Lincoln-McClellan a Marriage Gone Bad?

When observing the relationship between President Abraham Lincoln and General George B. McClellan, it is tempting to approach the story as a common one of hero versus villain. As Joseph Harsh explains in his essay on McClellan, the General’s “role in the Unionist scenario is all but predetermined. He is the first and sorriest of the candidates to try the patience of Lincoln.”1 While these anti-McClellan histories were not without basis, they failed to realize that Lincoln was not without fault in this relationship. The relationship between Lincoln and McClellan was indeed a marriage, but it was a marriage of convenience, and sadly for both men they married too young and inexperienced. McClellan was certainly a thorn in Lincoln’s side, but Lincoln did not yet know how properly to handle a general, so rather than walk around the sticker bush, Lincoln dove in headfirst. McClellan and Lincoln were both ill equipped to handle their new positions and both did things to one another that, had they encountered each other later in the war, they may not have done. Sadly for them, their relationship became a casualty of their inexperience.