Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 08:29 PM 9/6/03 -0400, Don Dory wrote: >I understand that as a Virginian by residence you would have good things >to say about McClellan. As long as he was in charge of the Army the >Army of Northern Virginia enjoyed a marked advantage. But I would like >a little more discussion on McClellan as a trainer. Don Training WAS McClellan's forte. He took a dispirited, disorganized, ill-equipped, and untrained Army under his wing after First Manassas and soon organized, trained, and equipped it to be a magnificent force. But he simply lacked the will to commit this instrument on which he had given so much of himself to its destruction, and, so, he proved himself a magnificent trainer and a lousy field commander. Grant was the reverse: he cared little for the setting-up of an Army, but knew how to use it. The Armies he was with at Appomattox, those of the James and Potomac, had been much ground down by the incessant combat from the Wilderness to Five Forks and were not nearly the instrument they had been in the spring of 1864: this was Grant at his best, using a tool to the limit of its strength and, thus, winning a war. (My own family were bluebellies, by the way: a great-grandfather and HIS father and brothers all served in Pennsylvania Volunteer Infatnry units, and I have a slew of others in PA, WV, and MD units.) Marc msmall@infionline.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir! - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html