Firing the Generals: Lincoln v McClellan

President Abraham Lincoln and Prime Minister Winston Churchill have such iconic status as the victorious leaders of their countries in the American Civil War and World War II respectively that they often seem beyond criticism. Yet, at the height of the conflicts, they both risked all by firing their leading generals. Although Lincoln had no previous military knowledge or experience, whereas Churchill had fought in battles and witnessed war both as a soldier and war correspondent, they acted with similar decision and despatch when their generals seemed either incompetent or not to be fighting with the aggressive spirit they demanded. In the first of two articles, Nigel Jones describes Lincoln’s long search for a war-winning general, and his feud with the ultra-cautious General George B McClellan.

The American Civil War was triggered by slavery. As the West opened up, a growing abolitionist movement in the North refused to allow the spread of slavery to new states like Kansas. When the mildly abolitionist Republican Party candidate Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860, 11 southern states, their economies largely dependent on cotton harvested by enslaved African Americans, seceded from the Union and formed a Confederacy.

Lincoln began the war without a large army. Many of its Southern-born officers put loyalty to their native states first and resigned their US commissions to serve the Confederacy.

Lincoln appealed for 75,000 volunteers to preserve the Union. But the first major clash between North and South at Bull Run/Manassas in July 1861 was a disaster for the Union. The inexperienced Northern army was routed, its commander Irvin McDowell was sidelined, and with Washington itself threatened, the search was on for a competent general to save the Union and its capital.

Related Posts