George B. McClellan: The Disposable Patriot

There were really no very interesting characters in this book. I was never one to be interested in history. There were some interesting parts though, for instance, the chapter about the railroad man was pretty good, and it was kind of cool that he got promoted to vice-president of the railroad he work on within a year after he started the job. Some of the wars he was in were ok as well. It sometimes amazes me that there were so many unnamed heroes.

As you know, the book talks about his life, the wars he was in and a little behind the scenes. Mr. McClellan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December third, eighteen twenty-six. His ancestors were from Scotland and came to the American colonies in the seventeen hundreds. When Mr. McClellan graduated from college, he graduated with a degree in medicine and was a respected surgeon. He married Elizabeth Brinton in eighteen twenty at the local Presbyterian Church where they were members. Skipping ahead, we get to “a nice little war in Mexico.” Here it explains McClellan’s commission and when he was sent to West Point to train troops bound for Mexico. After this time McClellan contracted malaria and dysentery and was confined to a hospital bed for almost one month while being nursed back to health by one of his friends named Jimmy Stuart. The one consolation for Mr. McClellan was that his unit was idle during his period of illness. The malaria that McClellan experienced in Mexico, however, would stay with him for the rest of his life. He would often refer to this problem as his “Mexican disease” when it flared up from time to time. Early in eighteen eighty-five, he had two articles published in the century magazine as a part of their “battles and leaders of war” series. Mac Was asked to write about his experiences as a commander during the Peninsula and Maryland campaigns. In October eighteen eight-five, Mac began to experience severe chest pain that was later diagnosed as angina pectoris. His doctor prescribed different treatments and rest. Within a week or two his condition began to improve and the doctor believed Mac would make a complete recovery. However, on the evening of October twenty-eight, while finishing an article for the century, Mac began to experience severe chest pains once again. His condition quickly deteriorated throughout the night, and at three o’clock in the morning he turned and looked at his wife and said to the physician, “Tell her I am better now.