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Overly cautious commander or misunderstood strategist? George B. McClellan was a young brilliant engineer who twice organized and led the Army of the Potomac, yet he remains one of the most disputed figures of the Civil War. His masterful ability to build and inspire an army is acknowledged even by his harshest critics, yet posterity has branded him as indecisive and timid—particularly during the Peninsula and Antietam campaigns. With General George B. McClellan: A Study in Controversy, Maurice Daoust offers a fresh appraisal of the complex and often-maligned Union general.
Daoust reexamines McClellan’s career with fresh eyes by drawing upon a deep range of primary sources—letters, reports, diaries, and unpublished archival material. Was he an obstinate and vain general, or a disciplined soldier facing difficult political and logistical challenges? Nowhere is this question more crucial than at Antietam, the single bloodiest day in American history, where McClellan’s actions arguably preserved the Union cause at a moment of supreme peril. The strategic Union victory gave President Abraham Lincoln the strategic victory he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and set the course for the rest of the war.
Written in a smooth narrative style and supported by a considerable amount of evidence, General George B. McClellan: A Study in Controversy is a must-read for serious students of the Civil War. Combining military analysis with rich biographical detail, the book challenges several long-held assumptions and paints a vivid portrait of a man whose intellect, discipline, and conviction shaped the war’s early years—and whose reputation, more than a century and a half later, still provokes passionate debate.
An avid lover of history, Maurice G. Daoust developed an interest in the American Civil War in the late 1980s. That interest quickly developed into a passion, and it wasn’t long before he began conducting his own research on various aspects of the war. Throughout the next three and a half decades Maurice, or Moe as his friends call him, devoted most of his research efforts on the ever-controversial George B. McClellan and has published several McClellan-related articles along the way. He is also credited with the discovery of the now famous “12 Midnight” telegram, which has completely altered our perceptions surrounding the time at which McClellan came into possession of Lee’s Lost Order. This is his first Civil War related book. Maurice and his wife, Wanda, reside in the western suburbs of Ottawa, Canada.
