Rafuse's McClellan's War

... is actually on the shelves now (hat tip to Brooks Simpson for the alert).

Rafuse has set himself the goal of integrating "civil" with "war" in McClellan's case, with special emphasis on McClellan's inner political world. And contrary to his public image as arch Democrat, it was "McClellan's Whig outlook [that] colored his perspective on the sectional conflict and shaped his approach to the war..."

This is important because, "even if he never read [Clausewitz's] On War," McClellan "never lost sight of the fact that military operations are not conducted for their own purposes but to achieve political ends not attainable by other means." Or, more emphatically, "McClellan consciously shaped his actions during the war with an eye on the connection between military means and political ends and how the battlefield, the seat of government, and the home front interacted to shape the aims for which a war was fought and the means of attaining them."

This McClellan Whiggery sets upsome problems that I am interested in seeing Rafuse manage as I go deeper McClellan's War. Meanwhile, I am very glad to have prepped by reading the Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party.