McClellan's War

The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union

Ethan S. Rafuse

How political beliefs shaped the war strategy of one of the Civil War's most controversial generals.

"A superb piece of historical scholarship. Rafuse has crafted a book that is groundbreaking in its conception." —Joseph L. Harsh, author of Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861–1862

"Brings something new, or at least relatively unknown, to the 'McClellan debate.' . . . It is the first work I have read that explains McClellan's approach in a way that is both somewhat favorable and satisfactory, showing the basis of McClellan's views." —Brian K. Burton, author of Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles

This biography of the controversial Union general George B. McClellan examines the influences and political antecedents that shaped his behavior on the battlefield, behavior that so frustrated Lincoln and others in Washington that he was removed from his command soon after the Union loss at Antietam. Rather than take sides in the controversy, Ethan S. Rafuse finds in McClellan's politics and his desire to restore sectional harmony ample explanation for his actions. Rafuse sheds new light on the general who believed in the rule of reason and moderation, who sought a policy of conciliation with the South, and who wanted to manage the North's military resources in a way that would impose rational order on the battlefield.

Ethan S. Rafuse is author of A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas and George Gordon Meade and the War in the East. He has taught history at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the U.S. Military Academy and is an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College. He lives in Platte City, Missouri.

Sales territory is worldwide.

544 pages, 17 b&w photos, 11 maps., bibliog., index, 6 1/8 x 9 ¼

cloth
0-253-34532-4
$35.00