MoCLELLAN, GEORGE B. 



561 



subsequently, and was overruled. Finally, lie 

 pushed a column to its relief, and would have se- 

 cured it and won a masterly position if the gar- 

 rison had held out a few hours longer. He has 

 also been censured for delay in beginning the at- 

 tack at Antietam, and for failure to renew the 

 battle, September 18th, instead of waiting for 

 the 19th, as he resolved to do. It is true that 

 prompter action before the battle might have 

 had brilliant results ; that he overrated the 

 enemy's strength at all times ; and that after 

 the battle he forgot the shattered condition of 

 Lee's forces in the consciousness of what his 

 fown nad suffered. But his critics too often 

 fail to remember that he was handling a de- 

 feated army, the battle-shaken elements of 

 which he had gathered up two weeks before, 

 and that he had to depend upon subordinates, 

 not many of whom were equal to their respon- 

 sibilities. No caviling about what he might 

 have done should belittle the magnificent 

 achievements of his brief campaign ; and there 

 is something curious in the indignation with 

 which those who were trembling for the safe- 

 ty of the capital on the 2d of September saw 

 Lee's defeated army escape across the Potomac. 

 As early as Sept. 21 McOlellan said in a dis- 

 patch to Halleck, who had been in dread of a 

 i flank movement on Washington from the begin- 

 . ning of Lee's advance : " I regret that you find 

 it necessary to couch every dispatch I have the 

 honor to receive from you in a spirit of fault- 

 finding, and that you have not yet found lei- 

 sure to say one word in commendation of the 

 recent achievements of this army, or even al- 

 lude to them." He spent more than a month 

 in reorganizing, reclothing, and resting his 

 army, and in trying to get horses for an effect- 

 ive cavalry force, while the authorities at 

 Washington urged an advance. A visit from 

 the President, Oct. 1, had given him confidence 

 that ha was to have his own way ; but on Oct. 

 6, instructions were issued to cross the Poto- 

 mac and drive the enemy southward. These 

 orders he interpreted as giving him discretion 

 in the matter of preparation ; and it was not 

 till Oct. 25 that he considered himself ready 

 to move. That day he addressed a letter to 

 Halleck as General-in-Chief, in regard to the 

 conduct of the impending campaign, and in an- 

 swer that officer said : " Since you left Wash- 

 ington I have advised and suggested in relation 

 to your movements, but I have given you no 

 .orders; I do not give you any now." 



Ou Oct. 26 McOlellan began the crossing of 

 the Potomac, intending to move his army par- 

 allel with the Blue Ridge, making Warrenton 

 the point of direction. He seized the passes 

 I into the Shenandoah Valley as he moved, and 

 : held them, so that if any strong force of the 

 j enemy remained in the north of the Valley, he 

 >' might cross over in the rear of it ; otherwise, 

 ;his design was to strike between Culpeper 

 i Court-House and Little Washington, and either 

 , divide the forces of the enemy, or compel them 

 to concentrate as far back" as Gordonsville, 

 VOL. xxv. 36 A 



leaving him free to advance on Richmond on 

 the Fredericksburg line, or to move once more 

 to the Peninsula. His progress after crossing 

 the river was rapid and successful ; but on the 

 night of Nov. 7 he received orders to turn 

 over the command of the army to Gen. Burn- 

 side, which he did at once, though its move- 

 ments continued on the 8th and 9th under or- 

 ders that he had already prepared. 



His removal at such a time, to make way for 

 the man that succeeded him, was an act for 

 which there could be no justification on mili- 

 tary grounds. It was doubtless due to some ex- 

 tent to the animosity of the Secretary of War 

 and the General-in-Chief, but reasons are not 

 wanting for supposing that it was mainly owing 

 to the hostility of leading Republican politi- 

 cians, and to political considerations. He was 

 a Democrat, in direct antagonism to the prevail- 

 ing sentiment of the party in power, and with 

 a grievance against the Administration ; his 

 failure in the field would be as disastrous as 

 that of another, while his success might pre- 

 vent the abolition of slavery, and render prob- 

 able a Democratic triumph under the lead of 

 a military hero in the presidential election of 

 1864. Even under the cloud of removal, with 

 every charge from incompetency to disloyalty 

 made against him, and with the war still in 

 progress, he proved a formidable presidential 

 candidate. 



In the winter of 1863 he visited Boston, and 

 was presented with a sword. In June, 1864, 

 he delivered the oration at the dedication of 

 the West Point soldiers' monument. On Aug. 

 31, 1864, the Democratic National Convention 

 assembled at Chicago nominated him as the 

 candidate of the party for the presidency, by a 

 vote of 202 to 23| for Thomas H. Seymour, 

 who was regarded as the representative of the 

 peace sentiment in the Democracy. The plat- 

 form adopted by the convention was especially 

 weak in the declaration in regard to the war, 

 notwithstanding the nomination of a soldier; 

 and in his letter of acceptance McClellan vir- 

 tually set it aside, and spoke frankly and 

 strongly for the prosecution of the war. He 

 carried only three States New Jersey, Ken- 

 tucky, and Delaware and received only 21 

 electoral votes to 212 cast for Lincoln; but 

 his popular vote was 1,811,754 to 2,223,035. 

 On election-day, Nov. 8, 1864, he resigned his 

 commission in the army and went to reside in 

 New York. 



In the spring of 1865 he went to Europe. 

 Returning in 1868, he took up his residence in 

 Orange, N. J., but engaged in business as a 

 civil engineer in the metropolis. He had su- 

 pervision of the building of the Stevens battery, 

 under the terms of its projector's will, until 

 1871; in 1870 he was made chief engineer of 

 the Department of Docks in New York, and he 

 held the place for two years. He also planned 

 a railroad bridge across the Hudson at Pough- 

 keepsie, which has not yet been built. ^ He 

 was one of many engineers who gave it as 



