Northern Virginia campaign
The Northern Virginia Campaign, also known as the Second Bull Run Campaign or Second Manassas Campaign, was a series of battles fought in Virginia during August and September 1862 in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. Confederate General Robert E. Lee followed up his successes of the Seven Days Battles in the Peninsula campaign by moving north toward Washington, D.C., and defeating Maj. Gen. John Pope and his Army of Virginia.
Concerned that Pope's army would combine forces with Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac and overwhelm him, Lee sent Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson north to intercept Pope's advance toward Gordonsville. The two forces initially clashed at Cedar Mountain on August 9, a Confederate victory. Lee determined that McClellan's army on the Virginia Peninsula was no longer a threat to Richmond and sent most of the rest of his army, Maj. Gen. James Longstreet's command, following Jackson. Jackson conducted a wide-ranging maneuver around Pope's right flank, seizing the large supply depot in Pope's rear, at Manassas Junction, placing his force between Pope and Washington, D.C. Moving to a very defensible position near the battleground of the 1861 First Battle of Bull Run, Jackson successfully repulsed Union assaults on August 29 as Lee and Longstreet's command arrived on the battlefield. On August 30, Pope attacked again, but was surprised to be caught between attacks by Longstreet and Jackson, and was forced to withdraw with heavy losses. The campaign concluded with another flanking maneuver by Jackson, which Pope engaged at the Battle of Chantilly.
Lee's maneuvering of the Army of Northern Virginia against Pope is considered a military masterpiece. Historian John J. Hennessy wrote that "Lee may have fought cleverer battles, but this was his greatest campaign."
Background
Military situation
After the collapse of McClellan's Peninsula campaign in the Seven Days Battles of June, President Abraham Lincoln appointed John Pope to command the newly formed Army of Virginia. Pope had achieved some success in the Western Theater, and Lincoln sought a more aggressive general than McClellan. Pope did not endear himself to his subordinate commanders—all three selected as corps commanders technically outranked him—or to his junior officers, by his boastful orders that implied Eastern soldiers were inferior to their Western counterparts. Some of his enlisted men were encouraged by Pope's aggressive tone.The Union Army of Virginia was constituted on June 26, from existing departments operating around Virginia, most of which had recently been outmaneuvered in Jackson's Valley campaign: Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont's Mountain Department, Maj. Gen Irvin McDowell's Department of the Rappahannock, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's Department of the Shenandoah, Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis's brigade from the Military District of Washington, and Brig. Gen Jacob D. Cox's division from western Virginia. The new army was divided into three corps of 51,000 men, under Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, replacing Frémont, who refused to serve under Pope and resigned his command; Banks ; and McDowell. Sturgis's Washington troops constituted the Army reserve. Cavalry brigades under Col. John Beardsley and Brig. Gens. John P. Hatch and George D. Bayard were attached directly to the three infantry corps, a lack of centralized control that had negative effects in the campaign. Parts of three corps of McClellan's Army of the Potomac and Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's IX Corps, eventually joined Pope for combat operations, raising his strength to 77,000.
On the Confederate side, General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was organized into two "wings" or "commands" of about 55,000 men. The "right wing" was commanded by Maj. Gen. James Longstreet, the left by Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson. The Cavalry Division under Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart was attached to Jackson's wing. The Confederate organization was considerably simpler than the one Lee inherited for the Seven Days Battles; in that campaign there had been eleven separate divisions, which led to breakdowns in communications and the inability of the army to execute Lee's battle plans properly. William H.C. Whiting, Theophilus Holmes, Benjamin Huger, and John B. Magruder were all reassigned elsewhere. The command structure was reorganized as follows: Jackson's wing comprised his old Valley Army; the Stonewall Division and Maj. Gen. Richard Ewell's division, plus the newly added command of Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill. Longstreet had seven divisions. His former command was divided into two parts led by Brig. Gens. Cadmus Wilcox and James L. Kemper. Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson got Huger's division, and Brig. Gen. John B. Hood was leading Whiting's Division due to William H.C. Whiting being on sick leave. Brig. Gens. David R. Jones and Lafayette McLaws continued in command of their divisions, both of which had been part of Magruder's Army of the Peninsula. Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill's command was also placed under Longstreet. Also joining was Brig. Gen. Nathan G. "Shanks" Evans's independent South Carolina brigade. McLaws and Hill were left in Richmond under the command of Maj. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith, and so Longstreet would take only five divisions north.
