coln. McClellan stands as a representative case study of those generals "who would not fight"-Buell, Rosecrans, Burnside, Hooker, and Meade, among others, who drove Lincoln to distraction as he watched inferior rebel forces gain the advantage time and again. The following passage accurately conveys the tenor of Lincoln's relations with most of his early commanders and consequently, the considerable problems he had in conducting the war:

Portentous news from Richmond: on May 31 and June 1, [1862] the rebel army fell on McClellan in the battle of Seven Pines, but McClellan repulsed the attack. Wild with excitement, McClellan wired Washington that he'd just fought "a desperate battle" against "greatly superior numbers.' "Our loss is heavy, but that of the enemy must be enormous.'

Lincoln expected McClellan to counterattack. But McClellan didn't budge. In truth, the battle of Seven Pines unnerved him. He couldn't bear the sight of all his dead and wounded men. This was not the way to fight a war. In his mind, war was a game in which you defeated your opponent by brilliant maneuvers with minimal loss of life. McClellan loved his soldiers, and the feeling was mutual....They looked up to him as no other general in the army. How could he sacrifice their lives by hurling them insanely against a superior foe? So, no, he did not counter-attack. Once again he dug in and called for reinforcements. Once again he upbraided the administration for not supporting "this Army." When Lincoln and Stanton sent him one of McDowell's divisions, McClellan found other reasons for delay. Continuous rains had lashed the marshy plains east of Richmond. McClellan reported that his artillery and wagon trains were bogged down in muddy roads, his army immobilized. Before he could move against Richmond, the general must build footbridges, must corduroy the roads....

In Washington, Lincoln threw the dispatches aside. The rebels attacked in bad weather, Lincoln complained. Why couldn't McClellan? The general seemed to think that Heaven sent rain only on the just. Then on June 25 came an even more alarming letter from the front. McClellan declared that the rebel army now had 200,000 men (it actually numbered about 85,000; McClellan had 100,000 men) and was preparing to attack him. In righteous indignation, the general bemoaned his "great inferiority in numbers," chastised the government for scorning his pleas for help, and announced that he would die with his troops. And if the rebels did annihilate his "splendid Army," the responsibility must "rest where it belongs."

Lincoln had just about had enough of this. Your complaints "pain me very much," he informed McClellan. "I give you all I can." Anyway, Lincoln feared that McClellan's outburst was just another excuse for not advancing on Richmond. He really should never have let the general go down to the Peninsula. (McClellan had insisted on his plan, and Lincoln had been reluctant to overrule military judgment) McClellan should've launched his big battle at Manassas, should've struck the rebel army while it was there. Now the enemy was entrenched in front of Richmond with a stronger force, McClellan was belligerently inert, Union commands in Virginia badly spread out,

the chances of a victory increasingly dim. (With Malice Towards None, pages 328-329)

However, as the war progressed and Lincoln found generals, such as Grant, whom he could trust to execute his strategic plans for the war, Lincoln determinedly refused to interfere with their operational plans.

McClellan also won his own unique place in any history of civilian control of the American military by virtue of a single incident that occurred when Lincoln relieved him of command in November, 1862, after 16 rancorous months of service. When McClellan said his farewell to his army:

The soldiers gave him an almost hysterical farewell, cheering themselves hoarse, and doing a power of cursing as well. McClellan said that "many were in favor of my refusing to obey the order and of marching upon Washington to take possession of the government," and European officers who were present muttered that Americans were simply incomprehensible-why did not this devoted army go to the capital and compel the President to reinstate its favorite general? But there never had been much danger that this might really happen, regardless of the loose words that had been uttered; it is extremely hard to imagine McClellan actually leading an armed uprising...and it is quite impossible to imagine the Army of the Potomac taking part in one. (Bruce Catton, Terrible Swift Sword, page 478)

