Recently I have had occasion to spend a great deal of time in my car; I took the opportunity to listen to the audio version of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s excellent Team of Rivals. It reignited feelings I bear towards Union General George McClellan that have long remained dormant. These were the responses I felt moved to deliver to the narrator while alone in my car.

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “From the start, however, McClellan viewed Scott as “the great obstacle” to both his own ambition for sole authority and to his larger strategy in the war. Less than two weeks after assuming command of the Army of the Potomac, McClellan questioned Scott’s belief that the rush of reinforcements to Washington had secured the capital. In a letter to General Scott, which he copied to the president, he argued that his army was “entirely insufficient for the emergency,” for “the enemy has at least 100,000 men in our front.” Scott was furious that his judgment had been called into question, correctly insisting that McClellan was grossly exaggerating the opposition forces. It would not be the last of the imperious general’s miscalculations.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: UUUUGHHHHH

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “In his almost daily letters to his wife, McClellan recognized that his disagreements with Scott might ‘result in a mortal enmity on his part against me.’ Justifying his unwillingness to make peace with Scott, he referred frequently to his sense of destiny. It was his conviction that ‘God has placed a great work in my hands.’ He felt that ‘by some strange operation of magic” he had “become the power of the land’ and if ‘the people call upon me to save the country—I must save it & cannot respect anything that is in the way.’ McClellan told her that he received “letter after letter” begging him to assume the presidency or become a dictator. While he would eschew the presidency, he would ‘cheerfully take the Dictatorship & agree to lay down my life when the
country is saved.'”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: UUUUUUUUUGGGHHHHHHH

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Radical Republicans who had initially applauded McClellan’s appointment began to turn on him when they learned he had issued ‘a slavecatching order’ requiring commanders to return fugitive slaves to their masters.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: uuuuuggghhhhh ugh ugh

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “At the first whiff of censure, McClellan shifted blame onto any other shoulder but his own—onto Scott’s failure to muster necessary resources, onto the incompetence of the cabinet, ‘some of the greatest geese…I have ever seen—enough to tax the patience of Job.’ He considered Seward ‘a meddling, officious, incompetent little puppy,’ Welles ‘weaker than the most garrulous old woman,’ and Bates ‘an old fool.'”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: UGGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHHG

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “McClellan straightaway denied responsibility for the defeat at Ball’s Bluff, characteristically insisting that the ‘disaster was caused by errors committed’ by the leaders at the front. ‘The whole thing took place some 40 miles from here without my orders or knowledge,’ he told his wife; ‘it was entirely unauthorized by me & I am in no manner responsible for it.'”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: UGH UGH UGH UGH I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “McClellan confessed to conflicted emotions when he accompanied Scott to the railroad station for his departure from Washington. ‘I saw there the end of a long, active & ambitious life,’ he wrote his wife, ‘the end of the career of the first soldier of his nation—& it was a feeble old man scarce able to walk—hardly any one there to see him off but his successor.’ The truth, as the newspapers reported, was that a large crowd had assembled at the depot, despite the train’s leaving at 5 a.m. in a drenching rain. All the members of Scott’s staff were there, along with McClellan’s complete staff and a cavalry escort. Secretaries Chase and Cameron had come to join the general on his journey to Harrisburg. Moreover, ‘quite a number of citizens’ had gathered to pay their respects, belying the ignominious farewell that McClellan depicted. Once again, the young Napoleon erred in his calculations.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: UUUUGHGHHHHHHHH TELL THE TRUTH FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Now that McClellan could no longer blame Scott for his troubles, he shifted his censure to Lincoln for denying him the means to confront the rebel forces in Virginia, whose numbers, he insisted, were at least three times his own.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: UUUUGHHHHHHH

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “On Wednesday night, November 13, Lincoln went with Seward and Hay to McClellan’s house. Told that the general was at a wedding, the three waited in the parlor for an hour. When McClellan arrived home, the porter told him the president was waiting, but McClellan passed by the parlor room and climbed the stairs to his private quarters. After another half hour, Lincoln again sent word that he was waiting, only to be informed that the general had gone to sleep.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: OH MY GOD YOU HATEFUL BITCH

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “McClellan’s assurances of forward movement provided Lincoln little comfort. The general had made similar promises for many months, while the great Army of the Potomac sat idle.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: DO
SOMETHING
RESEMBLING
ANYTHING

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Without some forward progress, Chase told the president, he would get no additional funds from a discontented public. Meigs suggested that Lincoln convene a war council with his other generals to formulate a decisive course of action. Receiving news of this, McClellan suddenly recovered sufficiently to attend the meeting on the following day.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: UGH OF COURSE YOU DID

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Hearing reports of the fallback, McClellan led his armies on a short foray to catch the remaining troops. But once there, he found to his great embarrassment that the entire Confederate force had already departed with their tents, supplies, and weapons. Still more humiliating, the supposedly impregnable fortifications that had deterred him for months turned out to be simply wooden logs painted black to resemble cannons. Had McClellan attacked anytime in the previous months, he would have had superiority in numbers and weapons.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: MA’AM
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Lincoln was convinced that something had to be done. On March 11, he issued a war order that relieved McClellan from his post as general in chief but left him in charge of the Army of the Potomac.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: NOOO KICK HIM TO THE CURB KICK HIM TO THE CUUUURRRRB

