was keeping the Rebels out of Washington. Lincoln could not know, on the day after the battle, that the Confederate army was too disorganized to follow up its victory, but he could not ignore the disorganized and demoralized state of the main Union army in Virginia, with thousands of its soldiers scattered throughout the capital city, many of them in bars drinking themselves into oblivion while appalling their fellow patrons with exaggerated tales of disaster. The public had lost confidence in McDowell. More important, the army had lost confidence in McDowell and in itself. Lincoln needed a general who could restore the army’s confidence in itself and win its confidence for himself, a general who had won victories and who was not too far away from Washington since Lincoln needed him right away. The obvious choice was George McClellan, fresh from his victories in western Virginia. On July 22 a telegram from the secretary of war summoned the thirty-four-year-old major general to Washington without delay.
McClellan the conquering hero officially assumed command of the troops around Washington on July 27 and immediately went to work to restore order and discipline. Provost guards swept the stragglers out of the Washington bars and off the streets. Back in their camps, the men, including regiment after regiment of new troops arriving in the Washington area in response to the president’s latest call, learned what it was to be soldiers, observing military discipline, maintaining military bearing, and drilling for hours on end. Uniforms and equipment became somewhat more standardized, though the army would continue to contain a number of Zouave regiments.
Shortages of U.S. manufactured weapons testified to the Union’s early unreadiness for waging war and forced the federal government to procure arms from European manufacturers. This meant that different regiments carried a variety of weapons, from the standard U.S. Harpers Ferry or Springfield rifle-muskets to the highly similar British Enfield. Meanwhile, badly inferior Belgian or Austrian rifles or obsolete but still lethal U.S. Model 1820 smooth-bore muskets also found their way into the Union ranks. Although muskets and rifles of varying calibers posed a logistical nightmare, the Union made do with its odd assortment of weaponry until gradual standardization of military armaments occurred as the conflict progressed. To his credit, McClellan transformed the collection of troops around Washington, some of them demoralized and all of them green, into something that looked and felt like an army. He called it the Army of the Potomac, and its men soon came to feel an exuberant faith in themselves and their commander.
So far, McClellan had been all that Lincoln, the cabinet, or Congress could have hoped, and the youthful warlord’s reputation seemed to be expanding more rapidly than a bursting shell. Newspapers christened him “the young Napoleon.” Lincoln was deferential. Cabinet members and congressional leaders fawned on the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, suggesting that he was the only man who could save the country. Washington was safe, and the army was growing in size and proficiency. Its commander was dapper in his tailored uniform and so deep chested that he looked short at his slightly above average five feet, seven inches, cutting a splendid figure on horseback and looking the very image of the Currier & Ives war that people imagined they were about to fight. Civilians visiting the army’s camps gazed admiringly on the general, and his adoring troops cheered him to the echo.
While McClellan continued to make his preparations in the East, serious fighting broke out in the West, which during the Civil War referred to the part of the country west of the Appalachian Mountains. Because both sides were still respecting Kentucky’s bizarre claim to neutrality, the four-hundred-mile stretch from the mountains to the Mississippi was, for the present, out of
McClellan the conquering hero officially assumed command of the troops around Washington on July 27 and immediately went to work to restore order and discipline. Provost guards swept the stragglers out of the Washington bars and off the streets. Back in their camps, the men, including regiment after regiment of new troops arriving in the Washington area in response to the president’s latest call, learned what it was to be soldiers, observing military discipline, maintaining military bearing, and drilling for hours on end. Uniforms and equipment became somewhat more standardized, though the army would continue to contain a number of Zouave regiments.
Shortages of U.S. manufactured weapons testified to the Union’s early unreadiness for waging war and forced the federal government to procure arms from European manufacturers. This meant that different regiments carried a variety of weapons, from the standard U.S. Harpers Ferry or Springfield rifle-muskets to the highly similar British Enfield. Meanwhile, badly inferior Belgian or Austrian rifles or obsolete but still lethal U.S. Model 1820 smooth-bore muskets also found their way into the Union ranks. Although muskets and rifles of varying calibers posed a logistical nightmare, the Union made do with its odd assortment of weaponry until gradual standardization of military armaments occurred as the conflict progressed. To his credit, McClellan transformed the collection of troops around Washington, some of them demoralized and all of them green, into something that looked and felt like an army. He called it the Army of the Potomac, and its men soon came to feel an exuberant faith in themselves and their commander.
So far, McClellan had been all that Lincoln, the cabinet, or Congress could have hoped, and the youthful warlord’s reputation seemed to be expanding more rapidly than a bursting shell. Newspapers christened him “the young Napoleon.” Lincoln was deferential. Cabinet members and congressional leaders fawned on the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, suggesting that he was the only man who could save the country. Washington was safe, and the army was growing in size and proficiency. Its commander was dapper in his tailored uniform and so deep chested that he looked short at his slightly above average five feet, seven inches, cutting a splendid figure on horseback and looking the very image of the Currier & Ives war that people imagined they were about to fight. Civilians visiting the army’s camps gazed admiringly on the general, and his adoring troops cheered him to the echo.
While McClellan continued to make his preparations in the East, serious fighting broke out in the West, which during the Civil War referred to the part of the country west of the Appalachian Mountains. Because both sides were still respecting Kentucky’s bizarre claim to neutrality, the four-hundred-mile stretch from the mountains to the Mississippi was, for the present, out of
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