>> 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

general george mcclellan had been in disgrace after his peninsular campaign. now, lincoln summoned his back. his orders, stop lee at all costs. those costs were to be high. on september 17th, 1862, union and confederate forces would meet at antietam, gaithersburg, maryland. more than 100,000 men would be involved in the bloody battle of antietam. and one woman, clara barton, would carve for herself a unique place in the annals of service to mankind. the day the battle began, however, she was just a dedicated woman driving a wagon loaded with provisions across the rolling maryland countryside. years later, she would recall that day of blood and anguish and retell it in her own words. >> with my attendant i sought the hilltops, and as the mist cleared away and the morning sun broke over the maryland heights, its rays fell upon the dusty forms of dying men. many of you may never hear the bugle notes which call men to battle, but if like us you had heard them that grim september morning as they rang through the valley and echoed from the 100 hills, they would have

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

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

on facebook a look at our facebook page, james saying that it's george mcclellan. as much as i despite him, it is not what it will become in 1863. some of the thoughts of viewers on twitter and facebook. let's go back to the library and james mcpherson who just nominated admiral david farragut as his choice for person much of the year 1862. james mcpherson, if you look at the selection, admiral farragut would be the only admiral on the list. you talked in your speech about the political implications of his victories in 1862. were they the main reason that france and britain hesitate d i looking at the confederacy that year? >> certainly the main reason why they delayed what looked like would be recognition in the spring of 1862. the capture of new orleans was the most important in a series of union victories that caused them to back off. then of course during the summer the confederate victories in the seven days and second manassas and invasion of kentucky especially of maryland by robert e. lee's army in september of 1862 revived that prospect of european recogni

nothing had happened in the orbit where george b. mcclellan and joseph e. johnston were doing nothing so capably. living up to their birth rights. in the west, things were happening and they were all bad. suddenly there was someone in virginia who was succeeding. you have seen the compilations, they are everywhere, from the civilian diaries to the soldiers letters, about how the world with 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 capital. 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 gallant achievements has been received enthusiastically. and our commanders here -- t

lee, and george b. mcclellan, the general who had a campaign to take the confederate capital of richmond. c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes our book tv and american history tv programming on the road. this past weekend featured little rock, arkansas. with book tv at the university of arkansas. >> the high school collected photographs and he was particularly, again, interested in the 19th century, the civil war in particular. these are two friends, union and confederate, who knew each other prior to the civil war, who fought against each other at the battle of pearidge in 1862, survived the war, came out alive and remained friends after the war and here they are age 100 sitting on the porch talking about the old days. >> american history tv looked at life in a world war ii jap these internment camp. >> a lady wrote a wonderful book and gamman meant surviving the unsurvivable, sort of. and she talks a lot about how the arts and the crafts were how they kept their sanity and it gave them somethin

but he's still got to confront george clinton mcclellan and 105,000 union soldiers, who as we know have landed at fort monroe, have encountered the yorktown line. decided to approach it with, quote, regular defenses. that means slow. they're ready to move in early may, and, yes, they move. but this time joe johnston has begun a withdrawal up the peninsula and there's a not a dry sock in the union army. that's the way they describe the effect of the weather on troop movement. lee by this time has adopted, and actually jefferson davis as well, the strategy of the offensive defense, that is, allow the enemy to penetrate your soil. initially jefferson davis said we'll not give up a single inch of our soil. well, that's impractical. and it didn't work out that way either. so, you allow the enemy to penetrate, but then you -- in circumstance of your choosing when the enemy is lost or has made a mistake or can be numbered or you can attack the enemy's fractions with your mast, you attack, the offense. go on the offense. davis believed in that strategy i think, and this is gravely oversimplifie

lee and george b. mcclellan. and a failed 1862 campaign to take the confederate capital of richmond. c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes book tv and american history tv programming on the road the first weekend of each month. he collected photographs and was interested in the 19th century. the civil war in particularch these are two friends, union and confederate who knew each other prior to the civil war. who fought against each other at the battle of pea ridge, 1862. survived the war. came out alive. remained friends after the war. here they are at am in 100 on the porch talking about the old days. >> american history tv looked at life in a world war ii japanese internment camp. she talks a lot about how the arts and crafts were how they kept their sanity. it gave them something to do. and how depression was so bad. that a lot of the camps, and the people, there was the high incidence of suicide. and so people would make these little things of beauty to give to each other just as a way to say

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, shoveled into the infantry, 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 jeff davis had quite a bit of confidence in young captain mcclellan in the 1850s he was part of a handpicked group davis 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 states wa

lee, and george b. mcclellan, the union general who commanded a failed 1862 campaign to take the confederate capital of richmond. this is c-span 3. with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week and every weekend 48 hours of people and events telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. each weekend on american history tv learn more about the presidents, their policies and legacies, through their historic speeches and discussions with leading historians. every sunday morning at 8:30 eastern and again at 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. here on c-span 3. and to find out more about the series and our other programming, including our weekend schedules and online video, visit c-span.org/history. while the founding fathers get the credit for the creation of america, without the encouragement and work of many women things may have ended up differently. next, george mason university histor