General McClellan

Preface

The accomplished author of this volume completed the work, with the exception of the preface md index, in December last. In the following Feb- ■uary the reading of the proof was interrupted by an llness, terminating in his untimely death on the i6th Df that month, so that the labor of proof reading devolved upon his friend and assistant professor, Capain Cornells De W. Willcox, of the Artillery Corps. 3r. Otto Plate, librarian of the Academy, prepared the elaborate index, and, under the supervision of Proessor Michie, the maps were made by First Lieuenant William Ruthven Smith, of the Artillery Corps, in instructor in the Department of Philosophy.

Peter Smith Michie was born March 24, 1839, it Brechin, Forfarshire, Scotland, and was appointed o the United States Military Academy from Ohio, graduating second in the class of 1863. He at once ought active service in the field, receiving the comnission of first lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, md before the close of the civil war he was chief engineer of the Army of the James. For his services LS an engineer during the civil war he received three )revets, and for meritorious services in the Virginia ampaign, terminating at Appomattox Court House, le was brevetted a brigadier general of volunteers. In Vpril, 1 867, he was ordered to the West Point Academy s Assistant Professor of Civil and Military Engineerng, and four years later was appointed Professor of vJatural and Experimental Philosophy, performing his luties as such for almost thirty years.

It may be questioned if any instructor at the Acad- :my was ever more beloved and respected than Gen- :ral Michie, or if anv member of the educatiojial staff vi GENERAL McCLELLAN.

ever exercised equal influence in aiding and guiding' the affairs of the MiHtary Academy. His latest thoughts were on the successful continuation of his duties there, and his dying wish as to his successor was happily gratified. Few men had more friends than the; warm-hearted Michie. He desired to live, but wasready to go, although he had not nearly rounded outt the allotted threescore years and ten, and had muchi literary work in view that he wished to complete after his approaching retirement from the Academy.

Not yet sixty-two when he was called away, but how, full and complete was Michie's career! There was noi break in his record of service during thirty and eighti years, from the time he hastened to the field to defend his country's flag and then returned to devote.^ his life to the best interests of his loved alma mater. " He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one," in all that related to his profession ; and not having been connected with the Army of the Potomac during the period when it was commanded by General McClellan^ it was believed that no better person than Professor Michie could be found to write an unprejudiced biog raphy. He was by nature both honest and independent, and it would seem that he was eminently successful in preparing this volume with what Edmund Burke describes as " the cold neutrality of an inn partial judge.'' This opinion was shared by McClel lan's able corps commander. General Fitz-John Porterr who, in a letter to the writer, dated from his dying bed May 5, 1901, says: "So far as I have been able t( judge, I think it is the best work on the subject tha has been written." Another accomplished army office: who also saw the proof sheets, writes : " In my humbM opinion, this Life of McClellan is altogether the bes< piece of work done by the author, and, more than thisj it is absolutely so impartial and just as to posses>^ », almost the quality of finality, so far as McClellan'l qualities as a commander are concerned."

Jas. Grant Wilson

New York, Jitue, igoi.

I

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — Ancestry. — West Point. — Mexican War . . i

II. — Exploration. — Crimean War 24

Chapter I

ANCESTRY. WEST POINT. MEXICAN WAR.

)■ CGeorge Brinton McClellan, the subject of this memoir, was born December 3, 1826, in Philadelphia, Pa. He was the third child and second son of the eminent physician, George McClellan, and of Elizabeth Brinton, his wife.l His mother, a daughter of John Brinton, whose family had its origin in the south of England, was a woman of gentle refinement and unselfish disposition. Owing to her husband's peculiarly active professional life the training of the children fell almost entirely upon her, and for this loving task she was admirably adapted. Gentle in her ministrations, clear in judgment and wise in discretion, she filled home with happiness, and guided the youthful lives of her children by that wonderful intuition of a loving mother which is beyond expression or analysis. To such noble women, the loving and self-sacrificing mothers, the country owes an infinite debt of gratitude, and to them, therefore, is our first homage due. ""^ ,' In tracing back the lines of the father's ancestry we ar^ brought to the beginning of the thirteenth century. The Maclellans were anciently sheriffs of Palloway and barons of Bombie, one of whom accompanied Sir William Wallace into France after the latter was defeated at Falkirk in i2gS.Pin the turbulent times of James H of Scotland, Sir Patrick Maclellan was carried oi¥ by William, the eighth earl of Douglas, to

