Conflict of Command

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The story of the fraught relationship between Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan is well known. Indeed, so much so that many scholars do not question its established history. In Conflict in Command, acclaimed Civil War historian George C. Rable rethinks that stance, providing a new understanding of the interaction between the President and his leading wartime general. He does so not by uncovering striking new evidence but instead by reinterpreting their relationship by focusing on its politics. Rable pays considerable attention to Lincoln's cabinet, the Congress, and newspaper editors, revealing the role each played in shaping relations between the men. While he deals with McClellan's military campaigns as the commander of the Army of the Potomac, his focus is on the political fallout rather than the minutia of battlefield actions. This broadly conceived political approach to the story brings in both officers and enlisted men in the Army of the Potomac as citizen-soldiers and political actors. Although there are two short books on the Lincoln-McClellan relationship, most accounts of the men focus on either one or the other, and the vast majority adopt a strongly pro-Lincoln position. Taking a far more neutral stance, Rable analyzes how the relationship between the two men developed politically and ultimately failed spectacularly, profoundly altering the course of the Civil War. As he deftly shows, the political aspects of the interactions between Lincoln and McClellan provide a much fuller understanding of their relationship. Rable's innovative study is sure to be of widespread interest to Civil War scholars and presidential historians"--