Weve also got some other raffles going on, and at your table you have been given a notecard that we would like you to write down a question for our panel this afternoon. If you have a question for them, and what i will do, i will take up the most objectionable ones [laughs] well proceed from there. But, so if youve got a question, write it down, and we will ask our wonderful speakers today. Weve also at the break we are going to bring in my staff and were going to have a chance acknowledge them. Our Panel Discussion is after lunch at 1 00. So, thatll be the end of our day. I really like our speakers presentation title today. Mission impossible rethinking george b. Mcclellan. After what weve heard so far in this conference, i think it is even more impossibler. Dr. George rable is the Professor Emeritus at the university of alabama, roll tide. He held the Charles Sumner so chair of history. He is the author of fredericksburg, fredericksburg, which won a lincoln prize. His most recent book is damn yankees. Lets welcome dr. Orge rle. [applause] dr. Rable thank you very much. It is always a pleasure to be here for many different reasons. Id like to thank des and the staff of pamplin park, certainly the best civil war venue in the country. There is no question about that. Im always indebted to my dear friend will green who has invited me back year after year, invited me back year after year, despite perhaps protests from the crowd. [laughter] but will and i give each other a lot of grief but we are dear friends. We are dear friends. But most of all i want to thank you all, who year after year come to this conference. It was good to see some people here who had not been here before. I consider this group dear friends. Its always one of the highlights of the year for kay and i to come up here. Now, over the years i have had a number of assignments thanks to my dear, dear friend will green. [laughter] sort of a trifecta of challenges. Some of you may remember a number of years ago when we had a different format. It was a series of debates between historians. And what did will assignment . I was assigned that slavery was not a major cause of the civil war. [laughter] my second assignment was even more formidable. I was assigned to debate James Mcpherson on soldier motivation. [laughter] and today, thanks to my dear, dear friend will, i have george b. Mcclellan. Mission impossible indeed. Well, ive had to sit back friday evening, yesterday, listening to the speakers, and ive got to say, i am tired of all of this mcclellan bashing. [laughter] yesterday John Hennessy talked about joe hooker, who rose by diminishing the accomplishments of others. And i think the previous speakers exemplified that in their treatment of mcclellan and some in their treatment of yours truly. [laughter] rable now, mcclellan, you mention george b. Mcclellan to almost any student of the american civil war, and the response is as predictable as the sunrise. They know mcclellan as a foil to lincoln, who might be able to organize an army but would not or could not fight in an army. As lincoln once said, mcclellan has the slows and has to be removed. To call mcclellan controversial in the 21st century is misleading, because students of the war have largely made up their minds about george b. Mcclellan. And not in the generals favor. They are unlikely to be interested in rethinking their position. Hence, the Title Mission impossible. When Mark Grimsley recently published a brief piece discussing the origins of mcclellans image as a feckless commander and suggested some revision, the response was both immediate and predictable. In the next issue of the publication civil war monitor, letters appear to utterly dismissive of grimsleys efforts and unwilling to consider any other interpretation in the by now standard interpretation of mcclellan. I think opinions about mcclellan are almost baked in and unlikely to change. In his own day, mcclellan had many warm friends and warm political supporters and, of course, no shortage of critics and enemies. He had the misfortune to clash with Abraham Lincoln, who himself was a controversial figure at the time, but who quickly became the savior of the union. I mcclellan had something to do with that as well. The great emancipator and the martyred president in the aftermath of his assassination. The deification of lincoln has hardly helped mcclellan. As lincolns private secretary noted in a letter to his coauthor, as the two were preparing their 10 volume study of Abraham Lincoln, and listen to these words carefully. John hay wrote, i think i have left the impression of mcclellans mutinous infidelity and i have done it in a perfectly courteous manner. It is of the utmost moment that we should seem fair to him while we are destroying him. This mcclellan animus is very, very old. Mcclellan himself sought in vein to vindicate his reputation and his illfated autobiography. He did not live to complete his autobiography, mcclellans own story. He also had the misfortune as his literary executor hardly helped matters by bringing mcclellans partially completed manuscript into print and even worse, printing excerpts from the letters that mcclellan wrote to his wife during the war that has offered fodder for critics ever since. As for the historians, consider this lopsided line up. In the antimcclellan camp we have some of the giants of the civil war field. Bruce catton. My mentor t. Harry williams, who tried to mentor will green. [laughter] dr. Rable stephen sears. James mcpherson. Williams. Sears. Mcpherson. On the other side who do we have . We have warren hasslers biography. We have an excellent unpublished dissertation by joseph harsh. We have ethan refus fine revisionist study. Not exactly and even contest there. Then theres ken burns. His civil war series presented standard, conventional portraits of generals on both sides. You dont get much military revisionism with ken burns. His treatment of mcclellan simply followed in the steps of catton, williams, sears, and mcpherson. So why is george b. Mcclellan so despised by almost all who hold an opinion of the man today . At the conference