Blatant Disregard

If you had recently been promoted, how do you think you might treat your boss…good, or might you be rude to him? Well, on November 13, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln made a late-night visit to General George McClellan, whom he had recently appointed as general in chief of the Union army on November 1, 1861, and was snubbed by the man he had just entrusted with control of a large part of the Union army. While President Lincoln placed a large amount of confidence in McClellan, the general didn’t treat the president with the respect that should have been afforded him. This was the most well-known example of McClellan’s blatant disregard for the president’s authority. Lincoln appointed him to lead the Army of the Potomac, the main Union force in the East, in July 1861, following the Union’s crushing defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run in Virginia.

McClellan was a competent leader and had quickly set about building a strong army. Very soon he was promoted to general in chief after Winfield Scott resigned that fall. While he earned praise for his military efforts, he also gained a reputation for arrogance and disdain toward Washington’s political leaders. Once in the top army role, he openly aligned himself with Democratic leaders in Congress and made little effort to hide his disregard for the Republican administration. In letters to his wife, he described Lincoln as “nothing more than a well-meaning baboon” and called Secretary of State William Seward an “incompetent little puppy.”

Like most high-level security jobs in Washington, the work hours for the army were never expected to be a 9-to-5 job. That said, President Lincoln often visited McClellan’s home in the evenings to talk strategy. On November 13th, he arrived with Seward and presidential secretary John Hay, but McClellan was out, so the men waited. Finally, an hour later, McClellan returned, was told his guests were there, and yet he went straight to his room without saying a word. After another half-hour, they learned he had gone to bed. Hay thought Lincoln should have been offended, but Lincoln said it was “better at this time not to be making points of etiquette and personal dignity.” Lincoln never visited McClellan’s home again, and in March 1862, he removed him as general in chief of the army. He really had no choice.

While President Lincoln chose not to make a scene, he had lost all respect for McClellan, and he couldn’t get that back. It was obvious that McClellan was not interested in the necessary strategizing that was needed to plan a war. He was not an ally of President Lincoln’s. They did not share the same values. It was a tough decision, but McClellan was more of a liability than an asset. He had to go. So, President Lincoln made the tough decision to replace him. It was necessary, and a good decision in the end. President Lincoln replaced McClellan with Edwin Stanton, an American lawyer and politician who took on the role of US Secretary of War for most of the Civil War. Stanton played a key part in organizing the North’s huge military resources and steering the Union toward victory. Still, many Union generals saw him as overly cautious and a bit of a micromanager. That makes me wonder what those generals’ political views were.