The monument is sited on a prominent location in the Kalorama Triangle neighborhood due to efforts made by area residents.

The monument was dedicated in 1907, with prominent attendees at the ceremony including President Theodore Roosevelt, New York City mayor George B. McClellan Jr., politicians, generals and thousands of military personnel.

The sculpture is one of eighteen Civil War monuments in Washington, D.C., which were collectively listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

[3] Shortly after McClellan's death in 1885, the Society of the Army of the Potomac, a fraternal organization consisting of Union veterans, began plans to erect a monument honoring the general.

[6] An advisory committee, composed of sculptors Daniel Chester French and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and architect Charles Follen McKim, was also formed to provide recommendations to the commission.

[9] Twenty-three designs were submitted by May 1, which was later narrowed down to four finalists: Austin Hays, Charles Henry Niehaus, Attilio Piccirilli and Thomas Waldo Story.

"[4][7][8] In August 1903, the commission chose Frederick William MacMonnies (1863–1937), an American artist and sculptor who lived in Paris, to create the statue.

[14] The commission, then led by Secretary of War and future President William Howard Taft, Senator Wetmore and General Horatio Collins King, approved the suggested site at the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and Columbia Road NW, describing it as a "more satisfactory and imposing" location.

[15] An additional factor that led to the site's approval was that the area had been a Union camp during the summer of 1861 when McClellan arrived in Washington, D.C.[4] The dedication of the monument was first planned for October 18, 1906, to coincide with the 37th annual reunion of the Society of the Army of the Potomac.

After a military parade consisting of thousands of troops led by General J. Franklin Bell passed the statue and the reviewing stands, the main speech by Roosevelt was given.

But I wish on behalf of those who live in the capital of the nation to express my very profound acknowledgment to those who had the good taste to choose a great sculptor to do this work.

I thank them for having erected here in so well a chosen site a statue which, not only because of the man it commemorates, but because of its intrinsic worth, adds to the nobility and beauty of the capital city of the country.

[21][22] The monument is sited on a prominent location at the intersection of California Street, Columbia Road and Connecticut Avenue NW, on the southern edge of the Kalorama Triangle Historic District.

[5] It depicts McClellan dressed in his Union Army military uniform, including gauntlets, a hat, sash and sword, while riding a horse.

[5][22] Near the top of the pedestal are eight shield-shaped emblems noting Civil War battles McClellan led: Antietam, Fair Oaks, Gaines's Mill, Malvern Hill, Mechanicsville, South Mountain, Williamsburg and Yorktown.