McClellan’s Two to One Odds Against Lee

General Dwight Eisenhower said of General Robert E. Lee: “From deep conviction I simply say this: a nation of Lee’s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to the land….we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained. Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.”

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

McClellan’s Two to One Odds Against Lee:

“At the battle of South Mountain….The enemy were exceedingly anxious to force the passage of this mountain gap and by overtaking Lee and bringing on a decisive engagement, relieve their beleaguered friends at Harper’s Ferry, who numbered more than eleven thousand men, with thirteen thousand small arms and seventy-three cannon.

Enlarged

My great grandfather and my six great uncles. They were called the Seven Blackbirds, because they were all sitting together on the top rail of a fence at their father's funeral, and someone remarked that they looked like blackbirds, because of their Black Irish blood from their mother, a Mayo, which caused them to all have black eyes and black hair.

(My Great Uncle, John W Pippen, was captured at the pass and sent to Fort Delaware. He is buried in my graveyard. BT)
But the heroic [Southern] defenders of the *pass, though but a handful in comparison with the immense and thoroughly equipped force assailing them, and though subjected to very heavy losses from first to last, yielded not an inch of their ground until nightfall, and then, their purpose being accomplished, retired unmolested to take their place in the ranks of death at Sharpsburg.

The historic battle of Sharpsburg, or Antietam – “this great battle” as General Lee called it in his report – occurred on the 17th day of September, three days after the fight at South Mountain, and D.H. Hill’s division, with [General George] Anderson’s brigade on its right, wearied and worn out by continuous marching and fighting, took position in the centre of the line on the left of the Boonesboro road.

[General James] Longstreet was on the right, and [Stonewall] Jackson, who had captured Harper’s Ferry with its little army and all its supplies, occupied the extreme left. McClellan and Lee at last stood face to face.

General McClellan said, before the Committee of Investigation on the Conduct of the War: “Our forces at the battle of Antietam were: total in action, eighty-seven thousand, one hundred and sixty-four.” General Lee, in his report, says: “The great battle was fought by less than forty thousand men on our side” – that is to say, that the Confederates were outnumbered by more than two to one.

The first [enemy] assault was made on the Confederate left, where Jackson was posted, and the unequal struggle between the six thousand men under him and the eighteen thousand of the attacking columns was one of the most desperate and sanguinary of the war, as the list of casualties abundantly proves, but the enemy were repulsed.

They then attacked the Confederate centre and right with the same overwhelming numbers, and, after temporary success, were again repulsed.”

(Southern Historical Society Papers, XIV, Rev. J. William Jones, editor, January to December 1886, excerpts, pp. 393-394)

McClellan’s Two to One Odds Against Lee