October 31, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • Page 17 Lincoln-McClellan (continued from page 6) explained. McClellan wanted to save the Union, welcome the South back “with open arms” if they agreed to re-join the United States, and leave the desirable termination of chattel slavery to Congress once the Union was preserved. “Slavery must be abolished, but through the proper channels, with equity both to the ex-slave and to the exmaster,” McClellan said. “I feel, as any God-fearing man must feel, that the idea that one man may own another man is detestable.” McClellan said. McClellan said slaves and slave owners should both be compensated financially: the slaves for the work they had done in bondage; the owners for loss of their lawful property since slavery had been permitted by the U.S. Constitution. “What are you going to do with them?” McClellan asked Lincoln. “I would rather have free black men walking the streets of the country than listen to the continuous clatter of their chains,” Lincoln said. Lincoln argued that Union and freedom had now become inseparable and that the war, following the Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, had two goals: reunite the states and free the slaves. McClellan and Lincoln differed less over their moral dislike of slavery than over personalities. Each posed as the wounded party in a failed friendship. Lincoln reminded McClellan that McClellan had once been his boss. McClellan, as a veteran of the Mexican War, had been president of the Illinois-Central Railroad while Lincoln was the railroad’s chief counsel. “I thought we had a good relationship, even though a lot of my friends said I didn’t charge you enough,” Lincoln said ruefully. Lincoln also remembered the incident when he and Secretary of State William Seward paid a call on McClellan, and were told he was attending a wedding. Lincoln and Seward sat down to wait in McClellan’s Washington parlor, and were quietly astounded when McClellan walked in past them without a nod and walked straight upstairs to bed. McClellan never came back downstairs. The slightly veiled implication that McClellan was seriously drunk in the middle of a war was a telling point. McClellan also had grievances to relate. “The Army of the Potomac belongs to me!” he said. “I created the Army, I trained it, and I fought with it.” He said that after Lincoln had relieved him of command following McClellan’s bloody victory over Robert E. Lee at Antietam, the Army of the Potomac had been taken from him and handed over to incompetents who sent his men to slaughter at Fredericksburg (13,000 casualties) and Chancellorsvile (17,000 casualties) -- both embarrassing defeats by a much smaller Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. He noted that his own friend, General George Gordon Meade, had lost 23,000 casualties at the three-day battle of Gettysburg, and that Ulysses S. Grant had lost 50,000 casualties in a month in 1864 without winning the war. “I believe you love the Army, but I believe you may love it too much,” Lincoln retorted. He pointed out that McClellan’s 1862 victory at Antietam had led to 23,000 Union casualties in a single day and McClellan failed to pursue and destroy the heavily damaged Confederate Army even though he had a copy of their marching orders, found wrapped around a bunch of cigars before the battle and tucked into McClellan’s pocket. McClellan argued that a war of encirclement, outflanking, and siege with the lowest possible casualties was the best way to wear down the Confederates, that their return to the Union was mandatory, and that if elected he would not stop the war until the Union was restored -- with or without the destruction of slavery. He said Lincoln was a good man misled by radicals. Lincoln said emancipation and victory would have to go together, and that McClellan was a good general, but not as good as he thought himself to be. Between rounds, Costello acted as a sort of mentor to the less experienced Hall, and the two of them sat side by side with Hall’s wife Vickie at the lead table. Hall, who works in arts and design, said he had read six or seven books about McClellan, plus everything on the Web, and his ability to recall battles and other biographical facts earned him the respect of a well informed audience. Nancy Laracy of Franklin Lakes with a Frederick Meserve collectible photo of Abraham Lincoln saved from the Matthew Brady negatives. Costello was unshakable in popular appeal, and the plausible chance to question one or both men kept the debate going an hour longer than anticipated. This event was organized by Ridgewood Historical Society President Sheila Brogan, Jean Hildebrandt of the Wyckoff Historical Society, and Kay Yeomans, a trustee of the Upper Saddle River Historical Society. Sponsors included the Coalition of Northwest Bergen County Historical Organizations, including Allendale, Franklin Lakes, The Hermitage (Ho-Ho-Kus), Mahwah, Ramsey, Ridgewood, Oakland, Upper Saddle River, and Wyckoff.