Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided

by W Hunter Lesser

  War with Mexico loomed. Accompanied by a black servant loaned from his Alabama brother-in-law, McClellan sailed to the Rio Grande in September 1846 and joined legendary General-in-Chief Winfield Scott in the advance to Mexico City. The young lieutenant promptly showed his mettle. At Puebla, he captured a Mexican cavalry officer; while conducting reconnaissance at Contreras, two horses were killed under him. Once felled by a grapeshot, McClellan arose with only a bruise—the hilt of his sword had absorbed the blow. A brevet promotion was his for “gallant and meritorious conduct.”24

  McClellan further distinguished himself under fire while erecting batteries for Captain Robert E. Lee. Shortly after daylight on September 14, 1847, the American flag waved over Mexico City. To his brother, McClellan wrote: “Thank God! our name has not suffered, so far, at my hands.” His courage and initiative were rewarded with a second brevet promotion. Captain George McClellan returned to Philadelphia a hero.25

  Plumb assignments followed. McClellan translated a French manual on bayonet tactics. He joined an expedition under Randolph Marcy to discover the sources of the Red River and explored the Cascade Range in 1853 for a transcontinental railroad route. He toured Europe to study armies during the Crimean War. Captain McClellan was a rising star. Adapting a Russian manual for horse-soldiers, he also invented the famous McClellan saddle—standard issue until the horse became obsolete. All this from an officer who never served a day in the cavalry.26

  Yet in 1857, McClellan resigned from the army to become chief engineer for the Illinois Central Railroad. The autonomy and doubling of his salary may have prompted the move. Within a year, he rose to vice president of the railroad, working with men of influence, among them a gangly, backwoods barrister named Abraham Lincoln. McClellan, however, preferred Stephen A. Douglas in the 1858 Illinois senatorial race, and traveled with him by private rail car to one of the Lincoln–Douglas debates.

  On May 22, 1860, McClellan married explorer Randolph Marcy's daughter Ellen. In August of that year, he accepted a post as superintendent of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad and soon became president of the eastern division in Cincinnati—one of the highest-paid railroad executives in America. The war of 1861 interrupted his idyllic life. McClellan believed radical Northern abolitionists and fire-eating Southerners bore equal responsibility for the crisis, but when Fort Sumter was fired on, his choice was clear: “The Govt. is in danger, our flag insulted & we must stand by it.” George McClellan was a talent in great demand. And now he paced the Statehouse floor as a major general of Ohio Volunteers.27

  Ohio's quota of soldiers under President Lincoln's call was thirteen regiments, more than ten thousand men. Recruiting was easy—volunteers came forth in astonishing numbers. They paraded through the streets of Columbus, overwhelmed private homes, and spilled into the Statehouse. Catching the spirit, members of the legislature pirouetted at evening drill.

  Amid this patriotic groundswell, McClellan penned a letter to General-in-Chief Winfield Scott. He vowed that Ohio could supply fifty thousand men to the cause. “I have never seen so fine a body of men collected together,” McClellan wrote. “The material is superb, but has no organization or discipline.…I find myself, general, in the position of a commander with nothing but men—neither arms or supplies.…You can imagine the condition in which I am without a single instructed officer to assist me.” He pledged to protect Cincinnati and the Ohio River line. He would create a “secret service” to gather intelligence. He requested experienced officers and regular troops. The letter was delivered by special messenger; telegraph and mail links to Washington had been cut off by Maryland secessionists, and would remain so for more than a week.28

  McClellan next inspected the State Arsenal. Only a few boxes of rusty smoothbore muskets were discovered—no cartridge boxes, belts, or other accouterments. In one corner stood two or three worn-out six-pounder field guns, badly honeycombed from years of firing salutes. In another corner lay a mildewed heap of artillery harnesses. There was little else. McClellan dryly remarked, “A fine stock of munitions on which to begin a great war!”

