Major General George B. McClellan Statue

George Brinton McClellan was born to a prominent, wealthy family on December 3, 1826 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was an esteemed ophthalmologist who helped establish the city’s Jefferson Medical College two years earlier. A bright child, McClellan began studying law at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of thirteen. After two years, he decided to pursue a military career, so his father secured for him an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1846, McClellan graduated second in a class of fifty-nine that included future Confederate generals Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson and George Pickett. He then received a commission in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and served in the Mexican War under the command of General Winfield Scott. Following the conflict, McClellan returned to West Point as an instructor. After three years of teaching cadets, he conducted surveys of military installations on the East Coast and railroad routes in the West before traveling to Europe to observe the Crimean War. In 1857, McClellan resigned his commission in the U.S. Army to work for the Illinois Central Railroad as its chief engineer. Three years later, he became president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. 

On April 23, 1861, less than two weeks after the outbreak of the Civil War, Governor William Dennison of Ohio appointed McClellan commander of the state’s volunteer troops. A month later, President Lincoln commissioned him a major general in the regular army and gave him command of the Department of the Ohio. McClellan then orchestrated an invasion of western Virginia. For defeating the Confederate forces there and holding that part of the state in the Union, he garnered significant fame and earned the nickname “The Young Napoleon of the West.” Following Brigadier General Irvin McDowell’s embarrassing defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run that July, Lincoln called McClellan to Washington, D.C. There, the young general formed the Army of the Potomac, which he molded into a massive, well-disciplined fighting force over the course of several months. That November, following the retirement of General Winfield Scott, McClellan became general-in-chief of the U.S. Army. 

Despite the Army of the Potomac’s strength and level of preparedness, McClellan exercised extreme caution, which eventually led to a rift with Lincoln. After the president issued a general order that commanded the army to advance into enemy territory, the general requested more time to prepare his troops. In response, Lincoln removed him from the position of general-in-chief. Still commanding the Army of the Potomac, McClellan launched an offensive to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. The Peninsula campaign, as it later became known, was unsuccessful in large part because of his timidity and chronic overestimation of enemy forces. Frustrated with McClellan’s performance, Lincoln stripped him of command of the army, turning it over to General John Pope. 

After another federal defeat at Bull Run in August 1862, Lincoln gave “Little Mac” another chance. In September, McClellan halted General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Following the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the entire conflict, the Confederates withdrew back into Virginia. McClellan’s failure to pursue Lee and potentially crush the weakened Confederate force, however, infuriated Lincoln so much so that he visited the general to express his frustration. A few months later, the president relieved McClellan of command of the Army of the Potomac for a second and final time. In 1864, the two men squared off again, this time in the U.S. presidential election. Bolstered by Union military victories earlier that year and aided by divisions with the Democratic Party, Lincoln defeated McClellan decisively. 

Following his resounding defeat in the presidential election, McClellan resigned from the U.S. Army and traveled to Europe, where he remained for four years. After returning to the United States, he became chief engineer of the New York Department of Docks and later president of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad. In 1877, McClellan was elected governor of New Jersey, ultimately serving one term. He died on October 29, 1885 at the age of fifty-eight. 

Soon after McClellan’s death, members of the Society of the Army of the Potomac moved to erect a monument to their former commander in Washington, D.C. Several years later, in March 1901, Congress approved it and appropriated $50,000 for its construction. The following month, a commission composed of lawmakers and military officers formed to oversee the project, and decided that the monument would take the form of an equestrian statue. Designed by sculptor Frederick MacMonnies, the larger-than-life-sized bronze sculpture depicts McClellan, dressed in full military garb, sitting confidently upright on his horse. Peering into the distance, he holds the reins in his left hand, while his right rests on his hip. The statue rests on a tall rectangular granite pedestal decorated with large bronze reliefs of cannons, eagles, flags, and swords. At each of its four corners are bronze eagles connected by bronze garlands of oak and laurel. In attendance at the dedication ceremony on May 2, 1907 were then President Theodore Roosevelt, his Cabinet, McClellan’s widow and son, members of Congress, foreign diplomats, and thousands of spectators. 

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