General Confusion

TFSmith may be ruthless when it comes to killing off  British VCs, but - as we shall see - he's equally ruthless when it comes to erasing Union generals who don't meet his high standards. Moreover, he does so with a breathtaking disregard for historical accuracy.


We are told in chapter 1 part 3 that as of 27 December 1861, McClellan has been replaced as general-in-chief of the Union armies. This took place

when the British demands in response to the Rinaldo-San Jacinto incident had been presented December 19, and McClellan was still white-faced and trembling in bed

However, McClellan did not contract typhoid fever until 21 December: as of the 27th he was still capable of conducting work, and indeed issued three general orders on the 28th. It was only on the 31st that McClellan's health declined sufficiently to prevent him working, and his ill-health remained fitful throughout the period.

Though there were discussions about replacing McClellan towards the end of his illness, there was no intention to replace him as general-in-chief. Instead, Lincoln proposed to replace him as commander of the Army of the Potomac to enable the army to launch an offensive. The two suggested replacements as army commander, incidentally, were McDowell and William B. Franklin. Though Lincoln considered them the best available, evidently TFSmith disagrees: in Burnished Rows of Steel, both of these individuals remain as corps commanders while other men are promoted.

TFSmith's personal dislike of McClellan is clear, whether in the wholly unnecessary description of McClellan's 'white-faced and trembling' state in this extract, or his unwarranted speculation about McClellan's sex life in what we might term the marginalia of the TL. As such, McClellan is deleted- erased from the TL in the same way as John C. Fremont, the likely Union commander in Canada, who is rather conveniently sent to the Department of the Northwest 'a few weeks after being relieved in Missouri in November of 1861' to prevent him from taking the post from a commander TFSmith considers more worthy. A similar fate presumably befalls Nathaniel P. 'Commissary' Banks, who does not appear in the TL. By replacing him as commander of V Corps with the marginally more competent Fitzjohn Porter, and having Jackson make the completely inexplicable decision to abandon the Shenandoah Valley, TFSmith is enabled to erase a series of rather embarrassing Union defeats.


TFSmith's replacement for McClellan makes little more sense than the decision to replace him in the first place. We are told that

when Lt. Gen. Scott had retired in October, he had suggested Mansfield as his replacement, before leaving on his European mission. With McClellan’s illness in November, Mansfield had been an obvious choice for consideration as his acting replacement

However, this is not true. Scott wanted Henry Wager Halleck to replace him, not Mansfield: this fact is well documented in multiple sources. TFSmith presumably relied on his readers being gullible enough not to bother checking this fact. But why would he lie about something that is so easy to confirm?

The answer is simple: Halleck actually was appointed as general-in-chief to replace McClellan, and he was a failure. He was a poor man-manager, engaging in political manoeuvring with his subordinates. When in actual command, he moved slowly against an army half his size in the Siege of Corinth; as a supervising general, he struggled to impose his will on subordinates and was unable to encourage them into aggressive action. It was only when reduced to a functionary as chief-of-staff to Grant that Halleck began to perform adequately. However, TFSmith is clearly aware that if Halleck had been given overall command (as he would have been, if McClellan had been replaced when TFSmith proposes) it boded ill for the Union. This is unacceptable for an author who wants the Union to prosecute the war efficiently, and therefore Halleck is superceded.

Note that the person TFSmith appoints, Joseph Mansfield, is a cypher. He did nothing for most of his career, spent the Civil War being shuffled from one garrison command to another, and was killed within two days of taking corps command. This absence of evidence enables TFSmith to turn him into a military genius who 'rapidly surrounded himself with an excellent staff': 'canny as ever', 'Steady, solid, dependable, and personally brave', 'a wintry old regular who had become a favorite of the president both for his capabilities and unflinching commitment to the war'.

It does not matter that historically Mansfield showed none of this capacity. It makes no difference that Mansfield died stumbling around the battlefield of Antietam trying to work out which troops were the enemy, even though- had he been a British general- he would have been consigned to a similar fate on a battlefield in Canada or Maine. He is a Union soldier, and therefore in TFSmith's eyes only needed the right opportunity to shine.