The Class of 1846

by John Waugh

  The venomous debates over West Point in the Senate in 1861 and 1863 ultimately came to nothing. The academy was sustained and refunded. As northern armies commanded by West Pointers began to win battles, the assault on the academy collapsed, as it had in the Mexican War.22

  Ironically, in the end West Point’s finest hour came not on a battlefield, but at a peace table.

  Morris Schaff, class of 1862, saw this irony clearly when after the war he wrote that “West Point friendships did more at the close of the war than any other agency to heal the scars.” And it began with Grant and Lee at Appomattox.

  Schaff wrote:

  … on that day two West Point men met, with more at stake than has ever fallen to the lot of two Americans to decide. On the manner in which they should meet, on the temper with which they should approach the mighty issue, depended the future peace of the country and the standards of honor and glory for the days to come. There was the choice between magnanimity to a gallant foe and a spirit of revenge; there was the choice between official murders for treason, and leaving the page of our country’s history aglow with mercy; there was the choice between the conduct of a conqueror, and the conduct of a soldier and a gentleman; finally, there was the choice for these two men, who for over a year had fronted each other on so many fields, to garland the occasion by the display of what is greater than victory—terms that the Christian and the lover of peace in all ages of the world will honor. Those two West Point men knew the ideals of their old Alma Mater, they knew each other as only graduates of that institution know each other, and they met on the plane of that common knowledge.… And then what happened? The graduates of both armies met as brothers and planted then and there the tree that has grown, blooming for the Confederate and blooming for the Federal, and under whose shade we now gather in peace.… Her [West Point’s] greatest service was in inspiring and revealing the ideals of the soldier and the gentleman, and in knitting friendships which, when called on by the world’s love of gentleness, responded at Appomattox by bringing back enduring peace.…

  Grant and Lee, Schaff believed, had honored both their Alma Mater and their country, and in the end saved their country endless torment, division, and misery. That moment at Appomattox, and not all the battles they had fought and for which they had been schooled, was their crowning achievement.23

  Even that fierce debunker of West Pointers, Richard Taylor, was to admit that peace came “under the tender ministrations of the hands that fought the battles!”24

  But what of those hands? What is to be said of George McClellan, from whom so much was expected; and of his classmate, Tom Jackson, of whom so little was expected? One did indeed become great, one of the half-dozen greatest generals in American history, perhaps in world history. But it had been the wrong one.

  What makes a general great? Most people know it when they see it. One Confederate officer once said the rules of war are simple enough, it all “consists in two words—luck and pluck.”25 But it is more complicated than that and more difficult than it looks.

  A great general must have the will to win whatever the mission. He must have an absolute, unbreakable, unbending passion to succeed no matter what the obstacles, no matter who the enemy or the frustrations. He must have cool judgment, immune to panic and unshakable by emergencies of any kind or by unexpected twists of fortune. He must have accurate knowledge of everything around him—of terrain, resources, and the enemy’s position and strength. He must be able to anticipate events; have a plan, certainly, but then be willing to abandon it instantly if it isn’t working and the circumstances require. He must know his enemy—intuitively or by any other means—and what he is likely to do. He must have character; some call it moral courage, some call it temperament, some call it plain nerve. He must have magnetism or charisma, whatever that means and from wherever it comes. He must be able to stir the enthusiasm and devotion of his men by his own example. He must be able to take the best of Mahan’s advice: move fast and use common sense. He must be whatever it takes—skeptical, critical, flexible, or obstinate.

  And he must win.

  With all that in mind, we will now compare the two most famous members of the class of 1846. At West Point they heard the same lectures, read the same books, recited at the same blackboards, lived the same life, shared the same hopes and fears. But when push came to shove in a war of brothers, they joined different armies and they were not the same at all.

  As a battlefield commander, McClellan violated virtually all of the requirements of a great general. Nobody could concoct a sounder strategy. Nobody could organize a great army better or faster than he could. Nobody could then do less with it.

  David Strother said of him, “He created an army which he failed to handle, and conceived plans which he failed to carry out.”26 Lincoln is said to have compared him and his army to “an admirable engineer” and a “stationary engine.”27

  As early as October 1861, one stern critic said of him that he had “more men and equipments now here [in Washington] than Napoleon moved when he prostrated Prussia in a three weeks campaign.… more men here on the Potomac than he moved when he marched to the heart of Austria, occupied Vienna, and dictated laws to the sovereigns of Europe from the Palace of Schoenbrunn”; more men than he knew what to do with.28

  McClellan puzzled and mystified not only his friends, but his enemies. However it was not in the way that Jackson puzzled and mystified them—with speed of unexpected movement and hard lightning blows.

