Greetings, readers! The first post for 2024 is up on the Campaign Minutes page. January’s post deals with a subject that most Civil war enthusiasts and authors are familiar with – the Official Records. These documents are the foundation upon which ACW studies are built, and yet they can create some interpretive problems if we’re not careful using them. January’s post discusses a couple such problems relevant to the history of Special Orders No. 191.
As always, thank you for visiting and reading my work. If any of you has a topic or question you’d like me to dig into, please suggest it in the comments. I’ll let you know if it is something I’d like to pursue in a future post.
AR
Jan. 14, 2024
Alex Rossino Online 
I find it amazing that McClellan doesn’t get the credit I believe he deserves. Antietam gave Lincoln the opportunity to announce the emancipation proclamation. After that battle the British ended any consideration for coming in on the Confederate side. Stop any chance that Maryland would secede no to mention he pushed Lee back into Virginia. Any ideas on that.
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Well, it is a matter of perspective, I guess. Lincoln’s minions, men such as Nicolay and Hay, sought to ruin McClellan’s reputation during and after the war. Once Booth assassinated Lincoln, the president then became a secular martyr, and there was no chance after that for McClellan to fight the slander. Pro-Lincoln perspectives dominated, and continue to do so today, despite the evidence that Lincoln was far from a saint, or, for that matter, a military genius. Chapter one of The Tale Untwisted explains the century and a half of lazy historians and others simply repeating earlier slander of McClellan. The tide is turning, however, as more scholars come to realize that while McClellan was no Grant, he was nevertheless more competent than most have credited him with being.
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Thank you for your response. Your book tale untwisted was one of the books I’ve read that made me rethink Lincoln and his administration. The more I look the more I become disappointed but facts are stubborn things. I’m starting to wonder if the war could have and should have been avoided. General Scott warned Lincoln of exactly what happened. And I’m uncomfortable with what I’m beginning to believe. Thank you for giving me a new perspective as unnerving as it is.
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Mission accomplished! Now, for the real red pill. Read Paul Callahan’s When Democracy Fell. If you can come away from that thinking anything other than Lincoln was a horribly flawed president, I’ll be surprised. He is as culpable for the Civil War happening as any Confederate.
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Thank you for the recommendation. I just ordered the book.
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