  The young general began the enormous task of organization. Detailed schedules and estimates of ordinance were created. It was labor at which he excelled. “Feel in my own element,” McClellan wrote on April 24, but the mood soon turned bittersweet. A misdirected telegram arrived from Governor Curtin, offering command of Pennsylvania's troops. Had it come two days sooner, McClellan would have gladly accepted. Instead, he gracefully responded that the Ohio forces “need my services & I am bound by honor to stand by them.” That wayward telegram would prove fateful to McClellan's rise.29

  “The general government and the Northern States were utterly unprepared for war,” McClellan recorded in his memoirs. “ We in the West were therefore left for a long time without orders, advice, money, or supplies of any kind, and it was clear that the different States must take care of themselves and provide for their own means of defense.”

  His task was compounded by the overwhelming response to President Lincoln's call. Ohio's quota of ten thousand recruits was reached in a matter of days. When thousands more appeared, Governor Dennison accepted them all. Ohio soon had twenty-two regiments in service—thirteen of three-month volunteers under Lincoln's call, plus nine state militia units. All would later be recast as three-year Federal regiments, creating major administrative headaches.30

  A camp of instruction was needed for the volunteers. McClellan chose sprawling fields along a bend of the Little Miami River near Cincinnati, naming it Camp Dennison in the governor's honor. The first trainload of troops to arrive there on April 30 was met by a dynamic West Point engineer by the name of William S. Rosecrans. Brandishing a compass and chain, Captain Rosecrans laid off the ground for regimental camps and saw to it that wooden shelters were erected. Cincinnati became General McClellan's new headquarters.31

  During that hectic first week, McClellan composed an extraordinary letter to General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, outlining “a plan of operations intended to relieve the pressure upon Washington and tending to bring the war to a speedy close.” The region north of the Ohio and between the Mississippi and the Alleghenies formed “one grand strategic field,” McClellan observed, “in which all operations must be under the control of one head….” The implication was that he would be that head.

  McClellan proposed to cross the Ohio River, invading Western Virginia via the Great Kanawha Valley, then continuing east across the Alleghenies to Richmond. “I know there would be difficulties in crossing the mountains,” he admitted, “but would go prepared to meet them.” If Kentucky assumed a hostile posture, he would invade that state. Then he would march on Nashville, eventually uniting with an eastern army moving on Pensacola, Mobile, and New Orleans to end the conflict decisively.

  McClellan's letter was noteworthy as the first documented strategy to prosecute the war. It was also brash advice from the Union Army's youngest general to a warrior forty years his senior. General Scott fingered its weaknesses: McClellan's reliance on the three-month volunteers—men whose term of service would expire by the time they were fully engaged, and dependence on “long, tedious and break-down” marches across the mountains. Scott then revealed his own proposal “to envelope the insurgent States and bring them to terms.” This “Anaconda Plan” consisted of a blockade of Southern ports coupled with an advance down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Diplomatically, Scott advised that McClellan might “take an important part” in the effort.32

  On May 3, McClellan was placed in command of the Department of the Ohio, comprising the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. A portion of Pennsylvania and Western Virginia north of the Great Kanawha and west of the Greenbrier River were soon added. The young general promptly opened communication with the governors of his new department, all of whom were raising troops. He petitioned General Scott for officers and ordinance, including heavy artillery and armored gunboats. The general-in-chief could not do enough. Governor Dennison and the
Ohio legislature came to the rescue, passing bills and appropriating monies for arms, ammunition, clothing, and equipment.

  McClellan repeatedly pressed for experienced officers, detained those temporarily assigned, and grabbed others who happened to pass through Cincinnati. “I do not expect your mantle to fall on my shoulders, for no man is worthy to wear it,” wrote McClellan to General Scott, “but I hope that it may be said hereafter that I was no unworthy disciple of your school. I cannot handle this mass of men, general; I cannot make an army to carry out your views unless I have the assistance of instructed soldiers…. I cannot be everywhere and do everything myself. Give me the men and I will answer for it that I will take care of the rest.”