Thrieve Castle, where, upon his refusing to join the confederacy against his»king, he was treacherously put to death by Douglas ; whereupon the Maclellans, making reprisal upon the lands of Douglas in Galloway without warrant or authority, the barony and office of sheriff became forfeited to the Crown.T'-fTradition assigns the recovery of the barony to the following circumstance: In the reign of James II of Scotland, a troop of gypsies, coming from Ireland, so infested the county of Galloway that a royal proclamation was issued, offering the barony of Bombie to any person who should bring the captain, dead or alive, before the king — an exploit which was accomplished by a son of the Laird of Bombie, who carried the marauder's head upon the point of his sword to his Majesty; from whence, to perpetuate the exploit, he assumed that figure for his crest, with the motto " Think on." *<^ 'Recording to another tradition, the famous cannon named Mons Meg, now at Edinburgh Castle, was presented by the Maclellans to James II, to aid him in battering down Thrieve Castle in 1455, and it was probably on account of this legend that the family used as a crest a mortar piece with the motto " Superba frango." j

Sir Robert Maclellan, of Bombie, gentleman of the bedchamber to the first two British sovereigns of the house of Stuart, was created a peer of Scotland with the title of Lord Kirkcudbright, granted to him and his heirs male bearing the name and arms of Maclellan, on the occasion of the coronation of Charles I at Edinburgh, May 25, 1633. The title became extinct April 19, 1832, on the death of the ninth baron, Camden- Grey Maclellan. f

. From this county of Kirkcudbright, which lies on the northern border of the Frith of Solway in Scotland, three brothers McClellan emigrated to America early in the eighteenth century and became the progenitors of the family in this country. The eldest of

f Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xxxv, p. 210.

these settled near Worcester, Mass., and here his eldest son, Samuel-, was born, January 4, 1730. In keeping with the circumstances of the time and place the young lad was brought up as a farmer, a life which in those early days led to independence of thought as well as of action. Born with a martial spirit and a patriot's heart, and invigorated by the pure air of freedom, he found ample opportunity to cultivate the one and engage the other in the service of his country before he had reached middle age. He served with great credit as a lieutenant in the French and Indian war, and later, in 1773, he became captain of a troop of horse which he had raised in and about Woodstock, Conn., where he had made his home.

When the news of the battle of Lexington reached him he immediately set out with his troop, and was fortunate enough to participate in the battle of Bunker Hill. The anxiety of his wife was relieved when she heard of his safety from the perils of battle, and in her gratitude for this favor of Divine Providence she planted three elms at Woodstock in commemoration thereof, and these now noble and venerable trees have been for more than a century loving testimonials of her devotion to her patriotic husband. Although he was ^complimented by Washmgton with an invitation to join the Continental ariny, with the promise of a colonel's commission, he modestly preferred service with the Connecticut militia during the war. Ample testimonials of his sturdy patriotism and soldierly ability are to be found in the commissions which the worthy Governor, John Trumbull, was pleased to bestow upon lim. These are : Major, Eleventh Connecticut, October 15, 1775; lieutenant colonel, Fourth Battalion, De- :ember 2, 1776; lieutenant colonel, Eleventh Connecti- :ut, December 7, 1776; colonel, battalion of Connecticut militia, September 25, 1777; colonel, January 29, 1779; brigadier general. Fifth Brigade Connecticut nilitia, June 10, 1779. After a continuous service during the war he returned to his home at Woodstock upon the declaration of peace, hung up his sword, and quietly resumed the peaceful avocations that had been so long interrupted. ♦He represented his friends and neighbors in the State Assembly for several terms, and finally, after a well-spent life, left as a legacy to his descendants an unsullied name worthy of emulation. Hq] died at Woodstock, October 17, 1807.*

