Sears & Mac
Peter Knupfer (PKNUPFER@KSUVM.BITNET)
Sat, 9 Oct 1993 07:20:29 ECT
My problem with Sears, and with criticisms of McClellan in general, is
not the accusations of timidity and battlefield myopia. Instead, it's
with the analysis of the context of McClellan's strategy. Mac was a limited-
war Democrat, implementing Congress's clearly-stated limited war policy
as embodied in the Crittenden-Johnson Resolutions. The point here is not
that he was "just following orders," but that he commanded the army at a time
when northern public opinion was not yet prepared for the kind of battle
of annihilation and go-for-the-jugular strategy that Sears dearly wishes
Mac had applied. And it is not entirely clear that Mac's subordinates were
team players on this issue, either. The northern high command, from the
President on down, had a lot of rethinking to do about strategy by the time
Antietam rolled around. The Crittenden-Johnson resolutions were not renewed
at the end of 1861; but they never had a specific replacement, either;
Congress instead began passing confiscation acts and sterner legislation that
signalled, over an extended period, a harsher and more totalist war policy.
And look at what had happened to brash, aggressive,
total-war generals before Antietam -- like Pope, for instance. Pope's
blunt radicalism got him in trouble, as did his overconfidence. And one
certainly has to wonder about Lincoln's aggressiveness and willingness to
take risks. If he were truly pressing for a Napoleonic battle, he surely
didn't help Mac start one when he pulled 40,000 troops out of the Peninsular
expedition before it got started, and all because of reports that DC
might be endangered.
Finally, about the lost order. My problem isn't that Mac didn't take full
advantage of it; it's that Lee lost it, that Lee had badly split his forces
while invading MD; it's that Lee's command style left something to be desired.
He barely got his divisions back together before the battle.
Peter Knupfer
Kansas State University
pknupfer@ksuvm