last year, ethan rafuse i told ethan i was going to steal this line, because i thought it was so good. Ethan remarked only partly in jest that mcclellan was like the guy in high school we all knew who was captain of the football team, dated the head cheerleader, seemed effortlessly successful at everything and we hated his guts. [laughter] dr. Rable it seems that george b. Mcclellan led a very charmed life. He was a man eager to make his mark in the world. In some ways, he exuded selfconfidence, though at times in a cautious way. Even as a young man he was wary of what he termed political fools. He viewed his own class, the class of 1846 at the military academy at west point, is the key to national success, not only in the civil war but eventually more broadly. In an address to his fellow cadets, mcclellan declared the great difference between the officers and privates is that one is supposed to be an educated, wellinformed man, whilst the other is a passive instrument in the hands of his superiors. I think that statement speaks of volumes about george b. Mcclellan. His faith in an elite class, indeed, a natural hierarchy if you will, would hardly sit well in democratic america. But his confidence in the power of superior minds was striking and at the same time i think unequivocal. He praised his fellow and presumably likeminded cadets for appreciating what he called the best literature, essential to the man who would bear the character of an accomplished and polished gentleman. Indeed, without educated officers, mcclellan believed armies would become little better than mobs of the most wicked men who would spread mindless pillage and devastation. He believed that power based on the virtue of intellectual superiority is infinitely greater and more lasting than that which is the result of mere physical quality. He would not ignore the mounting sectional tensions he was always aware of those, even as a cadet. He even alluded in his speech to the possibility of civil war. But, in such a crisis, he believed that the trained officers was point, as he put it, would hold the balance in our hands. And, therefore, the army would ever incline to the conservative party whose highest goal must be what . To preserved the american union. Now, as a young men, unlike his great rival, as it were, Abraham Lincoln, mcclellan suffered from no crippling emotional crises. He had grown up in quite comfortable middleclass circumstances. His physician father and genteel mother served as models of behavior and success. At the striking young age of 13, george b. Mcclellan entered the university of pennsylvania. But before he was able to graduate, his father persuaded a friendly congressman to get him an appointment to west point. By the end of his first year, mcclellan stood high in his class. Indeed, he impress some of his west pont classmates as a near genius who excelled in any number of subjects and displayed an easy confidence in his own. Abilities mcclellan found the cadet fro the Southern States compatible because as he put it, their manners, feelings and opinions. As time came for mcclellan to leave west point, he expressed some disappointment. He finished second but he thought he should have finished first. He was eager to join the corps of engineers. I think early on the outlines of mcclellans personality were also becoming clear. He often stood on ceremony. Once complained to his mother about an overly familiar visitor to west point who kept calling him george, rather than giving him proper respect. Mcclellan could be a prickly character who could easily take offense. He was proud of being an engineer, the only engineer in his cohort heading to mexico, and he was determined to show them, the pronoun lacked some antecedent i suspect refer to some west point administrators and faculty, to show them i can nevertheless do something. He still kind of resents being second in his class. The prospect of war and success and fame greatly excited young George Mcclellan. War at last, aint it glorious. The impatient young mcclellan goes off to fight in mexico where he freely criticizes his fellow officers, mexicans and anyone who did not live up to his exacting standards of military professionalism or gentlemanly behavior. In his view, some of the american volunteers who carry on in a most shameful and disgraceful manner were the worst of the lot. Mcclellan himself confessed to being embarrassed and a bit exasperated that he had not compiled a more illustrious war record in mexico. At the time i think his resentments were revealing, revealing about his later career. As a junior officer it galled mcclellan to be outranked by volunteer officers. He shared when field scotts disdain for president polks interference of military strategy. An opinion conveniently filed away for later use. He was impatient with the army after he returned from the war. He was impatient with military politics after he came back to west point. And he said he enjoyed military service in the abstract. He found american democracy incompatible with his professional ideals. He wrote, our government may be a very fine one for civilians. It was not intended for military men. He said, the more truly one likes his profession, the more soldierly pride he has, the more disgusted he is with our service. Could i think down at once with indifference, and fogeyism, i would be perfectly content with the army. As it is, it, service in the army, is a continual heaping of coals on ones head. I am almost afraid to read history or anything appertaining to my profession because the more i know, the more are my eyes are opened to our own wretched condition. Mcclellans performance in mexico, however, despite what he, his disappointments, i think attracted more notice than he realized. Both william t. Sherman and Oliver Otis Howard recalled by the late 1840s, mcclellan had required a notable reputation as student and soldier of the military arts. In march, 1855, secretary of war Jefferson Davis sends mcclellan as part of a threeman commission to investigate European Military policy in an operation in the crimean war. Mcclellan traveled over the continent. He