How Did George Mclellan Contribute To The Civil War

There are many important figures that contributed greatly to the American Civil War; George McClellan was a U.S. Army engineer, railroad president and politician who served as a major general and contributed greatly to the outcome of the Civil War. He was a great strategist who didn’t want lives to be lost in vain. He was beloved by his soldiers because they felt that he cared a lot about their lives. McClellan would do everything in his power to ensure that he could keep as many of his soldiers alive as he could; because of this he was very cautious and it took him a long time to prepare his army for battle thus he became unpopular with Lincoln and the republicans. But even so, George McClellan was an important military officer because his successes as a general of the Civil War, due to his …show more content…
Following that assignment, he spent several years surveying routes for railroads, most significantly the path of the Northern Pacific across the Cascades. McClellan’s job was to select an appropriate route for the planned transcontinental railroad. He began to display a cautious tendency when he refused the governor's order to lead a party through a pass in winter conditions, relying on faulty intelligence about the depth of snow pack in that area. In so doing, he missed three greatly superior passes in the near vicinity. In 1855 McClellan joined the cavalry and was assigned as an official observer to the Crimean War. During that time he began to design the “McClellan saddle" by modifying European models. In 1857, McClellan resigned from the service and became the head of engineering for the Illinois Central Railroad. He contributed greatly in expanding the Illinois Central toward New Orleans and helping the Ohio and Mississippi recover from the Panic of 1857. In 1860, McClellan was appointed president of the Ohio & Mississippi