Don Wildman

McClellan's whole role in the Civil War was really the early days of this before he gets sacked by Lincoln.

And he writes to his wife one of those letters.

I am tired of the sickening sight of the battlefield with its mangled corpses and poor suffering wounded.

Victory has no charms for me when purchased at such cost.

I can imagine myself writing that.

Not quite those word choices, but, you know, there's a human being here.

We can't fault him for that.

McClellan, a mixed bag of bad, gifted military man, lacked vision in so many ways.

And this was clouded by his disparaging view of leaders above him.

And he had no pluck.

I mean, let's just say he was a he was a Napoleonic military leader who could see all that going on, but he was not willing to take those chances.

OK, two down, way down.

When we come back, we'll move back in time to the most revolting generals of the revolution.

First, let's hear from the sponsors.

Okay, we're back with Professor Cecily Zander, marching through our worst generals of history, at least the American variety.

A few descriptors of our next guy here.

Mercurial, eccentric, contentious, arrogant, disobedient, conspiratorial.

This guy, they made a major general in the Continental Army.

The one, the only, General Charles Lee.

Okay.