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General McClellan was an excellent military strategist, but not a very aggressive commander of troops in the field(in battle). Early in the war, after McClellan had been endlessly drilling the Army but not deploying it for battle, Lincoln sarcastically commented "If General McClellan is not going to use the Army, I'd like to borrow it for a while." McClellan was too much of the siege mentality. During the 1862 Peninsular Campaign parts of the Union Army got within about 7 miles of Richmond(their objective)and basically stopped their advance. Lincoln needed a General who was aggressive in battle and that is why he respected Gen. Grant.

NO, Lincoln's problem with McClellan was not military but political. Like most people, McClellan objected to the Radical Republicans' use of the war to push their political agenda and to rape the South. The Radical Republicans in Congress, few of whom had ever done military service, were suspicious of professional military men, particularly those of the upper classes such as McClellan and Fitzhugh Porter. They held hearings on the conduct of the war, and sought to harass and imprison any officer they suspected of "disloyalty" (i.e., not following the radical Abolitionist party line).

The radicals in Congress wanted to fire McClellan long before Lincoln actually did. And Lincoln did not replace McClellan with Grant. He replaced McClellan with Pope and Burnside, who were disasters (but "politically correct"), then Hooker (ditto), and finally Meade, who was a conservative Democrat...but by now Lincoln was running out of Generals. Then Grant came in as Meade's boss. Grant was safe politically because his friend and sponsor was the powerful Illinois Congressman Elihu Washburne, whom Lincoln listened to and obeyed.

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