if mclelland had captured richmond, come back to our friend jorge. if we clown had captured richmond in july of 1862 which any compton commander would have -- >> that would've been the end of the war and it would've been the end of the emancipation. it was on the table. everybody talks about antietam and administration, it is not the key battle with emancipation. the seven days is. the quantification act came a couple days after mcallen's defeat and charles sumner tied it directly to lincoln's -- mclelland's defeat. blinken now to his cabinet on the 22nd of july, 1862, that he was going to issue a proclamation of emancipation. that was the key battle. and he gives the moment he could do it, but the decision comes in the wake of macron's failure when they decide we are not going to be up to win this war without upping the ante. does that mean? we will put the ante as high as that can be. the entire slave holding society of the confederacy is now on the table. you can't get higher states stakes than that. most people eventually, not all, many millions

if mclelland had captured richmond, come back to our friend jorge. if we clown had captured richmond in july of 1862 which any compton commander would have -- [laughs] >> that would've been the end of the war and it would've been the end of the emancipation. it was on the table. everybody talks about antietam and administration, it is not the key battle with emancipation. the seven days is. the quantification act came a couple days after mcallen's defeat and charles sumner tied it directly to lincoln's -- mclelland's defeat. blinken now to his cabinet on the 22nd of july, 1862, that he was going to issue a proclamation of emancipation. that was the key battle. and he gives the moment he could do it, but the decision comes in the wake of macron's failure when they decide we are not going to be up to win this war without upping the ante. does that mean? we will put the ante as high as that can be. the entire slave holding society of the confederacy is now on the table. you can't get higher states stakes than that. most people eventually, not all, many

the stanton sole objective for pope is to humiliate mclelland. imagine being placed in the situation, you told the commanding officers, this is not the command for me. it will not be successful. and being placed in this position with all these sub contexts in mind, you are now expected to be successful on it. pope him yours again and says, i just don't want this position. send me back out west. whether question comes in at this moment for historical debate, who else would be the right fit at this moment? the lincoln administration need someone that is outspokenly republican, profits that box. anti slavery, check. suggesting using african americans for federal military service? check. willing to wage a hard war against the civilian populace? check. and the commander that is aggressive? all of these things that mcclellan is not. the new york tribune would know that pope was not the type of man to sit and wait. he's a man of action, a man of bayonet. the philadelphia public ledgerwood right that pope would bring order out of chaos and the shenandoah

>> i think he understood the mclelland very well. i think that mcclellan surprised him at south mountain. he was more aggressive than lee was accustomed to. mcclellan had always been very cautious and his operation. he was sort of a set piece commander. i do think he believes that mcclellan would behave that way when he made the decision in sharp spur. i think he realizes for one thing, mcclellan get severely criticized. on september the 15th, why doesn't he march from south mountain and attack robert e. lee's army. you can look at a map like i had up there. that looks pretty easy to do. when you actually get down into the weeds as a soldier would have to do, that was impossible! mcclelland could not have attacked on september the 15th. if he had it would've been a hasty to tack with a very small part of his army. the army had to roads to move the entire army on. it would've been a big gigantic traffic jam of the army if he had tried to move their. he also had to reckon with antietam creek. which crossings the army could use. what wa

now, mclelland one of the york river and then followed the richmond for various reasons. this little peripheral campaign that grant is planning with the smaller army is going to go along the james river. we'll be able to strike either richmond or the small a town of petersburg. so what about petersburg? in order for the confederates to feed leaves armies and the people of richmond they need supplies! so supplies come from for railroads, the confederates would have to keep at least two of the railroads, at least two, in order to keep richmond fan, he pleads army fed in order to maintain their position in virginia, okay? they have got to keep two out of the four. three out of the four come together at petersburg. so that union forces that subsidiary army. if they were to go to petersburg and take petersburg, the commander has the option of richmond or petersburg. if the confederates cover richmond in the petersburg uncovered. that smaller union army take petersburg, their confederate are done in richmond! they will not be able to hold richmond, they will not be able to main

is much older than grant much older than mclelland. much older in fact, historically speaking, and most of the great generals. he's older than wellington and napoleon. a similar argument could be made saying, perhaps he ought to have been in more of a -- position than trying to take command in the field. he suffered a series of heart attacks during the civil war. the first occurred in the spring of 1863, before the pennsylvania campaign. but he bounces back from that heart attack. there's no real evidence from the gettysburg campaign that he was experiencing health distress. that in any way affected his decision-making i would take a step further and say that his decision making was actually quite sound. think of it this way, for the previous two days of the battle of gettysburg, lee's army had pounded the army at the potomac. of the seven infantry core of the army of the potomac, five of those infantry corps had been wrecked by lee's army. i mean, the were next to useless in terms of combat readiness. the only thing left on the 12th c