General George B. McClellan

George B. McClellan
(1826-85)

American soldier and Union commander. A brilliant strategist, organizer, and trainer of troops during the American Civil War.

McClellan was born in Philadelphia, December 3, 1826, and educated at the University of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned major general in the regular army and, after the First Battle of Bull Run, commanded the Army of the Potomac, the troops in and around Washington, D.C. In November 1861 he was appointed commander in chief of the Union army.

In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln believed that the Union troops should move directly against the Confederates at Manassas, Virginia, but McClellan disagreed and advanced on Richmond from the east. During the ensuing Peninsular campaign, the Union army was generally successful, but their failure to take Richmond, the Confederate capital, gave new impetus to the South.

President Lincoln and General George B. McClellan in the General's Tent - Antietam, MD, October 3, 1862

The president was dissatisfied with the campaign, and McClellan was superseded by Henry Wager Halleck as commander in chief. McClellan was then ordered to evacuate the peninsula and go to the aid of the troops near Manassas. He arrived too late to be of assistance, however, and after the defeat of the Union army in the Second Battle of Bull Run, he was again placed in active command of the Army of the Potomac.

In September, 1862, he fought at Antietam. He stopped the Confederate attempt to invade the North, but because of heavy Union losses, he was again relieved of his command. He took no further part in the war.

In 1864 McClellan was nominated by the Democratic Party as its candidate for president on a peace platform, but he was defeated by Lincoln. McClellan served as governor of New Jersey from 1878 to 1881, and he died in Orange, New Jersey, October 29, 1885.

(See Bibliography below)

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Photographs: Library of Congress
Bibliography: Hassler, Warren W., Jr., General George B. McClellan, Shield of the Union (1957; repr. 1974); Sears, Stephen W., George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon (1988) and The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan (1989); Williams, Thomas H., McClellan, Sherman and Grant (1962; repr. 1976).