John A. McClernand

Common card · No. 396487

John Alexander McClernand (May 30, 1812 – September 20, 1900) was an American lawyer, politician, and a Union Army general in the American Civil War. He was a prominent Democratic politician in Illinois and a member of the United States House of Representatives before the war. McClernand was firmly dedicated to the principles of Jacksonian democracy and supported the Compromise of 1850. McClernand was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers in 1861. His was a classic case of the politician-in-uniform coming into conflict with career Army officers, graduates of the United States Military Academy. He served as a subordinate commander under Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater, fighting in the campaigns of Belmont, operations on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, Shiloh in 1861–62 and later briefly as a commander of the Army of the Mississippi in late 1862 to early 1863, afterwards serving as a corps commander under Grant again during the campaign against Vicksburg. A friend and...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Brady, N.Y., Public domain