With General Scott ends another era of our history, and we come to a consideration of the soldiers made famous by the greatest war of the nineteenth century—­the civil conflict which threatened, for a time, to disrupt the Union.  It was a war waged on both sides with desperate courage and tenacity, and it developed a number of commanders not, perhaps, of the very first rank, but standing high in the second.

The first real success of the war was won by George B. McClellan.  A graduate of West Point, veteran of the war with Mexico, and military observer of the war in the Crimea, he had resigned from the army in 1857 to engage in the railroad business, with headquarters at Cincinnati.  At the opening of the war, he was commissioned major-general, and put in command of the Department of Ohio.  His first work was to clear western Virginia of Confederates, which he did in a series of successful skirmishes, lasting but a few weeks.  He lost only eight men, while the Confederates lost sixteen hundred, besides over a thousand taken prisoners.  The achievement was of the first importance, since it saved for the Union the western section of Virginia which, a year later, was admitted as a separate state.  It is worth remembering that in this campaign, McClellan’s opponent was no less a personage than Robert E. Lee.

The success was the greater as contrasted with the disaster at Bull Run, and in August, 1861, McClellan was placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, gathered about Washington and still discouraged and disorganized from that defeat and rout.  His military training had been of the most thorough description, especially upon the technical side, and no better man could have been found for the task of whipping that great army into shape.  He soon proved his fitness for the work, and four months later, he had under him a trained and disciplined force, the equal of any that ever trod American soil.  He forged the instrument which, in the end, a stronger man than he was to use.  Let that always be remembered to his credit.

He had become a sort of popular hero, idolized by his soldiers, for he possessed in greater degree than any other commander at the North that personal magnetism which wins men.  But it was soon evident that he lacked those qualities of aggressiveness, energy, and initiative essential to a great commander; that he was unduly cautious.  He seems to have habitually over-estimated the strength of the enemy and under-estimated his own.  With this habit of mind, it was certain that he would never suffer a great defeat; but it was also probable that he would never win a great victory, and a great victory was just what the North hungered for to wipe out the disgrace of Bull Run.  Not for eight months was he ready to begin the campaign against Richmond, and it ended in heavy loss and final retreat, partly because of McClellan’s incapacity and partly because of ignorant interference with his plans on the part of politicians at Washington.  For it must be remembered that McClellan was a Democrat, and soon became the natural leader of that party at the North—­a fact which seemed little less than treason to many of the political managers at the Capital.