Undeniably the Army of the Potomac possessed a politicized officer corps due to its long service in the environs of Washington, D.C. And undeniably the politics of the Army were Democratic, as were those of its commander, who was to be the Democratic presidential candidate in 1864. Furthermore, McClellan's contempt for both Lincoln, whom he referred to privately as a "gorilla", as well as for the Republican Congress, was well-known at the time. But despite the loose camp talk and wild rumors circulating in Washington, McClellan always swore he was loyal to the Union, and Lincoln did not doubt him.

d. World War II

The current framework in which civilian-military relations are played out is in large part the outgrowth of the structure which developed during World War II. Its beginnings lie in a Military Order issued by President Franklin Roosevelt in July 1939 which took the Joint Army-Navy Board, the Joint Army-Navy Munitions Board and additional procurement agencies from the Military Departments and consolidated them into the Executive Office of the President, thus making the members of the Joint Army-Navy Board the President's chief military advisors with direct access to the President. In 1942 the board was reconstituted as the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This was very much in keeping with Roosevelt's approach to governing:

Within his cabinet and within his administration generally, he permitted and encouraged a duplication of effort, an over

lapping of authorities, and a development of personal antagonisms amounting in some cases almost to civil wars. Whatever his motives, the effect was to increase, and at the same time often to disguise, his own authority. The Military Order of 1939 had, on the whole, that effect. As concerned foreign policy, strategy, and military procurement, it left Roosevelt the sole co-ordinating link between the various subordinate agencies in these fields. Co-ordination as a consequence was not very effective....through its very dispersion of subordinate authority, the Military Order of 1939 gave the President powers of decision in the military field which were real and not merely apparent, for in many areas of military concern, he, the Commander in Chief, alone could decide. (Ernest May, The Ultimate Decision, pages 138-139)

Thus, civilian control became largely a matter of presidential control for the purpose of conducting the war. Roosevelt did actively exercise this power often in the pre-war and early war years, making decisions over the opposition of his chiefs of staff.

However, with the coming of war, the Commander in Chief found himself at the apex of a vast structure of military command. In theory the machinery was under his control and supervision. In fact the immensity of the war panorama as well as the burden of Roosevelt's other concerns as President meant that his control could be only partial and somewhat indirect in its working. The relative independence of the theater commanders, the central position and influence of the planning staffs, the wide powers and public respect enjoyed by his chiefs of staff all these factors placed real limits on the Commander in Chief's independence of action which had not existed during the pre-war period. His role had become highly institutionalized. (The Ultimate Decision, page 151)

Consequently, as far as policy and strategy were concerned, the military ran the war. As Samuel P. Huntington has observed:

When the nation went to war, it went wholeheartedly, turning the direction of the conflict over to those who made that their business. The national aim of total victory superseded all else. The military became the executors of the national will,... (The Soldier and The State, page 317)

Huntington quotes a Representative who typified Congress' view of its proper role vis a vis the military commanders under the circumstances of the war:

I am taking the word of the General Staff of the War Department, the people who are running this show. If they tell me this is what they need for the successful prosecution of this war and for ultimate victory, I am for it. Whether it staggers me according to its proportions or not, I am still for it. (The Soldier and The State, page 317)

Thus even the Truman Committee, which spearheaded Congress' involvement in the war effort, did not consider participation in, or critique of, strategy and policymaking to be an appropriate part of its function. This contrasted sharply with the Committee's very

active involvement in economic mobilization and production where they were sometimes very critical of the military, siding with the civilian Office of War Mobilization and War Production Board against the armed forces.

In the Executive Branch, the military found itself confronting a power vacuum created by the lack of a high-level agency, particularly some sort of civil-military board, to establish the government's policy on the conduct of the war. The lack of such an agency was due to President Roosevelt's own particular style of administration. As discussed above, the consequence was an almost complete loss of civilian control below the presidential level during the war and in the formulation of U.S. policy in the immediate post-war period. Their special relationship with the President and Roosevelt's method of operation gave the Joint Chiefs little choice but to fill the power vacuum in order to fight the war effectively. The result was that Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Knox had no formal authority in formulating military strategy, nor did they attend the inter-allied war conferences. It was instead the Joint Chiefs who accompanied the President. They were not even on the list for routine distribution of JCS papers.

