In 1885, when former commander of the Army of the Potomac George Brinton McClellan published a criticism of the Lincoln administration's interference with McClellan's prosecution of the American Civil War, former U.S. Representative William Kelley was incensed. In this long-forgotten book, Kelley takes McClellan to task in detail. Considered one of the most honest and hard-working members of Congress during the Civil War, Kelley used official war documents, statements from surviving participants, and his own memory of his time as a founder of the Republican party and friend of Abraham Lincoln to make his compelling case. Ulysses S. Grant stated after his presidency, "McClellan is to me one of the mysteries of the war." Yet Grant had sympathy for what McClellan's burdens were early in the war. He remains so today. Brilliant, vain, and insubordinate, his stature was forever tarnished by his early mistakes and failures to strike decisive blows. For the first time, this long-out-of-print book is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE or download a sample.

"Of the crucial men close to President Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (1814-1869) was the most powerful and controversial. Stanton raised, armed, and supervised the army of a million men who won the Civil War. He organized the war effort. He directed military movements from his telegraph office, where Lincoln literally hung out with him ... Now with this worthy complement to the enduring library of biographical accounts of those who helped Lincoln preserve the Union, Stanton honors the indispensable partner of the sixteenth president"--

Excerpt from Lincoln and Stanton: A Study of the War Administration of 1861 and 1862, With Special Consideration of Some Recent Statements of Gen. Geo; B. McClellan This is such stuff as dreams are made of. It serves, however, to illustrate the confusion into which the author's morbid imagination led him when in pursuit of an evil genius upon whom to devolve the consequences of his failures. Again, he says: In July, 1861, after having secured solidly for the Union that part of West Virginia north of the Kanawha and west of the mountains, I was suddenly called to Washington on the day succeeding the first battle of Bull Run. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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