was especially impressed with prussian and russian officers. And, finally, was able to visit crimea once the russians gave up sevastopol. He filed a long report on coming back. In fact this report was commercially published. In the fall of 1861, with a preface that claimed the captain had been sent to europe on account of the brilliant military qualities he had already displayed. It won him additional recognition in washington at the time and additional recognition in the army. But mcclellan saw little prospect for advancement in the army after he returned from europe or professional achievement. In november, 1856, he resigned his commission. Jump ahead four years later, may 22, 1860, george b. Mcclellan gets married. To maryellen marcy. They were wed at Calvary Church in new york city and by all accounts the marriage was a loving and very successful one. Both husband and wife were attractive, devoted to each other, deeply religious. He often referred to his wife as my little presbyterian. She obviously had an influence on his religious views. In any case, they began their life together with the advantages of family and background and education and social standing. And they soon enough, as husbands and wives sometimes do, but not always, come to view the world with all of its opportunities and perils in remarkably similar ways. Nelly mcclellan is very much like her husband. If not exactly at war with the world both were quick to take , offense and could be touchy over perceived slights, especially from those considered to be their intellectual, moral or social inferiors. Jumping back a little bit in time, beginning in 1857, mcclellan had become a railroad executive. Yet, despite more than doubling his army salary, mcclellan harbored regrets over leaving the army. He has these statements criticizing life in the army but yet at the same time, he regrets leaving the army. In any case, whether in the army or as a railroad executive, he had not yet achieved the distinction he so longed for. He eventually becomes a railroad superintendent with what at the time was a princely salary of 10,000 a year and moved to cincinnati. But the bar of ambition for mcclellan was still set high. Success with the railroad and his marriage to ellen occurred just as the nation was plunging towards the abyss. Politically, mcclellan had undoubtedly absorbed a goodly amount of his fathers whiggish conservatism, including at sometimes disdain for the mass of humanity. Exposure to politicians in washington had given him in equally jaundiced view of that breed. Mcclellan himself later described his own views as that of a strong democrat of the stephen a. Douglas school. He was one of these sort of needless war guys who blamed the mounting sectional crisis on both sides. He remained wary of republican politicians in washington who in his view failed to represent what he considered to be the true sentiments of most northerners. Mcclellan always tried to steer kind of a middle course at this point. But, regardless of his political assumptions and expectations, once the war came, this meant that george b. Mcclellans long frustrated ambition for marshall distinction was presumably be gratified. He accepted an offer from the governor William Dennison to take command of the ohio troops. Mcclellan reveled in this new assignment, remarking he much preferred dealing with soldiers than managing railroads and adding up columns of dollars and cents. Eventually, he becomes, of course, a Major General in the regular army. He was soon sending off plans to Winfield Scott about how to win the war. He proposed entering western virginia for an advance on richmond. So, the plan, rather oddly dismissed any difficulty in crossing mountains in a single sentence. By may 17, 1861, he had turned his attention to the flight of that plight to the plight of the unionists in western virginia two but also prepared, despite the absence of any instructions from scott, to across the ohio river with as many as 40,000 men rather than see the loyal union men of kentucky crushed. Scott, elderly general scott, tries to rein in his young subordinate by pointing out that commanding threemonth volunteers in a large theater hardly call for expeditions beyond its borders. Apparently referring to mcclellans kentucky scheme. In turn, mcclellan begins to do something that he is going to do for the next several months. That is complain about Winfield Scott. Writing that scott was sensitive and does not at all time take suggestions from military subordinates especially when the , conflict with his preconceived notions. Mcclellan views himself as increasingly indispensable to the war effort. This will not only to lead mcclellan to worked too long and hard, but also prevent them from sharing his plans and problems with subordinates or even the War Department, or later president lincoln. Theres no question. I think mcclellan was an extremely, extremely hard worker. In fact, i think too hard a worker. The first heft for mcclellan in the field would come in western virginia with confederates concentrating around Rich Mountain and laurel hill near beverly. Mcclellan was in the field and with a hopefulness that expressed widely held in northern views, including president lincolns at this time, he remarked, it is wonderful to see how rapidly the minds of many of these people become enlightened when they find we can protect them. Fear and ignorance combined have made most of the converse to secession. The reverse process is now going out with great avidity. Many northerners assumed that secession was a minority position in the south at this time, and soon the southerners would come to their senses and the union would be restored. In any case, after skirmishing on july 12, troops commanded by William S Rosecrans turned to the confederate position at Rich Mountain, taking a number of prisoners and suffering only like casualties. Mcclellan gets the credit that perhaps better belongs to rosecrantz. Never was so complete success gained with smaller sacrifice of life, he wrote nelly, declaring victory in western virginia. The newspapers agreed. The Washington National