Special Orders Do Upset Us

   Welcome to Friday with Chairman Joe.

   You've never heard of President McClellan because George B. McClellan blew his three best chances to get the job. Whichever Union general won the Civil War was pretty much guaranteed to be elected president after Lincoln.
   Poor President Lincoln. When he took office the country was falling apart, with eleven southern states leaving the Union to set up their own Confederacy. Lincoln spent the next four years putting it back together. mostly by military force. Unfortunately, most of the best generals were from the south. Most of them resigned from the U.S. Army when their states seceded. Lincoln's first commanders served him poorly. Meanwhile George McClellan was having some success up in West Virginia, so he was given command of the Army of the Potomac, the North's largest army.
   McClellan reorganized the demoralized army and restored its pride. Then he loaded the army aboard ships and took it down to Virginia with the goal of taking Richmond, which, had he been successful, could have ended the war in its second year. McClellan got close enough to Richmond to hear its church bells, but Robert E. Lee was in charge of the Confederate army, and McClellan was sent packing.
   Lincoln put another general in charge, but this general lost the Second Battle of Bull Run, so Lincoln was forced to put McClellan back in charge. McClellan rebuilt the army again. His men loved him because he treated them well. They called him Little Mac. He had charisma.
   Lee was emboldened by his successes and crossed the Potomac into Maryland, headed for Pennsylvania. Had things gone his way, the South could have won the war.  But a bit of carelessness changed everything. As Lee moved north, he divided his army into three parts. This is always a dangerous thing for a general, but Lee had lots to do. He wrote Special Order 191 detailing the moves he wanted the separate parts of his army to make. Several copies of the order were made and distributed. All this was done by hand by one of Lee's adjutants.
   As Lee's forces were moving north, they were screened by a series of north-south mountains, and McClellan had only a vague idea where the Confederates were. Then, on this day in 1862,  McClellan was handed a copy of  Special Order 191. It was in an envelope wrapped around three cigars. A Union corporal had found the envelope in the grass when his unit moved onto the grounds recently vacated by one of the Confederate armies.
  The corporal passed the envelope (with the cigars) up the chain of command. When McClellan received the Order he said, "Here is a paper with which, if I can't whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home."
   This information was invaluable, and a more aggressive general would have attacked and destroyed Lee's army piecemeal. But McClellan was the sort of general who didn't move until everything was in perfect readiness. By the time he did attack, Lee had managed to reunite two of his armies at Antietam Creek in Maryland where he turned to face McClellan on September 17.
   McClellan's intelligence service grossly overestimated the size of Lee's army, which made McClellan overly cautious. Just as he was on the verge of overwhelming Lee towards the end of the day, the third part of Lee's army arrived and staved off defeat. The combined losses on both sides made the Battle of Antietam the bloodiest day in American history.
   The battle was considered a tactical victory for the North, because Lee was forced to retreat back to Virginia. Lincoln was livid that McClellan did not pursue and destroy Lee's weakened army. McClellan lingered in command until November when he was replaced. He was never given another command.
   McClellan spent the rest of the war writing reports justifying his actions during his two major campaigns and blaming the administration for not supporting him. He was the Democratic nominee for president against Lincoln in 1864. He lost handily.