In the direct line of descent from the Revolutionary j soldier comes James, his eldest son, followed by the two sons of the latter, George and Samuel, both of whomi were born at Woodstock — the elder, George, Decem-j ber 2^, 1796, and the younger, Samuel, September 21, 1800. Both became physicians, and each had two sonss who served in the war of the rebellion. It is, however, a curious circumstance that the sons of Samuel served on opposite sides. Carswell, the elder, after graduatingj at Williams College, became a civil engineer, and afterward served with gallantry and distinction in the Army of the Potomac. He was severely wounded at the battle of Malvern Hill, and afterward was a most efficient staff officer of General Humphreys in the Seconc Corps. He is also the author of the Personal Memoirr and Military History of Grant z's. the Record of th( Army of the Potomac. The younger son of Samuel' Henry Brainerd, also a graduate of Williams Collega served on the Confederate side as adjutant of the Thirc Virginia Cavalry, then as assistant adjutant general o the cavalry corps of the Army of Northern Virginia and as chief of staff to Generals J. E. B. Stuart anc^ Wade Hampton. He has also ventured into the fieh of military literature, as the author of the Life and Cam ? paigns of Major-General J. E. B. Stuart.

George McClellan, the distinguished physician an< surgeon of Philadelphia, was educated at Yale College and while there as a student, under the influence of th elder Silliman, he developed a taste for natural scienc which ultimately directed his studies toward the medi cal profession. After graduating from college in 181 be began the study of medicine at New Haven undc ve!

Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol. iv, p. 84.

II

Dr. Thomas Hubbard, but received his degree from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1819. But even before he had obtained his degree he was elected resident physician of the hospital of the Philadelphia almshouse. During his first year of practice he performed the most important operations in surgery, such as lithotomy, extraction of the lens for cataract, and extirpation of the lower jaw. He opened a dissecting room, and here his private courses of lectures were so successful as to necessitate a larger room for the accommodation of his constantly increasing classes. Encouraged by this gratifying approval of his methods of instruction, he conceived the idea of founding a medical college, and in 1825 he, with others, obtained from the Legislature of Pennsylvania a charter for the Jefferson Medical College. He began his lectures in the new college as professor of surgery in 1826, and notwithstanding the professional opposition which developed and the difficulty of obtaining a suitable faculty, the college grew so rapidly that within ten years the students numbered three hundred and fifty. In 1838 the faculty was reorganized, but without Dr. McClellan's name, and this led to the incorporation of the medical department of the University bf Pennsylvania, mainly through his own personal efforts. He began his lectures in the new institution in November, 1839, and continued them until the spring of 1843. ^^ is credited with being the originator of the extended system of medical education as it now exists in this country and of the clinical instruction in such institutions. His professional practice increased with his growing reputation, patients coming even from the West Indies and South America to avail themselves of his skill and attainments. He was especially distinguished in ophthalmic surgery, although he had undertaken with success almost every capital operation then known to the profession. By his marvelous skill in the removal of the parotid gland he did more than any other surgeon of his time to establish it as a safe and feasible operation. He shares with

Valentine Mott, of New York, and John C. Warren, of Boston, the credit of introducing many procedures in surgery which were before new to the profession in this country. In his earher years he contributed many original papers to medical periodicals, and was one of the conductors of the American Medical Review and Journal. He also edited Eberles's Theory and Practice of Physic (Philadelphia, 1840), and left in manuscript The Principles and Practice of Surgery, which was afterward edited by his son. Dr. J. H. B. McClellan, and published in 1848. Like all other successful instructors, he was animated by a controlling devotion to his profession and gifted w^ith an enthusiastic love for instruction, which aroused the intensest interest in the minds of his pupils. He died in Philadelphia, May 9, 1847, after a life which, though brief w^ien measured by years, was full to overflowing in remarkable professional achievements and good deeds done to his fellow-men.