  McClellan's “implicit confidence” in Winfield Scott proved tenuous. A rift was developing between the two. When Scott denied a request to organize cavalry and artillery units, McClellan ignored him. To obtain cannons, he nabbed three companies of the Fourth U.S. Artillery traveling on assignment. Scott reluctantly allowed them to stay, but when McClellan sent an officer to Washington with additional demands, the general-in-chief thundered, “I know more about artillery than Gen. McClellan does, and it is not for him to teach me.”33

  “The apathy in Washington is very singular & very discouraging,” McClellan confided to Governor Dennison. “I can get no answers except now & then a decided refusal of some request or other—perhaps that is a little exaggerated, but the upshot of it is that they are entirely too slow for such an emergency, & I almost regret having entered upon my present duty.”

  Ignoring the fact that experienced officers were needed elsewhere, McClellan won a number of desirables, including his father-in-law, Randolph Marcy, as chief of staff; the talented Seth Williams as adjutant-general; and no less a mustering officer than Robert Anderson—the heroic defender of Fort Sumter. But one veteran West Point man got no consideration at all. Twice he visited McClellan's headquarters in quest of a staff position and left word, without reply. McClellan knew the man, and likely remembered his reputation as a drinker. The scorned officer was Ulysses S. Grant.34

  A twenty-nine-year-old lieutenant of topographical engineers named Orlando Poe had more luck in joining McClellan's staff. Tall and athletic, descended of a legendary Ohio Valley frontiersman, he was sent on a secret reconnaissance into Western Virginia to ascertain “the state of feeling of the inhabitants.” Agents were also sent into Kentucky, under direction of Allan Pinkerton, a Chicago private detective retained to head McClellan's intelligence gathering.35

  There was much concern about Kentucky and Western Virginia. Kentucky's undeclared loyalty had already sparked excitement across the river in Cincinnati. Governor Beriah Magoffin had ignored Lincoln's call for volunteers, yet it was known that his militia was gathering. To Kentucky's neighbors, Magoffin's posture of “armed neutrality” was troubling.36

  The situation in Western Virginia was even worse. Confederate troops were known to be mustering there. A tenuous truce was in effect until May 23, when citizens voted on an Ordinance of Secession. Virginians were expected to vote their state out of the Union, yet many in the western counties remained loyal. There was no accounting for what the westerners might do.

  To a general poring over maps, the strategic importance of Western Virginia was inescapable. Her boundary traced the Ohio River for nearly two hundred fifty miles. Her panhandle thrust like a dagger into the heart of the North—dividing the loyal Union states nearly in two. Confederate forces might pour across her mountain ramparts to rupture the vital Baltimore and Ohio Railroad or threaten valuable salt works, coalfields, and oil wells on the unguarded frontier.37

  Putting aside his maps, General McClellan sifted through letters from loyal Union men bemoaning the state of affairs in Western Virginia. Many urged occupation by Federal troops; others warned that the arrival of Lincoln's soldiers would merely arouse state pride and “throw many wavering men into the rebel ranks.”

  Among those demanding action was George R. Latham, a Grafton attorney. Latham had converted his law office into a Federal recruiting station. “Can anything be done for us?” he implored. “We are now enrolling men and drilling every day, collecting such arms as may be had…and preparing for a fight…. The Union men of [Western] Virginia are becoming more firm every day. They want to see secession put down and the leaders hung.” A Wheeling resident agreed: “The people will welcome the presence of U.S. forces. There is no doubt on this point.…[T]heir spirit and determination in this regard…furnish incontestable evidence that they are now ripe for a movement.”38

  Governor Dennison pledged to “defend Ohio beyond rather than on her border.” In response to these developments, McClellan placed artillery on the Virginia line. As he prepared for hostilities, a dispatch arrived from the War Department. McClellan's face registered astonishment at the news: he had been appointed a major general in United States service, then the highest rank in the army. Thirty-four-year-old George McClellan had received the ultimate soldier's honor—only the venerable Winfield Scott outranked him now. It was stunning tribute for one so young.39

  McClellan's agents reported much disloyalty across the Ohio River. But the pleas of loyal Virginia Unionists could not be ignored. “My letters from Wheeling,” McClellan informed General Scott, “indicate that the time rapidly approaches when we must be prepared to sustain the Union men there.”40

  CHAPTER 2

  BURY IT DEEP

  WITHIN THE HILLS

  “This difficulty is not going to be settled without a fight.”

