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Incompetence That Shaped History

Khalid Elhassan March 9, 2020 33 min

Nineteenth century Washington Metropolitan Police Force officers. Washington Metropolitan Police

18. Putting On a Show For McClellan

1862 Siege of Yorktown. American Battlefield Trust

Magruder directed his forces to create a din. With drumrolls and men cheering in woods behind the lines, they aimed to fool their foes into believing there were far more Confederates in the vicinity than was the case. Magruder also employed the same column of men over and over. They marched within sight of the federals to take up positions on the defensive line, then slipped away outside the Union observers’ line of sight, reassembled, and marched back to the defensive line to once more.

In Front of Yorktown, by Winslow Homer, 1862-1863. Wikimedia

The theatrics convinced McClellan that the Confederate positions were too strong for a frontal assault. Magruder’s task was made easier by McClellan’s predisposition to take counsel of his fears, and believe himself outnumbered. On April 5^th, 1862, the Union commander ordered a halt on his side of the Warwick River, had his men dig in and set out to conduct a siege. A less timid commander could have simply bulled through, swatted Magruder aside, and seized a nearly undefended Richmond.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.