Henry Brainerd McClellan (Oct. 17, 1840–Oct. 1, 1904) was an officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and a post-war author of multiple books.
McClellan and his brother Carswell (b. 1836) were the sons of renowned Philadelphia surgeon Samuel McClellan and first cousins to Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. Henry, a former ministry student and schoolteacher, graduated from Williams College in 1858.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in Company G, Virginia 3rd Cavalry Regiment on June 14, 1861, in Ashland, Virginia. His brother Carswell joined the Union army and was a lieutenant and assistant adjutant-general to Gen. Andrew Humphreys. Henry was promoted to major on April 15, 1863, and two weeks later appointed assistant adjutant-general to Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart. After Stuart’s death, he served for three months on the staff of General Robert E. Lee, and was afterward on the staff of Gen. Wade Hampton III as Adjutant General and Chief of Staff of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia. Henry was paroled at Greensboro, N.C., on April 26, 1865.
He married Catherine Macon Matthews on December 12, 1863, and they had nine children. In 1870, Henry moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he founded and directed the Sayre Female Institute. In 1885 he authored The Life and Campaigns of Major-General J. E. B. Stuart. Henry worked as an insurance agent and died of a heart attack in Lexington.