I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrangement to leave Banks at Mannassas Junction; but when that arrangement was broken up, and nothing was substituted for it, of course I was not satisfied. I was constrained to substitute something for it myself. And now allow me to ask Do you really think I should permit the line from Richmond, via Mannassas Junction, to this city to be entirely open, except what resistance could be presented by less than twenty thousand unorganized troops? This is a question which the country will not allow me to evade.
About This Quote
About George B. McClellan
George B. McClellan was a 19th-century American major general. George Brinton McClellan was an American military officer, politician, and engineer who served as the 24th governor of New Jersey from 1878 to 1881 and as Commanding General of the United States Army from November 1861 to March 1862. He was also chief engineer and vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad, and later president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad in 1860. Read more on Wikipedia →