However, their remoteness from the decision-making process paled in comparison to the complete isolation in which Secretary of State Cordell Hull was placed. He was never included in meetings in which the war was discussed; he was merely informed of decisions after they were made. As a result, during the course of the war, the military became involved in diplomacy and negotiations as well as international politics and economics. Huntington sums up the transformation in the military role this way:

Originally, the War Department did not like this situation, but by the end of the war, the pressure of events had "overcome all scruples on the part of OPD (Operations Division of the General Staff) about getting into matters that traditionally were none of the Army's business. Considerably more than half the papers OPD prepared for the 1945 Potsdam conference were devoted to matters other than military operations. (The Soldier and The State, page 324)

e. Korean War

The most celebrated exercise of civilian control over the military in this century was President Truman's dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. The fundamental disagreement between MacArthur and his Commander-in-Chief was over the nature and scope of the Korean War.

Nothing in MacArthur's personality or previous military service had prepared him to fight the kind of limited war of murky and shifting goals that he found prescribed by the military directives emanating from Washington, in consultation with the United Nations allies. It was MacArthur's and America's first experience with a modern military conflict in which the civilian leadership established political objectives that were a substitute for victory. In fact, MacArthur's frustrations foreshadowed those of the military during the Vietnam War. Unlike the commanders of the later war, MacArthur's personal authority and prestige were such that he was able to successfully challenge civilian directives on the conduct

of the war on several occasions prior to the incident which led to his dismissal.

The circumstances of the most notable of these incidents indicate a significant lack of firmness and policy coherence in the conduct of the war on the part of both MacArthur's military and civilian superiors. On September 27, 1950, after the victory at Inchon, MacArthur was told to "conduct military operations north of the 38th parallel for the purpose of the destruction of the North Korean armed forces", with two conditions: no aircraft was to be sent over Sino-Soviet territory and only South Korean troops were to approach the Yalu River. A month later MacArthur ordered his forces into the northeastern provinces which border the Soviet Union and China.

This looked very much like a flouting of his September 27 orders from the Joint Chiefs. Acheson later wrote: "If General Marshall and the Chiefs had proposed withdrawal to the Pyongyang-Wonsan line and a continuous defensive position under united command across it and if the President had backed them, as he undoubtedly would have disaster probably would have been averted. But it would have meant a fight with MacArthur." The Pentagon was unwilling to risk that fight. Intimidated by the victor of Inchon, the Chiefs timidly radioed him that while they realized that CINCFE (MacArthur/Commander-in-Chief, Far East) "undoubtedly had sound reason" for his move, they would like an explanation, "since the action contemplated" was a "matter of concern" to them. MacArthur replied that he was taking "all precautions," that the September 27 order was not a "final directive" because Marshall had amended it two days later by telling him that he wanted SCAP (MacArthur/Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) to "feel unhampered tactically and strategically" in proceeding "north of the 38th Parallel," and that "military necessity" compelled him to disregard it anyhow because the ROKS (Republic of Korea troops) lacked "strength and leadership." If the Chiefs had further questions, he referred them to the White House. The entire subject, he said, had been "covered" in his "conference with the President at Wake Island."

That was news to Harry Truman. On Thursday he weakly told a press conference that it was his "understanding" that only South Koreans would approach the Yalu. Informed of this, the General contradicted him through the press, saying, "The mission of the United Nations forces is to clear Korea.' The Pentagon advised the President to ignore this challenge from SCAP because of a firmly established U.S. military tradition-established by Lincoln with Grant in 1864-that once a field commander had been assigned a mission "there must be no interference with his method of carrying it out." That, and MacArthur's tremendous military prestige, persuaded Truman to hold his tongue. He did more than hold it; he endorsed SCAP's strategy in a statement declaring that he would allow North Koreans to take refuge in a "privileged sanctuary" across the Yalu. (William Manchester, American Caesar, pages 599-600.)