How Lincoln Was Dissed

[brtmchl]

"Who would have thought, I would be called upon to save my country."

Has there ever been a more vain military leader than McClellan. When given command of the newly named Army of the Potomac he took 10 months training them. Dismissing every urge of President Lincoln to fight. Training his men, yes, but also allowing an amateur army in the South to train also.

In letters to his wife he wrote, " I am called to save my country. These baffoons in Washington don't know what they are doing. Stanton is an idiot," and at one point he calls Lincoln "a baboon", which apparently went public.

July 27,1861 Washington D.C. Saturday To Mary Ellen McClellan
... I find myself in a new & strange position here-Presdt, Cabinet, Gen! Scott & all deferring to me-by some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land. I almost think that were I to win some small success now I could become Dictator or anything else that might please me-but nothing of that kind would please me-therefore I won't be Dictator.

Oct 11, 1861
I can't tell you how disgusted I am becoming with these wretched politicians - they are a most dispicable set of men & I think Seward is the meanest of them all - a meddling, officious, incompetent little puppy - he has done more than any other one man to bring all this misery upon the country & is one of the least competent to get us out of this scrape. The President is nothing more than a well meaning baboon. Welles is weaker than the most garrulous old woman you were ever annoyed by.

When he caught typhoid fever and was sick for a month, he blatantly refused to even answer Lincoln's messages. The President of the United States calls upon you and you have the audacity to blow him off for days at a time. Remarkable. Ultimately leading to Lincoln's famous quote, "General, if you are not going to use your army, might I borrow it."


I find his remarks in letters to be hilarious now, but worthy of insubordination then. He should have been court-martialed.