In September 1862, General George B. McClellan, the general in chief of the Union Army, had just repelled the Confederate advance under Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Antietam. But, as Lee's battered army retreated across the Potomac River, McClellan failed to pursue him'leaving Lee's army mostly intact. Abraham Lincoln relieved McClellan that November for his failure to be aggressive on the battlefield. The president addressed this firing with members of his Cabinet, and made his rationale known in letters and telegrams to key leaders in Congress. In 1951, after failing to follow direct orders from President Harry Truman and publicly criticizing the administration's China policy, General Douglas MacArthur was relieved of his command and forced to retire. On April 11, 1951, Truman issued a public statement explaining exactly why he had fired MacArthur. In June 2008, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, with the approval of President George W. Bush, fired both the secretary of the Air...
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