Two other sons were born, who grew to manhood and justified by their honorable lives and distinguished careers the expectations of their honored parents. The elder, John Hill Brinton, was born in Philadelphia, August 13. 1823, and died in Edinburgh, Scotland, July 20, 1874. After graduating from the University.] of Pennsylvania in 1841 he adopted the profession off medicine, in which he attained great distinction bothi in surgery and medical practice, for he inherited much of his father's skill and quickness of touch. It is said that he possessed a wonderful intuition in the diagnosis of disease, and his gentleness of manner made him a welcome visitor in the chamber of sickness. During the war he contributed his best efforts and skill in the hospitals established by the Government in Philadelphia, and performed some notable opera-; tions which have been found worthy of record in the Medical and Surgical History of the War, published by the United States Government. He edited and published in 1848 the manuscript on The Principles and Practice of Surgery which his father left in 1847. Th€'

younger brother, Arthur, served as aid-de-camp on the staff of his brother George, during the Peninsular and Maryland campaigns, and ended his military service when the general was relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac, November 7, 1862.

Overburdened by the many exactions connected with the life of a successful practitioner of medicine, and engrossed with the care and anxieties pertaining to the establishment of the new medical coUege, Dr. McClellan could only give a limited attention to the education of his children. Fortunately his wife was particularly well fitted to supply this deficiency. Under her loving guidance George spent a happy childhood and grew to be a healthy and robust lad. Before he had reached his teens he was sent for his preliminary instruction to a school in Philadelphia, kept by Sears Cook Walker, a Harvard graduate, where he remained for four years ; then to Dr. Samuel Crawford's preparatory school of the University of Pennsylvania, receiving at the same time some private instruction in Latin and Greek from an excellent German teacher named SchefTer, with whom he read Virgil and Homer. In 1840 he entered the university, but continued there only two years, because he then received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Up to this time he had not exhibited any unusual talents, although he had attained high class rank ; he was neither brilliant nor precocious, but was rated rather as a good student making steady progress. His habits of mind tended rather to thoroughness of detail than to fertility of imagination.

When this young lad reported himself at West Point it was found that he was below the required age for admission, he being then only fifteen years and seven months old. Owing doubtless to his good health, fine physique, and thorough mental preparation the regulation as to age was suspended in his case, and he was admitted to the Academy in the summer of 1842. It is an instructive sight to look upon the earnest countenances of these youths, coming together

I for the first time from all sections of the country to enter upon a military 'career, and who for the time being may be taken to be the truest type of the young manhood of our country. The dress, appearance, j| stature, manners, and dialect of its various sections are ! fairly well represented in such a gathering, but after they have passed through their setting-up drill and are ,, put into their uniforms, the barriers due to differences || of previous condition are soon broken down, and those human qualities that make for association and friendship prove stronger than the accidents of birth or the influences of wealth or station. The strongest associations are at first those of classmates, but in later years these include members of other classes, for the deprivations, hardships^ and sacrifices of the military service naturally cement these friendly associations into the love and affection of a great brotherhood.

Because of the dominating influence that the West Point training had on McClellan's public career it may be well to refer briefly to some of its salient features. Foreign military visitors have frequently expressed great surprise that it has been possible to maintain in the military school of a democratic people a regimen so exacting and a discipline so rigid as is found at West Point. An attentive study of its early history, and of the circumstances attending its complete reorganization in i8i7,will remove this difficulty, and will show, in addition, that the application of sound principles of education, the establishment of wise regulations for discipline, and the inculcation of a patriotic ambition are sufficient reasons for its continued prosperity.

