Which Reminds Me

Yes, how many times do we have to explain again that we are not directly related to the illustrious General George B. McClellan, who was born in Pennsylvania and died in New Jersey? Well, it is thought that there could be a distant connection somehow hundreds of years past in Scotland but we have not the resources to track the McClellans that far back. There is a shell of a castle there in Scotland once owned by McClellans but in all this time no one has claimed it so perhaps it is just as well that the U.K.'s National Trust should take charge of maintaining the grounds. And don't all McClellans find some satisfaction in seeing the high degree of success achieved by General McClellan, that is until he was fired by Lincoln, or rather he resigned. Even so, my grandfather McClellan was descended from John McClellan, born in Scotland, moved to the U.S. in the late 1700s and settled at Abingdon, Virginia, the vicinity of which most of his children were born. John married Margaret Brownlow, daughter of the local schoolteacher, the Brownlows, and it is thought that their son, our ancestor William Brownlow McClellan attended school there, one of his school classmates being Sam Houston, where they possibly studied subjects such as Latin, their 19th century rough-hewn heads being full of tales of warfare such as the Iliad and Odyssey and also the orations of Romans such as Cicero, stories of Roman wars and the like. Of the origins of their long rivalry little is known, just that Sam Houston well earned for himself the role of cranky old coot, spawning a whole new generation of cranky Houston monstrosities. So just winning the Presidency of the independent Republic of Texas doesn't necessarily qualify you for a place on the Union ticket, given that you so cruelly arrested and imprisoned our ancestor, William Brownlow McClellan, for having received and published information not conducive to the interests of the Southern Rebels. What was George thinking, allowing his name to be placed on the ballot opposite that of Abraham Lincoln? But I suppose that someone had to do that thankless duty. Robert E. Lee was not available at the time, he being the president of a separate country at the time.