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Stanton referred the matter to Lorenzo Thomas, the adjutant general, who, after surveying the circumstance, concluded that the president’s order had most definitely not been obeyed. McClellan had left behind “less than 20,000 raw recruits with not a single organized brigade,” a force utterly incapable of defending Washington from sudden attack.”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: I freaking SWEAR HE IS WORKING FOR JEFFERSON DAVIES

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Once again, mistakenly insisting that the rebel force outnumbered his, McClellan kept his army in a state of perpetual preparation. His engineers spent precious weeks constructing earthworks so his big guns could quash rebel defenses before the infantry assault. On April 6, Lincoln telegraphed McClellan: ‘You now have over one hundred thousand troops…I think you better break the enemies’ line from York-town to Warwick River, at once. They will probably use time, as advantageously as you can.’ The following day, McClellan scorned the president’s admonition, informing his wife that if Lincoln wanted the enemy line broken, ‘he had better come & do it himself.'”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: [inarticulate hissing]

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Hearing that a fallback was under way, McClellan finally moved on Yorktown to discover that, in a repeat of his experience at Manassas, the rebels were gone. Though he tried to claim the rebel retreat as a great bloodless victory, the public was unconvinced, and the question remained: why had he kept idle for a month?”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: BITCH ARE YOU FOR REAL??

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Moreover, while Jackson and his forces made their way north, Lincoln reasoned, Richmond must be vulnerable. ‘I think the time is near when you must either attack Richmond or give up the job and come to the defence of Washington. Let me hear from you instantly.’ McClellan replied at 5 p.m.: ‘Independently of it the time is very near when I shall attack Richmond.’ He then haughtily informed his wife that he had ‘just finished [his] reply to his Excellency,’ and complained, ‘it is perfectly sickening to deal with such people & you may rest assured that I will lose as little time as possible in breaking off all connection with them—I get more sick of them every day—for every day brings with it only additional proofs of their hypocrisy, knavery & folly.’
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: how are you still alive HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “McClellan’s catalogue of gripes and concerns was endless. There were bridges to be built, bad roads, regiments to be reorganized. When Lincoln eventually ordered McDowell to reinforce him, the general continued to protest that ‘if I cannot fully control all his [McDowell’s] troops I want none of them, but would prefer to fight the battle with what I have and let others be responsible for the results.’ Finally, he confided in his wife, ‘utmost prudence’ was essential. ‘I must not unnecessarily risk my life—for the fate of my army depends upon me & they all know it.’ McClellan’s chronic delays allowed General Lee to take the initiative once again.
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: I don’t even care anymore. Of course it did.

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “McClellan telegraphed Stanton shortly after midnight. ‘I have lost this battle because my force was too small. I again repeat that I am not responsible for this.’ The president ‘is wrong in regarding me as ungenerous when I said that my force was too weak. I merely intimated a truth which to-day has been too plainly proved.’ Finally, he vindictively added: ‘If I save this Army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army.’
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: HOW CAN ONE PERSON BE SO WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING LITERALLY ALL OF THE TIME ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO TRUTH

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “Meanwhile, McClellan smugly returned to his old headquarters on the corner next to Seward’s house. ‘Again I have been called upon to save the country,’ he wrote his wife. ‘It makes my heart bleed to see the poor shattered remnants of my noble Army of the Potomac, poor fellows! and to see how they love me even now. I hear them calling out to me as I ride among them—‘George—don’t leave us again!’ ‘They shan’t take you away from us again.'”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: OH MY GOD

WHAT MCCLELLAN DID: “The following day, with the midterm elections behind him, Lincoln relieved McClellan of his command of the Army of the Potomac. Though the young Napoleon had finally crossed the Potomac, he had immediately stalled again. ‘I began to fear he was playing false—that he did not want to hurt the enemy,’ Lincoln told Hay. ‘I saw how he could intercept the enemy on the way to Richmond. I determined to make that the test. If he let them get away I would remove him. He did so & I relieved him.’

McClellan received the telegram in his tent at 11 p.m., in the company of the man Lincoln had chosen to succeed him: General Ambrose Burnside. Known as a fighting general, Burnside had commanded a corps under McClellan on the Peninsula and at Antietam. ‘Poor Burn feels dreadfully, almost crazy,” McClellan told his wife. “Of course I was much surprised,” he admitted, but ‘not a muscle quivered nor was the slightest expression of feeling visible on my face.'”
WHAT I YELLED IN MY CAR: LOLLL YES YES YES YES YES GET OUTTA THERE GIRL GO HOME NOBODY WANTS YOU GET OUT NOBODY BELIEVES YOU I BET YOU CRIED LIKE A BITCH