Major Sylvanus Thayer, the great superintendent, to whom the country is mainly indebted for the vitality with which his personality revivified the Military Academy, was himself a graduate of the class of 1808, and an officer of the corps of engineers. Called to assume command of the institution in 1817, after a brief investici^ation of the military schools of Europe, he was enabled by the firm support of the Secretaries of War

I

ANCESTRY.— WEST POINT.— MEXICAN WAR. g

of two administrations to carry into effect his welldevised plans for the reformation and reor^^anization of the institution. Enjoying the full confidence of the War Department for the sixteen years of his administration, he was enabled to select from among the graduates of the Academy such officers for its future administration as were imbued with a sturdy faith in the efffcacy of his ideals, and were capable of improving the studies and discipline that had already produced such gratifying results. As examples of his remarkable perspicacity, it is only necessary to name Davies, Mahan, Courtenay, Bartlett, Church, and^ Bailey, who became famous professors, distinguished for their sound learning, eminent ability, and great teaching capacity, and whose labors have bridged the intervening period from Thayer's time to the present with undoubted success. And of still greater importance to the country was the beneficent influence of these ideals upon the tone and discipline of the army by the influx into its commissioned ranks of the five hundred and seventy young officers who as pupils had been trained under his guidance.

" To the discharge of his important functions," says one of his former pupils, " he brought eminent personal qualifications, uniting decision with courtesy, authority with kindness, knowledge with consideration for ignorance, strict discipline with paternal admonition, unfaltering integrity to unflinching firmness, fidelity to his trust, and loyalty to his country, and with a restless energy and an untiring industry that never left anything unfinished or to chance." *

This magnificent encomium has been amply justified by the records of the graduates of West Point. But it would be a grave mistake to imagine that training alone can supply deficiencies of inherent possession or that institutions can create genius. Schools are established not for the few rare geniuses that flash upon the 'world, but for the many possessing talent, who through

* Cullum's Biographical Register, vol. iii, p. 655.

I lO GENERAL McCLELLAN.

the helping hand of training and education come finally to be intrusted with th^ business of the world, so that it may be conducted conservatively and civilization progress by an orderly evolution.

The Military Academy experienced a rather precarious existence for the first fifteen years of its life, but at the time of young McClellan's admission it had had the benefit of twenty-five years' able management of the corps of engineers upon the lines laid down by Major Thayer. As a result, it had attained a well-deserved reputation among the educational institutions of the country, and its high standards in the physical, intellectual, and moral essentials of education had been rigidly maintained. But hidden as it was in the highlands of the Hudson, out of the usual lines of travel, it was scarcely known to the general public. No great war had arisen to test the efficiency of its methods and demonstrate its value to the nation. Many public men, with pardonable optimism, foreseeing no possibility of future war and thoroughly engrossed in developing the wonderful commercial facilities of the country, were lukewarm in its support. Indeed, on one occasion, just before the Mexican War, the change of a single vote in the House of Representatives would, have defeated the bill for its support. Nevertheless Congress continued to appropriate annually the modest sum required for its maintenance, and its graduates were sent to the distant frontier, where the little regular army was engaged in a continuous struggle with the hostile Indians. There was another equally important service ' ^. to the country that the graduates of West Point were able to render. When, in 1827, the railroad mania began, there were only a few short and insignificant local roads, aggregating in length less than twenty miles, and there were but few educated civil engineers in the country capable of conducting larger works. Under these circumstances the Government adopted the wise policy of loaning officers of the army, scientifically educated at the Academy, to assist railroad companies in carrying out more ambitious projects.

ANCESTRY.— WEST POINT.— MEXICAN WAR. n

In this way West Point graduates became the pioneers in railroad construction, and the educators of an able body of civil engineers, who to this day have continued the inherited traditions, methods, discipline, esprit de corps, and high bearing of their distinguished predecessors. It is within the limits of probability that the great success of such able engineers as McNeil, Wliistler, Tyler, Barney, Swift, and many others who followed their example in engaging in civil engineering, may have influenced many young men to seek the advantages of the West Point education, and who would not otherwise have been attracted there by visions of military glory. The profession of arms is not, in time of peace, especially engaging, and it would be an interesting circumstance to ascertain whether young McClellan's steps were guided to West Point by his inherent military instincts, derived from his revolutionary ancestor, or by the desire of his parents to secure for him a good scientific education.

