>> george mcclellan had, you know, prewar experience with abe lincoln when mcclellan was vice president of illinois central railroad and able lincoln was a lawyer working on cases for the railroad. and they actually spent time together traveling to different points along the railroad working on court cases to get rights-of-way and so forth. and he managed to get along fine with lincoln during that period and he enjoyed abe lincoln's propensity to entertain people around a fire in a little tavern or a hostel around the way with anecdotes based on his experience as a backwoods lawyer. but when lincoln was elevated to president and mcclellan became his subordinate, then the essential, social impediments if you will that mcclellan took with him from his upper middle-class background began to show. and he began to regard lincoln as an interloper. we would not i think in our u.s. history see this again in such a striking degree until general george douglas macarthur in the korean war lost faith in harry truman, whose senior rank in the u.s. army had been captain of artillery in world war i as

mcclellan received a note from colonel george stoneman whose cavalry found him at new kent courthouse on the 10th of may. solomon says, the map is wrong with regard that this road and every road! mcclellan then sent a telegram up to edwin stanton at the war department saying that he has absolutely no information in detail of the country to our front and we are trying to simply grope our way. please send ten topographical engineers to my headquarters right away. and my nominee as man of the year has been criticized for not moving faster up the peninsula. i want you to take just a second. take a look at this. he wasn't getting much help from the local population. union officers were already writing home about the confederate soldiers are not too much of a problem. the confederate women are hard. they're difficult to deal with. they threw stones at us as we marched through williamsburg. think about this. no adequate roads. poor maps. awful weather. how could he have moved much faster? and yet despite all these challenges, by the end of may, they're just outside richmond. you've all heard

gee whiz, jack mountcastle, george mcclellan, what an interesting choice. it's my great pleasure to introduce our fifth and final nominator, emery thomas. he drove up from athens, georgia, where he's a professor of history emeritus at the university of georgia, but he's really coming home. he and his wife fran are native richmonders. as a matter of fact, emery starred on the thomas jefferson high school football team as the center and the quarterback was james henry benford p.iii who is now the superintendent at the virginia military institute. emery went from thomas jefferson to the university of virginia, where he was a two-sports star. one as the center on the football team, and two is the captain of the party team at the deke house. emery has written widely and perceptively on many aspects of confederate history and biography including the volume about the confederacy in the new american nation series, an acclaimed biographies of jeb stewart and robert e. lee. he's an old friend of the museum of the confederacy and has written and lectured about the mus

general, i'm afraid that your man little napoleon, george mcclellan came in last. he had only 12 votes. [ inaudible ] jim macpherson. instead of saying damn, the torpedos, he might have said full speed ahead and he came second to last at 13 votes. >> david blight, your manfred bailey otherwise known as frederick douglas came in right in the middle with 20 votes. bob cribbings, hero, and he had 25 votes and i am here to pronounce that robert e. lee with 71 votes was promoted from the king of spades to the ace of spades. robert e. lee is the man of year for 1862, and i'd like to thank all of you for coming and please get home safely. >> so the winner at the library in virginia in richmond for person of the year is the selection of robert e. lee as person of the year 1862. aga again, the nominees today were from robert krick, who is the chief historian of fredericksburg for 30 years, david blight of yale nominated frederick douglas who came in third, nominated by james macpherson came in first and he was dead last in the voting in virginia and we congratulate professo

nothing had happened in the orbit where george mcclellan were doing nothing. in the west, things were happening and terp they were all bad. suddenly there was someone in virginia who was succeeding. the compilations are everywhere from the civilian diaries, from the soldiers letters about how the world had changed when jackson started to succeed. good news had been in miserly short supply and now it was everywhere viewed with more importance than it really deserved from the somewhat secondary theater of the shenandoah valley. down here in richmond whereby this point there were federal troops in profusion laying siege, not literally, but besieging the confederate national capital p about the soldiers here wrote about it from afar and started to wish that they had jackson instead of their own leaders. here's a fellow in the brigade writing home, middle of may, the news of the gallon plant achievements has been received enthusiastically.plant achievements has been received enthusiastically. this is one of my heavy motifs, the impact on people, hair attitude towar

george brenton mcclellan of philadelphia. i see we have some philadelphia fans in the audience [ laughter ] >> if you go over here to the virginia bookstore you can buy those little napkins that say "to be born a virginiaen is really something special." in philadelphia you can't buy them. your money is not good enough, you know? you have to have a pedigree [ laughter ] >> graduated number two in his class at west point, 1846. he was commissioned in the corps of engineers. unlike people like george picket, he went into the corps of engineers. he was a veteran of the war with mexico where he served with distinction. in the decade following that war he was one of a group of young protege's of the very, very active, engaged secretary of war jefferson davis. because jeff davis had quite a bit of confidence in young captain mcclellan in 1850s, he was part of a hand-picked group that davis sent to the crimea to observe the french and british in their siege of sabastapol held by the russians. mcclellan established a reputation then a

nothing had happened in the orbit where george b. mcclellan and joseph e.ohnston were doing nothing so capably, living up to their birthrights. in the west, things were happening and they were all bad. ft. henry, ft. donaldson. on the upper mississippi, everything was going bad, and suddenly here was someone in virginia, a virginian who was succeeding. you have seen the compilations, they are everywhere, from the civilian diaries from the soldiers' letters about how the world had changed when jackson started to succeed. good news had been in miserly short supply and now it was everywhere, viewed with more importance than it really deserved from the somewhat secondary theater of the shenandoah valley. down here in richmond not far from us where by this point there were federal troops in profusion laying siege, not literally, but besieging the confederate national capitol, the soldiers here wrote about it from afar and started to wish they had jackson instead of their own leaders. here's a fellow in the brigade writing home at the time, middle of may, the new

george clinton mcclellan of philadelphia. i see we have some philadelphia fans in the audience. if you go over here to the virginia bookstore, you can buy the little napkins, you know, that says to be born in virginia is really something special. philadelphia, you can't buy them. your money's not good enough, you know? you have to have a pedigree. graduated number two in his class, west point, class of 1846. he was commissioned in the corps of engineers. not like people like george picket, vovshoveled into the in tray, the smartest guys typically went into the corps of engineers. in the decade following that war he was one of a group of young proteges of the very, very active, engaged secretary of war jefferson davis. because geoff davis hjeff davis bit of confidence in young captain mcclellan in the 1850s he was part of a handpicked group that he sent to the crimea in the siege of sebastopol. mcclellan established a reputation then as being very, very intelligent in his approach to dealing with british and french engineers and sent some excellent reports back to the united stat