Nathaniel McLean Nathaniel Collins McLean ( February 2 , 1815 – January 4 , 1905 ) , was a lawyer , farmer , and Union general during the American Civil War . Early life and career . Born in Warren County , Ohio , Nathaniel McLean was the son of John McLean , an 1856 and 1860 Republican presidential candidate and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States known as " the politician of the Supreme Court " . McLean was well educated , and graduated from Augusta College in Kentucky at the age of sixteen . He then attended Harvard College and received his J . D . He was married in 1838 to Caroline Thew Burnett , the daughter of a Cincinnati judge . While practicing law , he fell ill , and he was advised to travel to Europe and attempt to regain his health . Shortly after his trip , his wife died . He remarried in 1858 to a woman from Louisville , Kentucky . Civil War service . At the beginning of the Civil War , McLean organized the 75th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment under authority from Maj . Gen John C . Frémont and became its colonel September 18 , 1861 . McLean , with Lieutenant - Colonel R . A . Constable and Major Robert Reily , organized and trained the 75th in Wyoming , Ohio , ( north of Cincinnati ) at Camp John McLean , which he of course named after his father . The regiment was organized into a brigade commanded by Brig . Gen Robert Milroy and assigned to duty in western Virginia under Frémont and the Mountain Department . Western Virginia . In January 1862 , McLean ' s troops were shipped from Cincinnati to Grafton , Virginia , where they remained until February 17 , when they marched 43 miles to Huttonsville , Virginia , to join with the rest of the Mountain Department . From Huttonsville , Milroy moved his brigade out towards Staunton , Virginia , in order to distract Stonewall Jackson from attacking other Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley as part of his 1862 Valley Campaign ; McLean ' s troops were at the head of this march . Bogged down by muddy roads , McLean and his men were forced to stop in Monterey , Virginia , so the rest of the column could catch up . Here , McLean saw his first action of the war , repulsing two hours of attacks from a small force of Confederates . Jackson soon turned his attention to Milroy ' s march . When the 75th Ohio was within 10 miles of Staunton , Milroy ordered the march to turn back at Buffalo Gap , so he could engage Jackson . Milroy made his headquarters at McDowell , Virginia , and Jackson positioned his men east of the town on top of a hill known as Bull Pasture Mountain . Trying to catch the Confederates by surprise , the Union attacked late on May 8 , 1862 , with McLean leading several regiments up the hill on their right flank . McLean was able to push the Georgians at the top of the hill to their second line of defense , but that was all . After the fighting , Generals Milroy and Schenck both praised McLean ' s attack as being " gallant . " The following day , Milroy withdrew his troops west . At the Battle of Cross Keys , McLean was promoted to the command of a brigade , consisting of four Ohio regiments , though he was held in reserve along the Keezletown Road on " Frémont ' s Final Line . " Second Bull Run . On June 26 , 1862 , President Lincoln combined the forces under Frémont , Major General Nathaniel P . Banks , and Brigadier General Irvin McDowell into the Army of Virginia commanded by Major General John Pope . McLean was given control the " Ohio Brigade " in the I Corps of this army , which included his 75th Ohio . At the Second Battle of Bull Run , McLean ' s brigade was placed at the extreme left of the Union line on Chinn Ridge . McDowell and Pope had placed him there to slow down a Confederate flank attack , which could have potentially overrun the rest of the Army of Virginia . McLean ' s troops took many casualties , but they were able to hold off the Confederates for a half hour , which allowed Pope to establish a second line of defense further north of Chinn Ridge . This line of defense allowed the Army of Virginia to withdraw from the field without being destroyed . For his actions here , McLean would be rewarded with a brigadier generalship on September 29 , 1862 . Chancellorsville . After Second Bull Run , McLean and his regiments were posted in defense of Washington . Here , the Army of Virginia was discontinued ( Pope would be sent to Minnesota for his failures ) , and the Ohio Brigade was folded into Major General Franz Sigel ' s XI Corps of the Army of the Potomac under Major General George McClellan . As part of the XI Corps , they stayed posted in Washington during the Battle of Antietam in September , and they were not called on to move again until December . At this point , McClellan had been replaced by Major General Ambrose Burnside , who called the XI Corps to Fredericksburg , but kept them in reserve during the Battle of Fredericksburg in mid - December . Afterwards , McLean was put in charge of protecting a small town on the Northern Neck . By the next May , there had been some rearrangements in the Army of the Potomac , which was now under the control of Major General Joseph Hooker . Hooker placed in command of the XI Corps Major General Oliver Otis Howard , because the latter had been angry he was passed over for command of the III Corps . Since March 10 , McLean had grown popular with the men as commander of the First Division of the XI Corps , but Howard opted to replace him with Brigadier General Charles Devens , a New England man very much like Howard ; McLean was relegated to brigade commander . As such , he found himself on the right flank of the Union battle line for the Battle of Chancellorsville . This would be the part of the line that Stonewall Jackson attacked with his famous Flank March . McLean was at corps headquarters with Devens when the attack happened ( Howard had left the area , inexplicably escorting reinforcements to another part of the battlefield ) . As Confederates were approaching the Ohio Brigade ' s position , McLean implored Devens for orders to turn their front . Devens refused , possibly because he had been using brandy to dull the pain of a leg injury that occurred the previous day , when his horse ran him into a tree . As a result , the Ohio Brigade managed an impromptu defense , and even attempted a counterattack , before being driven back towards Chancellorsville . Devens was shot in the foot during the retreat , giving McLean command of the division once again . They reformed on Mineral Springs Road , northeast of Chancellorsville and away from any fighting , with the rest of the XI Corps . Howard accepted no personal blame for the fiasco at Chancellorsville , and in his autobiography suggests that he thought it was entirely his corps ' s fault for running , not his . McLean , coincidentally , would be ordered west May 18 . He was given a desk job , provost marshal general . under Burnside in the Department of the Ohio . The Western Theatre . McLean was relocated back to his home of Cincinnati . As provost marshal , he dealt with prisoners - of - war and " citizen - prisoners " who applied to take oaths of allegiance to the United States . McLean did not hold another field command for a year , although he was transferred to command of the first division of the District of Kentucky under Maj . Gen . Stephen Gano Burbridge , consisting of four brigades . McLean commanded a brigade in the XXIII Corps during the Atlanta Campaign and again came into conflict with Howard for alleged failures at the Battle of Pickett ' s Mill . This time , while assaulting Confederate positions on May 27 , 1864 , McLean ' s brigade was to be used as a distraction . But , they separated from the brigade on his left , whom they were supposed to stay linked with , and were not able to provide a distraction . Ultimately , Howard ' s corps took many casualties . He would later write , " General McLean … disregarded the request and moved off at once … leaving [ General Thomas Wood ’ s and General Richard Johnson ’ s ] divisions isolated . He ( McLean ) alleged in excuse that his men were entirely without rations . " McLean was once again relegated to a staff position and later transferred to North Carolina , where he served again in the XXIII Corps during Sherman ' s Carolina Campaign . The corps took Fort Fisher , and intended to meet the rest of Sherman ' s army in central North Carolina , but they got as far as Goldsboro before the Battle of Bentonville in March . Seeing the end of the war coming , McLean resigned his commission April 20 , 1865 , six days before the surrender of General Joseph Johnston at Bennett Place in Durham , North Carolina . During the whole war General McLean was off duty for the space of thirty days , having had leave of absence once for twenty , and again for ten days . Postbellum career . After the war , McLean returned to Cincinnati and his life as a lawyer . Within a few years , he relocated to Minnesota , where he retired to the quiet occupation of a farmer and built a church . In 1885 , he moved once again , this time to Bellport , New York , where within a year he set up another Episcopal congregation . He would die in Bellport in 1905 .