@CWO:
@Gargantua:
I would have sent assassins or whatever I could have, after the top leadership of the army of my opponent
Considering how incompetent most of the Union generals commanding the Army of the Potomac were before they finally put Grant in charge, it would have been less productive for the Confederacy to assassinate them than to leave them in comand.
McClellan was a poor field general, but an excellent ‘builder’ of an army. The AoP was McClellan’s army, he built it, he trained it, the only thing he couldn’t do was lead it in the field, because McClellan continually managed to convince himself the South had far larger armies than they did. Also, Meade at Gettysburg had Lee pretty well sussed out and predicted the outcome. Only his failure to pursue Lee more vigorously (I believe he still had a whole corps in reserve) which could have been done I think, cost him effectively his job (he was allowed to stay at the AoP, but Grant as the new General in Chief was the effective commander of the AoP). Grant just decided to make it a battle of attrition which he knew he would win. Grant also promoted the idea of coordinated attacks all over the South, attacking with all armies at the same time so reinforcement could not be sent by the Confeds from one to another theatre.
