The Foes of the Country McClellan's Friends

The New York Times ^ | October 4, 1864 | New York Times

[herecomesthesun]

Every rebel newspaper in the South, every Tory newspaper in England, every Imperial newspaper in France, expresses a hope for the election of McCLELLAN. No Copperhead newspaper can deny this fact. Every new mail brings a new exhibition of it.

[herecomesthesun]

My friend Matthew is writing an historical novel about the Civil War. I've been doing a little casual research on my own, just for fun, and I found this article on the New York Times web site. I know, the New York Times is evil, but it wasn't always. It was once a pro-American, patriotic paper.

McClellan was the Democrat nominee for president after being a miserable failure as a general in command of the most important Union army. He could have ended the War in 1862 if he had pursued Lee's army after the Battle of Antietam. To this day there are many who believe he was secretly a Confederate sympathizer.

When I read this editorial endorsing Lincoln for re-election, the sentence, "bad men don't rally to a righteous lead" intrigued me because it reminded me of the type of people who have been Ron Paul's most ardent supporters--white supremacists, Jew-bashers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, isolationists reminiscent of the "America Firsters" of the 1930s and early 40's, etc.

[Dog]

Fyi...

[Gondring]

...and conservatives who like the Constitution. Funny how every Ron Paul supporter I’ve ever met has fallen into this category and not the ones you have cited.

[groanup]

ping

[MuttTheHoople]

It wasn't that McClellan was sympathetic to the Confederates. It was that he didn't grasp the full scope of the war, and that the South had to be defeated for the Union to be preserved. He had friends on the other side, and in his mind, he still thought them full Americans.

McClellan deeply loved his troops, and this was a major weakness in that he was unwilling to see the large-scale slaughter required to win this war.

It took two cold-blooded SOB's like Grant and Sherman, to successfully prosecute the war and bring the South back into the Union.

In retrospect, it was good the South lost. If they didn't come back into the Union, where would America's heroes in the 20th Century come from? The South was the home of Alvin York, Audie Murphy, and the Texans who helped win WW II. The Northeast and the Far WEst is the home of Aldrich Ames and Jane Fonda.

[stainlessbanner]

Dixie Ping

[Intolerant in NJ]

McClellan was the Democrat nominee for president after being a miserable failure as a general in command of the most important Union army...and after failing in his bid for the presidency, went on to become the governor of New Jersey, setting the standard for our loser politicians down through the ages even to the McGreeveys and Corzines of today.......

[dcwusmc]

Exactly. The most ardent ones are the ones like me, who believe in a CONSTITUTIONALLY-LIMITED federal government. FREEDOM equates to less evils like racism and anti-semitism, whatever that is. (It’s a null phrase, according to my Rabbi, Daniel Lapin - and I’m a Christian).

[herecomesthesun]

Thanks for that.

[Gondring]

I note, also, that herecomesthesun fails to mention that Don Black endorsed George W. Bush in 2004, and Bush never renounced him. Look at the other endorsements gathered by President Bush in 2004 and you have to ask the same McClellan question.

[Clint Williams]

Really refreshing to hear the admission that one result of the War of Northern Aggression was to stick the good southern folk with Yankee trash, then and now.

[PAR35]

The South was the home of Alvin York, Audie Murphy, and the Texans who helped win WW II.

Don't forget the Spanish American War, where Tennessee earned the nickname 'the Volunteer state' and black and white troops were led to victory by a former Confederate general.

[smug]

He could have ended the War in 1862 if he had pursued Lee's army after the Battle of Antietam.

Why not earlier on the peninsula when he was within 10 miles of Richmond. To me, Little Mac is the most enigmatic figures of the War Between the States. He had his own mind about everything. Even as the "peace candidate" of the Democratic party in 1864 he repudiated this platform. I suspect that the party higher ups that helped give him the nomination thought that they could control him once in office. To emphasize this they made his running mate, George Pendleton a real peace candidate who still extolled the theory of "Nullification". and Vallandigham as the party's chose for Secretary of State. Past performance by Little Mac suggest that they would have had as much control over him as the Lincoln cabinet had over him, which was none at all.

[herecomesthesun]

That’s really interesting. Thanks a lot for your insights.

[MuttTheHoople]

George MacClellan was America's greatest training general. He managed to train up the ragtag bunch of Union forces, give them some pride, and get them prepared for battle. Unfortunately for him, he was NOT a competent battlefield General. He had a much higher opinion of himself than his peers did.

The troops loved "Little Mac"...but they also knew they wanted to win the war, and the only person who could do that was Abraham Lincoln.