In the summer of 1842 his class began their student life at West Point, and although he was but a young lad at the time, he cheerfully complied with all the exactions of his new environment, for he was inherently a lover of order and of discipline. He had acquired at school habits of application and a remarkable facility in the use of language for one so young, so that it was not long before he was transferred to the upper part of his class, and in honest rivalry was able to maintain his position during the whole of his academic career. At the dreaded examination in January, when the new class comes before the academic board for their first arrangement in scholarship, McClellan came out second in a class of one hundred and one members, being first in mathematics and eighth in French. At the end of his first year he was third in the class, which was then reduced to eighty-three members ; the second year he held his own, then dropped one file the third year, but recovering during the last year, he came out second in general standing on final graduation, the class then numbering but sixty, and having lost in its four years of struggle forty-eight of its original members. The first honors* of the class fell by just right to a brilliant scholar, Charles Seaforth Stewart, who had held his position against all competitors during the whole four years of his cadet life. In this honorable rivalry for scholastic distinction nothing occurred to mar the mutual regard of Stewart and McClellan or to disturb their friendship. In recalling the memories of their cadet days Stewart says of McClellan : " He was a noble, generous-hearted, clear-headed enthusiastic, able fellow. There w^as not a mean thought in him. He was well educated, and, when he chose to be, brilliant. In every point, so far as I can recall, he was true and honorable, and our personal relations wxre always very pleasant as cadets." In after years, so strange are the fortunes of war, Stewart served as major of engineers during the Peninsular campaign in the army commanded by his classmate, McClellan.

Among McClellan's comrades there were many who afterward gained considerable distinction in their profession. In the senior, or first class, were Grant, Franklin, Ingalls, and Augur ; in the second, Pleasonton, Buckner, Sackett, and Hancock ; in the third, W. F. (Baldy) Smith, Fitz-John Porter, Stone, Wood, Clitz, D. A. Russell, and Granger ; and in his own class were Foster, Reno, Couch, Seymour, Sturgis, Stoneman, Palmer, Gibbs, Gordon, Davis, Pickett, and T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson. In the succeeding classes, with "the members of which he had more or less intimate association during his cadet life, were A. P. Hill, Burnside, Gibbon, Ayres, GrifBn, Heth, Trowbridge, Duane, Tidball, Buford, Gillmore, Parke, and Holabird. Little did these young cadets then imagine that they would be called upon in the near future to lead great hosts into battle, and, through the valor of their soldiers, become famous generals in the war of the rebellion.

Too much importance can hardly be attached to the regular habits of life which are enforced upon these young and growing lads by the proper division of the twenty-four hours of the day for study, recitation, drill,

!i recreation, and sleep. McClellan came to the Academy an immature boy, and left it a vigorous, sturdy young man, of medium stature, with broad shoulders and deep chest; he had, however, such a well-proportioned figure that it concealed rather than displayed his great muscular strength and physical activity. With an active brain, a clear mind, a pure heart, and a body well trained in all athletic exercises, it could well be said of him that he possessed lucns sana in corporc sano. Upon his graduation he was recommended by the academic board to the War Department for promotion into any corps or arm of the service.

The cadets at West Point, coming as they do from every congressional district in the country, reflect with very great fidelity the various shades of political opinion that for the time being are there prevalent. It is true, however, that their views undergo modification to some extent through the influences of association and education, but, nevertheless, West Point represents in miniature the whole country more accurately than does any other institution of learning in the land. And so when the election of President Polk, in 1844, foreshadowed the war with Mexico, the divided sentiment of the country was accurately portrayed among these youthful representatives. As the prospects for war became more certain, the members of McClellan's class, then on the eve of graduation, gave themselves up to the more thorough study of tactics, strategy, and the art of war, for, independently of whatever opinion they entertained as to the justice of the war, they knew that they would soon be called upon for immediate service. And when the news of the successes of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, gained by General Taylor's little army of regulars on the 8th and 9th of May, 1846, reached West Point, every youngster of the graduating class was anxious for orders that would carry him to the seat of war.