Colleagues and enemies on the battlefield

Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan couldn’t have been more different in personality and temperament, yet

their paths crossed continually. Each graduated second in his class at West Point and later served there. Both were in the engineering corps on Gen. Winfield Scott’s staff during the Mexican War. Both were commissioned major general of state forces on April 23, 1861. Both had reputations for bravery and attention to detail.

Capt. Lee and 2nd Lt. McClellan first met on Scott’s staff in 1847. Lee was 40, trim and handsome and already had earned a reputation for dependability. McClellan, 20, was full of sharp opinions and anxious to prove his abilities.

Lee was a trusted member of Scott’s “war cabinet.” In fact, Scott was grooming Lee as his successor and stated later that he couldn’t have won the war without Lee.

At Cerro Gordo, Lee planned the flanking movement that dislodged the entire Mexican force from a mountain position. McClellan assisted Lee in planning the bold maneuver that resulted in an almost bloodless victory.

Scott praised Lee effusively. “This officer was again indefatigable.” Young McClellan was also given thanks.

They came away from Mexico with very different impressions. Lee, for example, was jaded by the scramble to gather accolades: “We are our own trumpeters, and it is so much more easy to make heroes on paper than in the field.” McClellan, on the other hand, was disdainful of the volunteer Army: “The idea of being killed by or among a parcel of volunteers was anything but pleasant.”

Lee wrote little of McClellan at the time, and McClellan came away from the war more concerned about brevets (of which he received two; Lee received three).

McClellan left the Army in 1857. He took a position with the Illinois Central Railroad and occasionally had contact with a lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Lee stayed in the Army, serving in a succession of posts that included Baltimore harbor, the Military Academy, and western Texas.

Together again

Fate brought the two men together again. After turning down Scott’s offer in 1861 to command Federal forces, Lee offered his services to his native Virginia and was given charge of troops that included those in western Virginia. Meanwhile, McClellan was called upon by the governor of Ohio to organize Union volunteers in camps along the Ohio River, to the north of Lee. Scott remembered Mexico and gave McClellan Federal command in the area.

Thus, Lee and McClellan found themselves together again — this time as enemies — vying for control of the mountainous country through which the vital B&O Railroad crossed.

McClellan quickly set up a unified command and planned a two-pronged attack into western Virginia. Lee, who was distracted by his responsibility for the defense of the entire Old Dominion, allotted various positions to officers but failed to generate their cooperation.

Victories at Philippi (June 3) and Rich Mountain (July 11) helped ensure almost complete victory for Union forces along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike line and protected West Virginia statehood supporters in Wheeling. At Rich Mountain, McClellan borrowed from Lee: “I think I can come the Cerro Gordo over them.”

On the Kanawha line, the issue swung back and forth. Even Lee’s physical presence in Pocahontas County failed to result in Confederate progress. As a consequence, West Virginia statehood advocates were able to solidify their political hold. (In 1863, West Virginia became the 35th state.)

In summary, McClellan made a better plan, executed it and was victorious. Photographers asked him to pose, and he was dubbed “the Young Napoleon.” He vaulted into the national spotlight, was promoted to command of the Army of the Potomac, and soon thereafter was placed in charge of all Union armies. “I can do it all,” McClellan said. Lee, on the other hand, was marginalized, attacked in the Southern press and banished to a coastal defense post.

Return engagement

The personal confrontation between Lee and McClellan was not yet finished, however. “One man’s failure caused him to learn from his mistakes, while the success of the other led him to overlook his weaknesses,” historian Clayton Newell wrote.

By the spring of 1862, McClellan and the Army of the Potomac were slowly advancing up the York and James River peninsula toward Richmond. McClellan’s opponent, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, had commanded the victorious Confederate armies at Manassas.

Lee, in the interim, had been recalled from his Atlantic assignment and was in Richmond serving as a military adviser to President Jefferson Davis. On May 31, as Union forces approached within six miles of Richmond, Johnston launched a counterattack against McClellan and was seriously wounded. President Jefferson Davis appointed Lee to replace Johnston.

By this time, Lee and McClellan thought they knew each other well. “I prefer Lee to Johnston,” McClellan said. “The former is too cautious and weak under grave responsibility — personally brave and energetic to a fault, he is wanting in moral firmness when pressed by heavy responsibility and likely to be timid and irresolute in action.” Lee later said of his opponent: “He is an able general, but a very cautious one. His enemies among his own people think him too much so.”

Lee was a much better student of his own mistakes and of his opponents. Catching McClellan off guard on June 26, he initiated a vicious series of counterattacks that left McClellan’s army reeling (the Seven Days Battle). McClellan could not have been more mistaken about Lee’s supposed timidity. As McClellan began retreating to his gunships on the James River, he still did not credit Lee with tactical prowess and blamed President Lincoln instead: “You have done your best to sacrifice this army.”

Veiled threats

Lee’s prestige soared after Seven Days, and he was hailed as the savior of Richmond. “Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon the skill and daring of the commanding general who conceived … the brilliant movement,” Davis told the Confederate Congress.

During this period, Lee and McClellan engaged in an ongoing correspondence about prisoners that quickly took on political overtones. Although always formal, many of the letters contained veiled threats and recriminations.

