There was no more dynamic pair in the Civil War than Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan. Early in the war, McClellan, only thirty-five years old and commanding the Ohio troops, won skirmishes for the Union in western Virginia. After the disastrous Union defeat at Bull Run in the summer of 1861, Lincoln sent word for McClellan to come to Washington, and soon elevated him to commander-in-chief of the Union army. But in the late summer and fall, things began to take a turn for the worse. McClellan seemed prone to delay, and had a penchant for vastly overestimating the Confederate forces he faced and of underestimating his ability to move expeditiously against them. His relationship with Lincoln began to sour, and Lincoln was famously quoted as saying, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it provided I could see how it could be made to do something." Lincoln and McClellan is a fantastic tale of the hubris, paranoia, and eventual failure of George McClellan, and the troubled patience of Abraham Lincoln. Here, award-winning author John C.
Waugh provides the first in-depth look at this fascinating relationship, from the early days of the Civil War to the 1864 presidential election, when Lincoln and McClellan had their final showdown.