General george b mcclellan facts definition

He was also an engineer, and was chief engineer and vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad , and later president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad in He was a railway executive and engineer until the outbreak of the American Civil War in Early in the conflict, McClellan was appointed to the rank of major general and played an important role in raising the Army of the Potomac , which served in the Eastern Theater.

It was the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern Theater. Making an amphibious clockwise turning movement around the Confederate Army in northern Virginia, McClellan's forces turned west to move up the Virginia Peninsula, between the James River and York River , landing from Chesapeake Bay , with the Confederate capital, Richmond , as their objective.

Johnston , but the emergence of General Robert E. However, historians note that Lee's victory was in many ways pyrrhic as he failed to destroy the Army of the Potomac and suffered a bloody repulse at Malvern Hill. He was removed from command in November, in the aftermath of the midterm elections. A major contributing factor in this decision was McClellan's failure to pursue Lee's army following the tactically inconclusive but strategic Union victory at the Battle of Antietam outside Sharpsburg, Maryland.

He never received another field command and went on to become the unsuccessful Democratic Party nominee in the presidential election against the Republican Lincoln.

George b mcclellan civil war

The effectiveness of his campaign was damaged when McClellan repudiated his party's platform, which promised an end to the war and negotiations with the Confederacy. He served as the governor of New Jersey from to ; in McClellan's later writings, he vigorously defended his Civil War conduct. McClellan initially intended to follow his father into the medical profession, and attended a private academy, which was followed by enrollment in a private preparatory school for the University of Pennsylvania.

With the assistance of his father's letter to President John Tyler , McClellan was accepted at the United States Military Academy in at the age of 15, with the academy waiving its usual minimum age of At West Point, he was an energetic and ambitious cadet, deeply interested in the teachings of Dennis Hart Mahan and the theoretical strategic principles of Antoine-Henri Jomini.