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By age 35, General George B. McClellan (1826#150;1885), designated the "Young Napoleon," was the commander of all the Northern armies. He forged the Army of the Potomac into a formidable battlefield foe, and fought the longest and largest campaign of the time as well as the single bloodiest battle in the nation's history. Yet, he also wasted two supreme opportunities to bring the Civil War to a decisive conclusion. In 1864 he challenged Abraham Lincoln as the Democratic candidate for the presidency. Neither an indictment nor an apologia, this biography draws entirely on primary sources to create a splendidly incisive portrait of this charismatic, controversial general who, for the first eighteen months of the conflict, held the fate of the union in his unsteady hands.… (more)
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These tendencies were only magnified by the pressures of the command. Had McClellan been as successful as his prewar reputation promised little may have come of this, but his Peninsula campaign was hobbled by "Little Mac"'s insistence on caution, one magnified by a continual fear that he faced an enemy superior in numbers. As a result, he was continually outfoxed by his opponents, making his "Young Napoleon" label (the source of the book's subtitle) ironic rather than accurate. Such was his stature, though, that even after his dismissal he was well-regarded enough to be selected as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in their losing 1864 campaign.
Sears's focus in this book is on McClellan's Civil War service, as he spends only four of the book’s seventeen chapters on McClellan's life before and after the conflict that defined his historical legacy. Though regrettable in some respects, it is an understandable decision to focus on the years in which he made his greatest historical impact and which continues to generate debate even today. In the end, though, it makes for a sad tale of a man who, for all of his gifts, ultimately came to be defined by his limitations.
The sub-title, "The Young Napoleon" is one of the greater misnomers of all time. He might have seen himself this way but he was far from it. It is inarguable
As a person, McClellan seems to have been an incredible dunderhead believing himself to be better than any with whom he had to do business.