Plans
Pope's mission was to fulfill a few objectives: protect Washington and the Shenandoah Valley, and draw Confederate forces away from McClellan by moving in the direction of Gordonsville. Pope started on the latter by dispatching cavalry to break the Virginia Central Railroad connecting Gordonsville, Charlottesville, and Lynchburg. The cavalry under Hatch got off to a slow start and found that Stonewall Jackson had already occupied Gordonsville on July 19 with over 14,000 men.Pope had an additional, broader objective, encouraged by Abraham Lincoln. For the first time, the Union intended to pressure the civilian population of the Confederacy by bringing some of the hardships of war directly to them. Pope issued three general orders on the subject to his army. General Order No. 5 directed the army to "subsist upon the country," reimbursing farmers with vouchers that were payable after the war only to "loyal citizens of the United States." To some soldiers, this became an informal license to pillage and steal. General Orders 7 and 11 dealt with persistent problems of Confederate guerrillas operating in the Union rear. Pope ordered that any house from which gunfire was aimed at Union troops be burned and the occupants treated as prisoners of war. Union officers were directed to "arrest all disloyal male citizens within their lines or within their reach." These orders were substantially different from the war philosophy of Pope's colleague McClellan, which undoubtedly caused some of the animosity between the two men during the campaign. Confederate authorities were outraged and Robert E. Lee labeled Pope a "miscreant" and added that he "ought to be suppressed."
Based on his experiences in the Seven Days, Lee concluded that McClellan would not attack, and he could thus move most of his army away from Richmond. This allowed him to relocate Jackson to Gordonsville to block Pope and protect the Virginia Central. Lee had larger plans in mind. Since the Union Army was split between McClellan and Pope and they were widely separated, Lee saw an opportunity to destroy Pope before returning his attention to McClellan.
Initial movements
On July 26, Lee met with cavalry commander and partisan fighter Capt. John S. Mosby, who had just been exchanged as a prisoner of war. Coming through the Hampton Roads area in Union custody, Mosby observed significant naval transport activity and deduced that Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's troops, who had fought in North Carolina, were being shipped to reinforce Pope. Wanting to take immediate action before those troops were in position, the next day Lee committed Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill to join Jackson with 12,000 men, while distracting McClellan with artillery bombardments and diversionary movements. McClellan advanced a force from Harrison's Landing to Malvern Hill, and Lee moved south to meet the threat, but McClellan eventually withdrew his advance. Still convinced that he was heavily outnumbered, he sent messages to Washington that he would need at least 50,000 more men before he could attempt another attack on Richmond. On August 3, General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck directed McClellan to begin his final withdrawal from the Peninsula and to return to Northern Virginia to support Pope. McClellan protested and did not begin his redeployment until August 14. The Army of the Potomac returned to Washington except for a division of the IV Corps, which was left on the Virginia Peninsula.Opposing forces
Union
Confederate
Battles and movements
On July 29, Pope moved his headquarters from Washington to the field. He was informed by Halleck of the plan to link up with McClellan's army, but rather than waiting for this to occur, he moved some of his forces to a position near Cedar Mountain, from whence he could launch cavalry raids on Gordonsville. Jackson advanced to Culpeper Court House on August 7, hoping to attack one of Pope's corps before the rest of the army could be concentrated.Cedar Mountain
On August 9, Nathaniel Banks's corps attacked Jackson at Cedar Mountain, gaining an early advantage. Confederate Brig. Gen. Charles S. Winder was killed and his division mauled. A Confederate counterattack led by Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill drove Banks back across Cedar Creek. Jackson's advance was stopped, however, by the Union division of Brig. Gen. James B. Ricketts. By now Jackson had learned that Pope's corps were all together, foiling his plan of defeating each in separate actions. He remained in position until August 12, then withdrew to Gordonsville.Lee advances to the Rappahannock
On August 13, Lee sent Longstreet to reinforce Jackson, and on the following day Lee sent half of his remaining forces after he was certain that McClellan was leaving the Peninsula. Lee arrived at Gordonsville to take command on August 15. He massed the Army of Northern Virginia south of Clark's Mountain and planned a turning movement to defeat Pope before McClellan's army could arrive to reinforce it. His plan was to send his cavalry under Stuart, followed by his entire army, north to the Rapidan River on August 18, screened from view by Clark's Mountain. Stuart would cross and destroy the railroad bridge at Somerville Ford and then move around Pope's left flank into the Federal rear, destroying supplies and blocking their possible avenues of retreat. Logistical difficulties and cavalry movement delays caused the plan to be abandoned.On August 20–21, Pope withdrew to the line of the Rappahannock River. He was aware of Lee's plan because a Union cavalry raid captured a copy of the written order. Stuart was almost captured during this raid; his cloak and plumed hat did not escape, however, and Stuart retaliated on August 22 with a raid on Pope's headquarters at Catlett's Station, capturing the Union commander's dress coat. Stuart's raid demonstrated that the Union right flank was vulnerable to a turning movement, although river flooding brought on by heavy rains would make this difficult. It also revealed the plans for reinforcing Pope's army, which would eventually bring it to the strength of 130,000 men, more than twice the size of the Army of Northern Virginia.