William Rosecrans

William Rosecrans was a general in the United States Army in the nineteenth century. In the War of Secession, he served under George McClellan in West Virginia, where it was his decisions which allowed the Union to defeat Robert E Lee's forces and secure control of the state, though McClellan stole the credit and became commander of the Army of the Potomac--to disastrous effects.

In the early 1880s Rosecrans served as general-in-chief of the United States Army. Though popular and competent as a field commander, Rosecrans' leadership in this position was uninspired. His tenure was marked by his country's defeat in the Second Mexican War, in part because of his failure to coordinate strategy among the various field armies and other elements of the army under his command. However, at the end of the war, he recognized these shortcomings, both in himself and in the structural nature of his position. On the advice of Alfred von Schleiffen, he pushed for the reorganization of the US Army's overall command structure, adopting the Prussian-style General Staff system.