brought about the department of justice investigation and it was followed up after the suicide of john mcclellan who also exhibited signs that he was mentally ill that was placed into solitary confinement i mean let's talk about some of these really gruesome allegations that you wrote about in the way that these prisoners mistreated. he would be details please if you don't mind for our audience or. the case with with tracy attribute it was particularly unsettling to get that he has an i.q. of seventy and what happened with him there's something called a secure special needs unit within this prison it's that unit is specifically designed for people who have mental disabilities but the most restrictive part of that unit is called phase five and apparently from allegations that i've received from people who work at the prison who formerly worked at the prison as well as. prisoners who were there and who are there now and it will formally there they are saying that he was placed into a cell alone twenty four hours a day his clothing was taken away from him his property was taken away from him and he

john? five minutes max. so, let me hustle, hurry through the remainder of my points. mcclellan at this point had established himself as the architect of a grand army. but he would exceed this in the next month after the army of virginia under john pope was destroyed at second manassas and retreated pell-mell toward washington. once again the president had to rely on the one general he knew who could build an army from scratch and so he did. he called mcclellan back. he reorganized the army of the potomac. and he moved subsequent to the battle of second manassas into maryland where lee had taken his army in northern virginia. on the 13th of september, 1862, he came across a marvelous special order 1891 outlining how lee was conducting his campaign. mcclellan has sent this message down to washington, lee has made a gross mistake. i have his plans. i'm going to defeat him. i'll send you trophies. and then came in rapid succession the battle for the south mountain on the 14th of december where mcclellan's battle went into battle cheering, less than two weeks after they'd been defea

within a few months mcclellan had created two more corps within the army of the potomac, the fifth corps and the sixth corps and putting in command people he wanted in command, fit john porter and another protege william franklin in the sixth corps. a major change, of course, in mcclellan's personal status also came at this time. i told you he'd been commanding general of the whole army. he gets another order which he receives in manassas, you're no longer commanding general of the whole u.s. army, you are now commanding the army of the potomac, and the rational is we want you to concentrate on the job at hand, defeating the confederates down here in virginia. don't worry about the rest. we'll take care of it at the war department. secretary of war stanton will issue orders from the president. we do appreciate your opinion, general mcclellan. lincoln and secretary of war stanton also in that order specifying him as commander of the army of the potomac, and before any order took place, he would be ordered to leave 40,000 troops in defense of the washington area. well, what about his plan? with the withdrawal of joe johnston's forces from the northernmost part of virgi

that point the union called upon john pope to command something called the army of virginia up -- back up at manassas. and with the combination of new troops and mcclellan's troops, lee sent jackson with one wing of his army to occupy pope and with longstreet and another wing fell upon him and maybe this was lee's greatest battle, second manassas. almost destroyed pope. this was august 30th, 1862. at that point lee confessed. the army is not properly equipped for an invasion of the enemy's territory. it lacks much of the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the animals being much reduced and the men poorly provided with clothes and in thousands of instances, destitute of shoes. still, we cannot afford to be idle. and though weaker than our opponents in men and material and military equipment, we must endeavor to harass if we cannot make our success -- our complete success is not impossible and we shall endeavor to guard from law. so, he's going to maryland. he writes to davis, and this is lee's relationship. he writes to davis all the time. i will keep you informed. i will keep you informed. and lee and davis -- davis thinks that he and lee are i

john peagrum and they would defeat the confederates in july of 1861. although it was rosecrans that did the heavy lifting in this campaign it was mcclellan's name that had access to all the reporters. it was mcclellan's name that got into all the newspapers, and immediately after the union defeat at manassas junction, first bull run as they called it in the northern papers or bull run, the battle at bull run, he got an order from washington to report immediately to washington. he was needed there right away. so, he boarded a train that took him up through ohio, over to pennsylvania. made a quick stop to visit with his wife, ellen marcie mcclellan, maryellen, there in philadelphia, his hometown, where he was loudly hailed as a hero, one and all. and then arrived in washington on the 26th of july. very, very exciting for someone in his mid-30s. this gentleman right here. i think that probably his letter described best what it was like in washington in july, 1861. because at the meeting with the president, the commanding general of the army about that time quite elderly and infirm winfield scott and a number of influential members of congress he sat down t