When Lee found out that two captured rangers were scheduled for execution, his inquiry was sharp. “Should … Captains Sprigs and Triplett be executed retaliation will be made,” he said. “I shall be very happy to learn that the report is without foundation. I am, most respectfully, your obedient servant, R.E. Lee.”

McClellan’s response was curt: “I know nothing of any such persons,” but “I shall much regret any commencement of retaliatory executions.”

Later, McClellan learned of the men’s whereabouts: “Captains Triplett and Springs (sic) were captured in Greenbrier County … They have not been tried … and are held as prisoners.” He added: “In the treatment of prisoners the United States Government is controlled by principles of humanity and civilization, and I respectfully suggest to you the very great danger of violating those principles whenever … based upon rumor.”

Lee went further, defending a man who was executed for pulling down a U.S. flag. “Under these circumstances if true the execution of Mr. Mumford is considered as a murder.” He added: “It is not intended to permit outrages of such a character to be perpetuated without retaliation.”

McClellan fired back: “I am wholly ignorant of the cases complained of in your letter.”

Lee again wrote: “This government refuses to admit the right of the authorities of the United States to arrest our citizens and extort from them their parole.” Should it continue, “This government will resort to retaliatory measures as the only means of compelling the observance of the rules of civilized warfare.”

McClellan was polite and firm, Lee angry and concerned. McClellan, though, had bigger problems. In Washington, increasing criticism was falling on him. In addition, Lee began making aggressive moves toward Washington, and Lincoln was anxious that the Army of the Potomac protect the city.

The Lost Order

Shortly thereafter, Lee defeated Union Gen. John Pope badly at Second Manassas and used the opportunity to invade Maryland. McClellan and his army moved to counter Lee, and the two men, by now so familiar with each other, faced each other again.

This time, however, fate placed victory in McClellan’s hands. A copy of Lee’s Special Order No. 191, detailing a dangerous split of Confederate forces, was found in a field where a careless Confederate officer had dropped it. McClellan immediately grasped its significance. “Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home.”

Lee, ignorant of the security breach, was making grand plans. He asked a visitor, “Are you acquainted with General McClellan? … 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.”

During the subsequent battle at Antietam on Sept. 17, however, McClellan still failed to exploit Lee’s vulnerability and did not command with authority or purpose. The result was that Confederate forces survived just long enough to reunite. In spite of numerical superiority and an exhausted opponent backed up against a swollen Potomac River, McClellan failed to destroy Lee’s army.

Lee was not intimidated. In spite of pleas from worried subordinates, he refused to move the Army of Northern Virginia from its precarious position on the Maryland side of the Potomac. A day later his ire cooled, and he was persuaded to order a retreat into Virginia.

“I went into Maryland to give battle,” Lee said after the war. “Could I have kept General McClellan in ignorance of my plans, I would have fought and crushed him.”

Too slow

Although the battle was largely a stalemate, McClellan was quick to claim victory. “[We] boldly attacked the … enemy in their chosen strong position and drove them back, with all their superiority of numbers, into the State of Virginia, thus saving the loyal States from invasion and rudely dispelling … rebel dreams.”

The glaring lack of a vigorous pursuit, however, left the president and many others bewildered. “McClellan and his slowness are as vehemently discussed [as good wishes for you],” Mary Lincoln wrote to her husband. There were even fantastic charges that McClellan secretly met with Lee after the battle and agreed to allow the Confederates an unmolested retreat.

“You may find those who will go faster than I, Mr. President; but it is very doubtful if you will find many who will go further,” McClellan wrote stiffly.

When McClellan mentioned tired horses holding up a planned movement into Virginia, Lincoln at last lost his temper: “Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?”

Lee took advantage of the respite and planned a third battle at Manassas. Lincoln’s patience, though, was exhausted, and on Nov. 7, 1862, McClellan was formally relieved. “They have made a great mistake,” McClellan wrote that night to his wife, Ellen. “Alas for my poor country!”

Lee, when he heard the news, was sober: “I fear they may continue to make these changes till they find some one whom I don’t understand.”

After the war

At last the confrontation, which had become personal to both men, came to an end. McClellan went home to New Jersey and awaited new orders that never came. He ran unsuccessfully for president against Lincoln in 1864 and served after the war as governor of New Jersey.

Lee went on to greater triumph and tragedy. McClellan had no part in turning back Pickett’s Charge or in overrunning the trenches at Petersburg; nor was he present at Appomattox. Lee became the president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) after the surrender and very seldom talked about the war or his former opponents. He died of heart disease in 1870.

Fifteen years after Lee’s death, McClellan addressed former soldiers from both sides on Decoration Day at the Antietam military cemetery, and speaking of Lee made much of his “ability and virtues” and “the achievements of the magnificent Army of Northern Virginia.” He told the audience that both sides had “become a part of the common heritage of glory of all the people of America.”

Later that same year, 1885, McClellan died unexpectedly, and the story of both men came to a close. Revisionist historians have since made attempts to resurrect McClellan’s reputation, and others have sought to stain Lee’s immortality. Nonetheless, the story of how the two men repeatedly came together — as comrades or opponents — continues to exude a Shakespearean-like pathos.

• Jack Trammell works at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, and writes both fiction and nonfiction. He can be reached at jacktrammell@yahoo.com.