McClellan's Other Story: The Political Intrigue of Colonel Thomas M. Key, Confidential Aide to General George B. McClellan

• Author: Michael Cavallaro
• Position: Judge Advocate, U.S. Coast Guard. Presently assigned as the Deputy Chief of the Office of Regulations and Administrative Law (CG-0943), U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, Washington, D.C. J.D., George Mason University School of Law; M.A., U.S. Naval War College; B.A. Villanova University. 1 WILLIAM B. STYPLE, MCCLELLAN'S OTHER STORY: THE POLITICAL ...
• Pages: 246-261

246 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 216

MCCLELLAN’S OTHER STORY1

REVIEWED BY COMMANDER MICHAEL CAVALLARO*

The United States has not suffered for lack of charismatic,

flamboyant, or controversial military officers. Some of the best known

military officers include World War II Generals Douglas MacArthur and

George S. Patton, but many other famous names come to mind: General

William T. Sherman, General George Custer, and Marine General

Smedley Butler, to name just a few.2

* Judge Advocate, U.S. Coast Guard. Presently assigned as the Deputy Chief of the

Office of Regulations and Administrative Law (CG-0943), U.S. Coast Guard

Headquarters, Washington, D.C. J.D., George Mason University School of Law; M.A.,

U.S. Naval War College; B.A. Villanova University.

1 WILLIAM B. STYPLE, MCCLELLAN’S OTHER STORY: THE POLITIC AL INTRIGUE OF

COLONEL THOMAS M. KEY, CONFIDENTIAL AIDE TO GENERAL GEORGE B.

MCCLELLAN (2012). The title is an allusion to McClellan’s memoir, McClellan’s Other

Story.

2 Sherman suffered a nervous breakdown early in the Civil War. His decision in 1864 to

“March to the Sea” after capturing Atlanta began the era of ‘total war” and earned him

the opprobrium of generations of Southerners, which was ironic because he had a poor

opinion of African-Americans and refused to have them in his army. After the Civil War,

he favored a harsh policy against the Western tribes, at one point writing General Ulysses

S. Grant, ‘[w]e must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their

extermination, men, women and children.” MICHAEL FELLMAN, CITIZEN SHERMAN 264

(1995).

After graduating last in his class (1861) at the U.S. Military Academy, Custer was

promoted from Captain to General in 1863 at the age of 23. Earning a reputation for

reckless courage during the Civil War, Custer became a controversial figure during the

Indian Wars. He was court-martialed and suspended from duty for a year in 1867 for

abandoning his troops to visit his wife, and his 1876 testimony detailing War Department

corruption before a congressional committee was highly embarrassing to the Grant

administration. His last decision—to split his forces and attack the huge Indian

encampment at the Little Bighorn—has been the subject of debate ever since, and has

earned him a dubious immortality.

After retiring from a career where he saw action in the Philippines, China (Boxer

Rebellion), Central America (The Banana Wars), Mexico, and Haiti, Butler famously

said, “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I

spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and

the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico

and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and

Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in

the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I

helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in

1902—1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests

in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In

China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking

2013] BOOK REVIEWS 247

Perhaps not as well known, but just as fascinating, is General George

B. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac from 1861 to

1862 and later, the 1864 Democratic candidate for President of the

United States. Simply put, history has not been kind to General

McClellan. While most historians give him credit for organizing and

training the Army of the Potomac, they have sharply criticized him for

his lack of aggressiveness in the field and his antagonistic relationship

with President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

Stephen Sears, his foremost biographer, wrote that “[n]o one came close

to matching him as a center of controversy.”3

In McClellan’s Other Story: The Political Intrigue of Colonel

Thomas M. Key, Confidential Aide to General George B. McClellan,

William Styple4 offers a new explanation for some of McClellan’s most

controversial actions during his tenure in command. Styple wrote that he

became interested in Colonel Thomas Key “and his peculiar role on

McClellan’s staff” after he discovered an unpublished letter by General

Philip Kearny,5 in which General Kearny accused Key of treasonable

activity.6 Styple “became convinced that [Kearny’s] suspicions were

correct,” prompting him to “investigate the life and military career of

McClellan’s so called ‘Confidential Aide.’”7 Styple concluded that Key

“effectively influenced and manipulated one of the most powerful men in

the Nation,” costing McClellan “his military and political career.”8

It must be stated from the outset that when he was appointed to

command the Army of the Potomac in July 1861, the possibility that

General McClellan would fail seemed remote. The son of a prominent

back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to

operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” SAUL LANDAU, THE

GUERRILLA WARS OF CENTRAL AMERICA: NICARAGUA, EL SALVADOR AND

GUATEMALA 6 (1993).

3 THE CIVIL WAR PAPERS OF GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN: SELEC TED CORRESPONDENCE

1860–1865, at ix–x (Stephen Sears ed., 1989).

4 Mr. Styple is a graduate of Catawba College. He has published a number of books

about the Civil War and is currently working on a biography of General Philip Kearney.

He has discussed MCCLELLAN’S OTHER STORY on C-Span American History TV, at

http://www.c-span.org/History/Events/The-Civil-War-Gen-McClellan-amp-Col-Key/107

37436865/.

5 Kearny commanded a division in III Corps, Army of the Potomac. He was killed at the

battle of Chantilly on September 1, 1862.

6 STYPLE, supra note 1, at 17.

7 Id.

8 Id. at 16–17.