  —Francis H. Pierpont, Virginia Unionist

  The election of President Abraham Lincoln in 1860 sparked calls for disunion across the South. A writer in the Richmond Whig called it “the greatest evil that has ever befallen this country.” Lincoln, the “Black Republican” candidate, had pledged to halt the further spread of slavery. His stance was deemed a threat to the Southern way of life.

  Thus Virginia's General Assembly gathered in extra session on January 7, 1861. “Great excitement prevails in the public mind,” said Governor John Letcher, “and prudence requires that the representatives of the people of this Commonwealth should…determine calmly and wisely what action is necessary in this emergency.” Would Virginia join the Confederate states? “Times are wild and revolutionary here beyond description,” warned one legislator. “I fear the Union is irretrievably gone.”41

  A convention of 152 delegates gathered at Richmond on February 13 to decide Virginia's fate. Weeks of debate ensued. Firebrands from the Confederate states of South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi stirred passions with eloquent speeches. “The very air here is charged with the electric thunders of war,” observed a Richmond correspondent. “On the street, at the Capitol, in the bar-room, at the dinner-table, nothing is heard but resistance to the general government.”42

  The tone of Lincoln's inaugural speech and unfolding drama at Fort Sumter pushed delegates to act. But loyal Unionists from Western Virginia fought back. The most outspoken of them was Clarksburg attorney John S. Carlile. A native Virginian, former state senator, and member of Congress, Carlile was angular and clean-cut, with a sallow face that belied great resolve. He was passionate, dashing, and magnetic. He was a brilliant orator—dazzling in eloquence and power. A rich, deep voice and “imperturbable coolness” made Carlile the most dangerous Unionist in Richmond. Fearlessly he denounced secession, maddening foes and inducing crowds on the street to burn him in effigy.43

  Westerners cheered him on. “We have no interest,” said one, “in a Convention whose object, and sole object…is to make us rebels and traitors to our country…and place us under the unprotected folds of the slimy serpent of South Carolina.” “We have been the ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ for Eastern Virginia long enough,” thundered the editor of the Western Virginia Star, “and it is time that section understood it.” If Virginia chose to unite with the Confederacy, westerners called for a new state “independent from the South, and firm to the Union.
”44

  President Lincoln's call for troops on April 15 outraged Virginia secessionists. The mood in Richmond grew ominous. Bonfires blazed in the public square. Thugs spilled into the streets, ripped down National flags, and hoisted secession banners in their place. Angry mobs packed the convention galleries to boo and hiss as Unionists tried to speak.45

  The Richmond convention abruptly went into secret session. On the morning of April 17, former governor Henry A. Wise sealed Virginia's fate.

  Wise drew a large Virginia horse-pistol from his bosom, laid it on the desk before him, and proceeded to harangue the delegates in a “most violent and denunciatory manner.” His flowing locks danced wildly. His glaring eyeballs bulged from their sockets. The theatrics were shocking, and hypnotic. Wise cried out that events were transpiring that “caused a hush to come over his soul.” Flourishing a pocket watch, he gazed at the hands and declared that the hour had come for Virginia to assert her rights. With bated breath, Wise intoned that state forces—under direction of the ex-governor himself—were marching on the Federal armory at Harpers Ferry and the United States naval yard at Norfolk. Virginia was at war!46

  By day's end, the Richmond convention voted eighty-eight to fifty-five to approve an Ordinance of Secession. “I cannot describe to you the terrible solemnity of the closing scenes of the convention,” recalled delegate George Porter. “It was the darkest hour I ever saw. Men wept like children. Our country is hopelessly ruined.”