  “Are you acquainted with General McClellan?” Lee asked one of his lieutenants before Antietam. “He is an able general but a very cautious one. His enemies among his own people think him too much so. His army is in a very demoralized and chaotic condition, and will not be prepared for offensive operations—or he will not think it so—for three or four weeks. Before that time I hope to be on the Susquehanna.”29

  “No one but McClellan could have hesitated to attack,” his friend Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston said of him at York-town.30

  Edward Porter Alexander, the Confederate artilleryman, said of him at Antietam: “Common Sense was just shouting, ‘Your adversary is backed against a river, with no bridge & only one ford, & that the worst on the whole river. If you whip him now, you destroy him utterly, root & branch & bag & baggage. Not twice in a life time does such a chance come to any general. Lee for once has made a mistake, & given you a chance to ruin him if you can break his lines, & such a game is worth great risk. Every man must fight & keep on fighting for all he is worth.’ ” But instead McClellan hurled his army piecemeal at Lee, a corps and a division at a time, and kept one corps and most of another out of the battle altogether, even as the Confederate center was collapsing.31

  No general in the war had greater charisma, or failed so utterly to use it to stir his soldiers to win battles. One of his officers said of him that he “could so move upon the hearts of a great army, as the wind sways long rows of standing corn.”32

  But having moved his army so, he could not translate that hypnotic sway he held over it into victory in the hour of battle. “He made absolutely no use of the magnificent enthusiasm which the army then [at Antietam] felt for him,” a Union officer said.33

  It is doubtful that Professor Mahan ever had a more brilliant pupil than McClellan. When the war came he had mastered the military literature as thoroughly as any American of his time. He translated that mastery into magnificent strategic plans. But on the field of battle all of the instincts of a great general failed him. War is an imperfect chaotic world, where plans often come to grief or must be changed. Commanders must be able to seize the hour and move with the changes. McClellan couldn’t. When his knowledge had to be applied, his imagination failed him.

  “He was assuredly not a great general,” a northern reporter wrote, “for he had the pedantry of war rather than the inspiration of war.… his power as a tactician was much inferior to his talent as a strategist, and he executed less boldly than he conceived: not appe
aring to know well those counters with which a commander must work—time, place, and circumstance.”34 McClellan seemed unable to “pluck the passing day.”35

  He could always see how he could improve his army, make it better, given time. And he took the time, at the expense of lost opportunities. He had an imperfect awareness of place. That became apparent in the mountains of western Virginia, on the Peninsula, and at Antietam. And from western Virginia to the Peninsula to Antietam he misunderstood the circumstances, wildly overestimated enemy numbers, and misdivined enemy intentions. Those are not things a great general does.

  U. S. Grant would one day say, with mitigating kindness, that “McClellan is to me one of the mysteries of the war. As a young man he was always a mystery. He had the way of inspiring you with the idea of immense capacity, if he would only have a chance.… I have never studied his campaigns enough to make up my mind as to his military skill, but all my impressions are in his favor.… the test which was applied to him would be terrible to any man, being made a major-general at the beginning of the war. It has always seemed to me that the critics of McClellan do not consider this vast and cruel responsibility—the war, a new thing to all of us, the army new, everything to do from the outset, with a restless people and Congress. McClellan was a young man when this devolved upon him, and if he did not succeed, it was because the conditions of success were so trying. If McClellan had gone into the war as Sherman, Thomas, or Meade, had fought his way along and up, I have no reason to suppose that he would not have won as high a distinction as any of us.”36

  The usually clamp-mouthed Tom Jackson occasionally spoke of tactics. He told John Imboden of two rules that a general must never fail to follow:

  Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number. The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible manoeuvring you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.37

  Dr. Hunter McGuire in his days and months close to Jackson heard him say at various times:

  War means fighting; to fight is the duty of a soldier; march swiftly, strike the foe with all your strength and take away from him everything you can. Injure him in every possible way, and do it quickly.… Don’t wait for the adversary to become fully prepared, but strike him the first blow.… We must do more than defeat their armies; we must destroy them.38

  What Jackson didn’t say of his own genius, a host of others since have.

  Even his enemies spoke of his “peculiar strategic ability.”39 One Northerner wrote, “The pomp and glitter of war were not for him. His banners grew old and faded and shot-torn. His legions grew ragged and foot-sore and weary. No matter who hesitated, Jackson advanced. Fierce in the heat of battle, because it was his duty to kill.”40

  John Tidball, another Northerner and former neighbor in West Point’s old south barracks, said: “His chief characteristics as a military leader were his quick perception of the weak points of his enemy, his ever readiness, the astounding rapidity of his movements, his sudden and unexpected onslaughts and the persistency with which he followed them up.… Naturally taciturn and by habit the keeper of his own designs, it was as difficult for his friends to penetrate them, as it was easy for him to deceive his enemy.… In any other person this would have been taken as cunning and deceit; but with him it was the voice of the Lord piloting him to the tents of the Midianites.”41

  Henry Kyd Douglas, who rode with him, called him a bold leader, “probably the boldest the war produced.… But he mingled with his boldness great prudence and judgment.… If he played war as poker, he knew exactly when to bluff, and against whom; consequently he was never beaten.” Douglas believed Jackson’s opinion of opposing generals was always “wonderfully correct.” But perhaps most important of all, in Douglas’s mind, “he dared and won.”42

