[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.

[herecomesthesun]

Thanks for that.

[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.