George B. McClellan

Biography

George Brinton McClellan was born in Philadelphia in 1826, the son of a surgeon. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania before entering West Point at fifteen, graduating second in his class in 1846. As an engineer officer in the Mexican-American War he won brevet promotions, and in peacetime he took part in the Red River expedition, the Pacific Railroad surveys and, in 1855, an official mission to observe European armies in the Crimean War.

He resigned from the army in 1857 to become chief engineer and vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad and then president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. When the Civil War began he was made a major general, commanded in the Western Virginia campaign, and built the Army of the Potomac into a large, well-trained force; from November 1861 to March 1862 he was also general-in-chief.

His 1862 Peninsula campaign against Richmond ended in retreat after the Seven Days Battles, and although he checked Robert E. Lee's invasion of Maryland at Antietam, his failure to pursue led Lincoln to remove him in November 1862. As the Democratic candidate in 1864 he repudiated his party's peace platform and lost to Lincoln.

After years in Europe he was chief engineer of New York City's Department of Docks and president of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad, and he served as governor of New Jersey from 1878 to 1881. He died in 1885.