| In his standard reference work on the Civil War, Generals
in Blue, Ezra Warner declared George B. McClellan
(1826–1885) “one of the most controversial figures
in American military history.” In this revealing book,
Thomas W. Cutrer provides the definitive edition of McClellan’s
detailed diary and letters from his service in the Mexican
War (1846–1848), during which he began the rise that
culminated in being named general in chief of the Union forces
and commander of the Army of the Potomac early in the Civil
War.
McClellan graduated second in his class from West Point in
1846 and served as a second lieutenant in Company A of the
prestigious Corps of Engineers, the only formation of combat
engineers in the United States Army. The company participated
in Major General Winfield Scott’s invasion of Mexico,
playing a prominent role in the siege of Vera Cruz and the
battles of Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec
and in the capture of Mexico City. Although only twenty-one
years old at the war’s end, McClellan earned brevet
promotions to first lieutenant and then captain for his efforts.
McClellan’s colorful diary and frequent letters to
his socially and politically prominent Philadelphia family
provide a wealth of military details of the campaign, insights
into the character of his fellow engineers—including
Robert E. Lee and P. G. T. Beauregard—and accounts of
the friction that arose between the professional soldiers
and the officers and men of the volunteer regiments that made
up Scott’s command. A courageous, indefatigable, and
superbly intelligent young man, McClellan formed close personal
loyalties in those years. His diaries also reveal a man contemptuous
of those he perceived as less talented than he, quick to see
conspiracies where none existed, and eager to place upon others
the blame for his own shortcomings and to take credit for
actions performed by others.
On the banks of the Rio Grande during his first weeks with
the army, McClellan wrote in his diary: “I came down
here with high hopes, with pleasing anticipations of distinction,
of being in hard fought battles and acquiring a name and reputation
as a stepping stone to a still greater eminence in some future
and greater war.” Carefully edited by Thomas W. Cutrer,
these diary entries and letters do indeed trace McClellan’s
rapid development as a soldier and leader and put on full
display the talent, ambition, and arrogance that characterized
his career as general and politician.
Thomas W. Cutrer is professor of history
and American studies at Arizona State University West in Phoenix.
He is the author, editor, or coeditor of seven other books,
including Brothers
in Gray: The Civil War Letters of the Pierson Family,
which he coedited with T. Michael Parrish. |
