GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN
(George Brinton McClellan)
Critics claim that this way he could appear that troops were well trained and display that to the press and the Congress while being able to avoid serious fighting. He never did have a grand review far away from Washington which could not be well attended.
At the age of 34 he had become the Union's first victorious general, in a minor skirmish in West Virginia. He was then named commanding general of the Army of the Potomac.
McClellan thought President Lincoln an oaf and toyed with the idea of taking over. Ironically, he was a terrible battle general and never would have any reasonable success on the battlefield.
George Brinton McClellan was an American soldier, civil engineer, railroad executive, and politician who served as the 24th Governor of New Jersey. A graduate of West Point, McClellan served with distinction during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), and later left the Army to work on railroads until the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861–1865). Early in the conflict, McClellan was appointed to the rank of major general and played an important role in raising a well-trained and organized army, which would become the Army of the Potomac in the Eastern Theater; he served a brief period (November 1861 to March 1862) as Commanding General of the United States Army of the Union Army.
