biography
| name: |
McClellan, George Brinton
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1826–85)
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| biography:
| US soldier, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The son of a prominent surgeon, he graduated second in his West Point class (1846) and served during the Mexican War. He taught at West Point (1848–51) then went with Marcy's expedition that explored the sources of the Arkansas R (1852). In 1855 he went to Europe to study the European military systems, but resigned from the army (1857) and went to work as an engineer and administrator with railroads, and by 1860 was president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned a major-general of the Union forces in Ohio (May 1861). After the loss at First Bull Run, he was called to Virginia to command the Army of the Potomac, and when he manoeuvered Confederate forces out of W Virginia, he became the first Union hero of the war. In November 1861 he replaced General Winfield Scott as general-in-chief of the army. Self-confident (and self-important), he was still fondly known as Little Mac as he reorganized and trained the army, but he delayed committing it to battle. After much prodding from Lincoln, he launched the Virginia Peninsula Campaign (1862), and after its failure he returned to Washington, his responsibilities reduced. He fought Lee to a standstill at Antietam (Sep 1862), but was removed from field command for failing to pursue the retreating Confederates. Increasingly more open in his criticism of Lincoln's conduct of the war, he became the Democratic candidate and challenged Lincoln for the presidency in 1864. He left the army and became an engineer for the New York City department of docks (1870–2) and then served as governor of New Jersey (1878–81). No one disputed his intellectual talents or administrative abilities, but the consensus has been that he lacked the instinct for decisive, prompt action in the face of combat. |
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