Lincoln’s woes as a liberator were compounded by the ongoing disaster of Union military performance in Virginia. With elections safely behind him, he acted swiftly to sack George McClellan, who had responded neither to gentle nudges nor outright pressure to become more aggressive. Without referring to McClellan by name, Grant later made a comment that seems to allude to him: “The trouble with many of our generals in the beginning was that they did not believe in the war . . . They had views about slavery, protecting rebel property, State rights—political views that interfered with their
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