Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals by William Franklin Gore Shanks

Author:William Franklin Gore Shanks [Shanks, William Franklin Gore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Military, Business & Economics, Leadership, History, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877), Political Science, Political Process
ISBN: 9780608402017
Google: aofmMK75S5IC
Publisher: Harper & brothers
Published: 1866-01-15T00:52:27+00:00

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LOVELL H. ROUSSEAU.

CHAPTER VI.

Table of Contents

REMINISCENCES OF ROUSSEAU.

All failures find their special apologies, and some curious ones were originated by the admirers of McClellan to account for the singular ineffective policy of that officer. That policy is now generally known as the "McNapoleonic," in contradistinction to the Fabian policy, from which it differed only in that Fabian attained valuable results, while McClellan did not. Every thing was to have been effected by the young Napoleon, according to his admirers, by pure, unalloyed strategy, and the rebellion and its armies were to be crushed without bloodshed. This great strategist, according to these authorities, was without parallel; all the rest of the generals, like Thomas, Grant, Hooker, etc., were, according to the McClellan theory, only "fighting generals." Their battles were mere massacres; Grant was a butcher; they quote his Wilderness campaign even to this day to prove it, and declare that he lost a hundred thousand men in his battles north of the James, but never reflect that McClellan lost ninety thousand without doing any fighting, and while retreating instead of advancing to that same river. Sheridan, to their mind, is a mere raider, without an idea of strategy, and Thomas, Hooker, Hancock, and all the rest, were "only fighting generals."

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