Perhaps no other Union commanders reputation has been the subject of as much controversy as McClellans. He has emerged as the complex general who, though gifted with administrative and organizational skills, was unable and unwilling to fight with the splendid army he had created. In this book, Rowland presents a framework in which early Civil War command can be viewed without direct comparison to the final two years of the war. Only by understanding how very different was the context and nature of the war facing McClellan, as opposed to Grant and Sherman, can one discard the traditional good general-bad general approach to command performance.