Maclellan was a bad general, and a posturer, but most certainly not a poltroon. His men loved him, and soldiers do not love a cowardly general. After the war Robert E. Lee said that MacLellan was the Union general that worried him the most. MacLellan, not Grant, was the one who built and trained the Army of the Potomac. His trouble was indecisiveness, not cowardice. There were very few leaders of high rank in that war who were cowards.