Geoffrey Norman on "Seven Bloody Days," McClellan and the 1862 effort to capture the Confederate capitol, a frustrating and ultimately pointless expenditure of blood:
Seven Bloody Days | The Weekly Standard
More:The story of the Seven Days and the Peninsula Campaign that preceded it is, in large part, a tale of one man’s hubris.
General George McClellan liked to think of himself as a kind of American Napoleon, and in at least one regard there was a similarity. Both men were short.
Napoleon, though, was a master of war. He loved war and thrived on its challenges, and he was a gambler. It could have been said of him, as it was of a general who became McClellan’s adversary in the Seven Days, “his name might be Audacity.”
McClellan was quite the other thing. He was a master of military organization and an exceedingly adroit player in the political contests that result in promotion. But he did not much like war, and he made a point of avoiding both battle and the battlefield. The carnage was repellent to him. .... [more of a good account]
Seven Bloody Days | The Weekly Standard
May I recommend a masterpiece The Civil War A Narrative (3 Vols) Shelby Foote.
ReplyDeletehe makes it read as piwerful story especially Lee's gambles in the particular portion you are talking about but also about the ineptness of the Confederate forces in reaching their goals which could have ended the war in another direction/.