What were the strengths and weaknesses of General McClellan?

Answer 1

Exceptionally energetic organiser, highly popular with the rank-and-file.

Excessively cautious in not attacking until everything was ready. Also mistrusted by Lincoln's cabinet, who doubted his commitment to the cause.

Answer 2

McClellan was a skillful and imaginative planner, but often he let himself carried by his imagination in unrealistic projects.

He elaborated his plans with trivial details and pedantry, and liked not only to set up plans, but also working accurately to provide the same with the necessary tools to put them into practice.

And his plans and tools were indeed so detailed, so theoretically perfect, to end inevitably to clash against the reality of the situation in being, which never allows of being constrained and forced to be carried on by means of theoretical schemes, thus being so perfect to be often impossible to accomplish.

But why ? Because McClellan lacked of practical sense, the ability of dealing with an unexpected event.

As per Clausewitz's principles, the war is dominated by five elements:

danger, fatigue, attrition, uncertainty and fortuity. In his plans McClellan totally ignored the attrition and, by means of his calculations he aimed to nullify the uncertainty and the fortuity. In other word he wanted to avoid any risk before acting. The outcome was that he was never ready to move, because the situation was constantly changing, as usual in a war.

On the other side, he was gifted by an extraordinary organizational talent a brilliant intelligence, a great courage and a winning personality.

That allowed him to build up, beginning from nought, a modern army, perfectly equipped not only from the point of view of logistic and weaponry but also from that of the wellbeing of the soldiers, which made him very popular among them.

Furthermore, to turn to his shortcomings:

1 - he never understood the tight relation between war and politics, whose main principle is that a field commander must rigorously abstain from the political intrigues;

2 - the political and strategic objectives of the war have to be carried on as per the indications given by the executive power, irrespective of the consequences which would arise for the civilians and their properties and the main military task would be that of destroy the enemy armies and not the seizing of positions or enemy cities.

McClellan was instead attempting to act in an opposite way, thus harming the outcome of fine campaigns and brilliant manoeuvers.

3 - last but not least, during the period of time in which he was General in Chief 3 - last but not least, during the period of time in which he was General in Chief he was tending to give the priority to the eastern front, neglecting the other fronts, whose needs were taken into consideration only if they would have been useful for his purposes, thus giving rise to Lincoln's irritation, who saw the conflict as a whole, whose development had to be coordinated.