Join our guest moderator, Dr. Christian McWhirter, on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, for an enlightening discussion with author and historian Dr. George C. Rable on his latest book, Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War.
The fraught relationship between Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan is well known, so much so that many scholars rarely question the standard narrative casting the two as foils, with the Great Emancipator inevitably coming out on top over his supposedly feckless commander. In Conflict of Command, acclaimed Civil War historian George Rable rethinks that stance, providing a new understanding of the interaction between the president and his leading wartime general by reinterpreting the political aspects of their partnership.
Rable pays considerable attention to Lincoln’s cabinet, Congress, and newspaper editorials, revealing the role each played in shaping the dealings between the two men. While he surveys McClellan’s military campaigns as commander of the Army of the Potomac, Rable focuses on the political fallout of the fighting rather than the tactical details. This broadly conceived approach highlights the army officers and enlisted men who emerged as citizen-soldiers and political actors.
Most accounts of the Lincoln-McClellan feud solely examine one of the two individuals, and the vast majority adopt a steadfast pro-Lincoln position. Taking a more neutral view, Rable deftly shows how the relationship between the two developed in a political context and ultimately failed spectacularly, profoundly altering the course of the Civil War itself.
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George C. Rable is Professor Emeritus and formerly the Charles G. Summersell Chair in Southern History at the University of Alabama (1998-2016). Born in Lima, Ohio, in 1950, he received his B.A from Bluffton College (1972), his M.A from Louisiana State University (1973), and his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University (1978) where he studied under T. Harry Williams. He taught at Anderson University in Indiana from 1979-1998. From 2004-2008, he served as the President of the Society of Civil War Historians. His books include: Damn Yankees! Demonization and Defiance in the Confederate South (Louisiana State University Press, 2015), which won the James I. Robertson, Jr. Literary Prize. God’s Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2010), which won the Jefferson Davis Award and was a Choice Outstanding Academic Title; Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! (University of North Carolina Press, 2002), which won the Lincoln Prize, the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award in American Military History, the Jefferson Davis Award, the Douglas Southall Freeman History Award and was a History Book Club selection; The Confederate Republic: A Revolution Against Politics (University of North Carolina Press, 1994), which was a History Book Club selection; Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism (University of Illinois Press, 1989), which won the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize and the Jefferson Davis Award; and But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction. (University of Georgia Press, 1984). His most recent book is Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln which won the Barondess/Lincoln Award from the Civil War Round Table of New York and the Daniel and Marilyn Laney Book Prize from the Austin Civil War Round Table.