  One of his cavalrymen said, quoting Abraham Lincoln, “ ‘He always ploughed around the log.’ ”43 A reporter, who had perhaps tried at one time or another to find him, said he was “everywhere when unexpected, and nowhere when sought.”44 Another of his soldiers said that if the enemy had a rear he would find it.45 As he approached that rear he was invariably “as still as the breeze,” and when he found it he was “as dreadful as the storm.”46

  Douglas said of Jackson, “He had no moments of deplorable indecision and no occasion to lament the loss of golden opportunities.”47 After McClellan found Lee’s special orders before Antietam, he began to move faster than he ordinarily did. But even then he did not move boldly. Instead of seizing the South Mountain passes immediately, he rested that night and attacked the next day. Would Jackson have waited? Not likely.

  When McClellan had Lee at bay before Sharpsburg, with much of his army still at Harpers Ferry, instead of attacking at once he waited for the mass of his own army to arrive. Then he spent all the next day reconnoitering, giving Lee precious time to regroup. Would Jackson have done that? Would Jackson have hesitated to throw in all of his reserves if he had seen the enemy’s center collapsing? Not likely.

  At Antietam, McClellan’s classmate Darius Couch waited near Harpers Ferry with an unused and rested division. McClellan might have ordered it up in a forced march, as Lee had ordered up A. P. Hill, flanked the Confederates at the river crossing and cut off their only avenue of escape. Would Jackson have thought to do that? Very likely.

  But who knows for certain? McClellan, one of West Point’s best and brightest, fails in nearly every measure of what a general ought to be. Jackson, the rube from the hills back in the pack at West Point, turned out to be one of the best generals the world has ever produced.

  In the end Jackson even eclipsed his classmate in McClellan’s own speciality, the love of the soldiers. Before he was killed at Chancellorsville, Jackson was almost as popular with Union troops as he was with his own, not because he was more charismatic but because winning is the father to charisma. McClellan could never claim such bipartisan support. In the presidential election in 1864, he would even lose the soldier vote to Abraham Lincoln, the man he thought his inferior in every way.

  Perhaps Jackson was never fully tested. U. S. Grant thought not. It is widely believed that Jackson’s Valley campaign was one of the most remarkable displays of strategic science, based on accurate reasoning, correct anticipation of the enemy’s plans, rapid marches, and judicious disposition of an inferior force in American military history.48

  But Grant said:

  I question whether his campaigns in Virginia justify his reputation as a great commander. He was killed too soon, and before his rank allowed him a great command. It would have been a test of generalship if Jackson had met Sheridan in the Valley, instead of some of the men he did meet.… If Jackson had attempted on Sheridan the tactics he attempted so successfully upon others he would not only have been beaten but destroyed. Sudden, daring raids, under a fine general like Jackson, might do against raw troops and inexperienced commanders, such as we had in the beginning of the war, but not against drilled troops and a commander like Sheridan. The tactics for which Jackson is famous, and which achieved such remarkable results, belonged entirely to the beginning of the war and to the peculiar conditions under which the earlier battles were fought. They would have insured destruction to any commander who tried them upon Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, Meade, or, in fact, any of our great generals.49

  Grant was right, Jackson died at Chancellorsville before his generalship could be tested against a truly great commander. “He went to the grave with the richness of the mine unexplored,” Douglas admitted, but until the moment of his death, he had proved equal to each new occasion as it arose. “He was better as brigadier than as colonel; better s
till as major-general; and as lieutenant-general was best of all,” the writer-biographer John Esten Cooke said of him. Cooke believed that “the brain which conceived and executed the campaign of the Valley, must have been equal to any position.” Even Richard Taylor, that critic of West Pointers, said, “What limit to set to his ability, I know not, for he was ever superior to occasion.” And Grant even said, “No doubt so able and patient a man as Jackson, who worked so hard at anything he attempted, would have adapted himself to new conditions and risen with them. He died before his opportunity.”50

  Jackson himself said, a man could be whatever he resolved to be. He would have resolved to succeed no matter what the circumstances. His sister-in-law, who had been allowed unguarded insight into “the very pulse of the machine,” said: “Under any circumstances he was a man sui generis; and none who came into close enough contact with him to see into his inner nature were willing to own that they had ever known just such another man.”51

  * * *

  Decoration Day, May 30, 1885, was different from most such celebrations at Antietam. It was special. For the first time that Henry Kyd Douglas could remember, a large delegation of the “men who wore the grey” crossed the river for the occasion. They had come to see George McClellan, who had been asked to deliver the annual address. Like many of the men who wore the gray, it was the first time since the battle that McClellan had revisited this scene of exultation and sorrow.

  Douglas invited McClellan to be his guest at his home in nearby Hagerstown, and the two men walked the battlefield together. In a sense it was the two old classmates walking it—George McClellan and Tom Jackson, by proxy. They perhaps bantered back and forth more than they would had Jackson been there, for both McClellan and Douglas were men of wit and charm.