It all came down to the fact that McClellan was too afraid of losing to risk winning. "One battle lost and all would have been lost," he explained later. "Lee’s army might then have marched as it pleased on Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia or New York."

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in America's Civil War magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Such manifest exaggeration was ridiculous, as President Abraham Lincoln understood all too well. After personally visiting McClellan two weeks after the battle, Lincoln told colleagues that he had tried unsuccessfully to convince the general "that he would be a ruined man if he did not move forward, move rapidly and effectively." Instead of heeding his advice, Lincoln noted ruefully, "he began to argue why he ought not to move." Looking at the army massed around him in a sea of tents, the exasperated Lincoln asked a companion, "Do you know what this is?" "It is the Army of the Potomac," the man replied. "So it is called," the president said, "but that is a mistake. It is only McClellan’s bodyguard." By failing to renew the Battle of Antietam, McClellan soon lost the use of that "bodyguard" forever.

Roy Morris, Jr., Editor, America’s Civil War
 

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to