a couple more callers for john mountcastle. here's kevin in los angeles, welcome. >> caller: hello, general. i want to ask one question. you mentioned that he was the -- an observer in the crimean war. how much of an impact observing the crimean war have on him? what did he see? what did he experience? >> thanks, kevin, that's a great question. because it wasn't that easy for the americans to get into the area of operations. the french and british were not especially enthused over the idea of a bunch of american army officers coming into the midst of an operation that was not going particularly well, and so they had to fight to get first to the battle area, and then second to get the kind of information that they felt would be useful to the united states army. an army that, remember, at the start of the civil war only amounted to 18,000 people in total, and of that, maybe 1,500 officers and the rest enlisted soldiers spread from coast to coast in little garrisons and places like fort sumter and fort monroe, and the city of san

before we speak to john mountcastle. a tweet from tammy price, she says her choice for person of the year 1862 would be frederick douglass although i think lincoln would be better for this year than for last year. you may recall we covered this event last year and abraham lincoln was choice for person of the year 1861. john mountcastle joins us from the library of virginia. mr. mountcastle, a pretty compelling case for general george b. mcclellan in 1862, and we have a lot of phone callers waiting to hear from you, let's go first to norman in east lansing, michigan, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. dr. mountcastle, do you think if lincoln would have just let mcclellan stick to his plan and not interfere like a good leader should, that mcclellan's strategy would have actually won the war? and also why do you think mcclellan gets such a bad rap amongst your fellow historians? >> norman, that's two key questions, i think. first, the president was under tremendous pressure not strictly in a strategic sense but most

one more call here for john mountcastle. good afternoon to jay. >> caller: yes, sir, thanks for taking my call. my question is regarding secretary stanton. was he not extremely exasperated from time to time with mcclellan and did he not say that if he had a million men, he would sit in the mud and whine until he could get 2 million? and i'll take my answer off the air. thank you. >> thank you, jay. >> yes, jay, that's a great point. edwin stanton had been very much in favor of the promotion of george mcclellan to commanding general of the army as opposed to the defeated irwin mcdowell and the aged winfield scott. but as soon as they began to work closely together, friction developed here. stanton was a republican. mcclellan was a -- what was then called a war democrat, someone who was in favor of certainly restoring the union, but not much else. and so they had different political views, different personalities, and stanton did complain, mcclellan always wanted more men and he wanted them yesterday. and so that's why after t

speaker, those of us in the richmond civil war round table have grown accustomed to hearing john mountcastle introduce speakers. it's an honor for me to introduce jack to you. you should know that jack mountcastle is a product of the class of 1965. [ applause ] jack is another of those retirees who is working at hard at retirement as he did when he was working. he teaches classes for the university of richmond and the virginia historical society. like bob krick, he's becoming known as the father of another civil war historian, dr. clay mountcastle, a product of class of '94. clay is the author of "punitive war." i had pleasure of reading that book early and plugging it for the book seller. it's a fabulous read. i recommend it to all of you. but a lot of local folks know that jack mountcastle retired from the u.s. army as a brigadier general. fewer people know that he also earned his ph.d. in history so i never have known whether to call him dr. general or general doctor. but ladies and gentlemen, here's jack mountcastle and did i remember to tell you that he's a product of vmi? [ applause ]