wide. Stanton and Lincoln were beside themselves. Lincoln was angry and asked a member of McClellan's staff: "couldn't the General have known whether a boat would go thru that lock before spending a million dollars getting [the boats] there? I am no engineer but it seems to me that if I wished to know whether a boat would go thru a hole . . . common sense would teach me to go and measure it."

While McClellan floundered, Joseph Johnson moved his confederate army to a position behind the Rappahannock River which made McClellan's intended landing spot unsafe. At this point, Senator William P. Fessenden of Maine wrote to his family: "We shall be the scorn of the world. It is no longer doubtful that General McClellan is utterly unfit for his position . . . and yet the President will keep him in command and leave our destiny in his hands." On March 11, McClellan was relieved as general-in-chief of the Federal armies so that he could concentrate his attention on the task at hand, moving the army forward to engage the enemy. The question that remained in many minds: would that movement ever happen?