John Pope arrived in Washington, D.C. on June 24, 1862, not really sure why he had been summoned. He met the next two days with Secretary Stanton and on the second day learned that the two armies in the Shenandoah Valley under Sigel and Frémont and Irvin McDowell’s Corps would be consolidated under one commander. The army would have three missions: to protect the Shenandoah Valley; disrupt the Virginia Central Railroad near Charlottesville and Gordonsville; and protect Washington and they wanted Pope to command it. Pope was not enthusiastic about the position since he was junior to all three of these commanders, who would all likely be insulted that someone from another theater of the war would be placed over them. Lincoln insisted and Pope was placed in charge of the newly formed Army of Virginia on June 27th. A Civil War Trails tablet in Washington, VA interprets the formation of the Army of Virginia and Pope’s Pronouncements.

Pope had had a modest amount of success in Missouri winning the small battle of Island Number 10 but that was not the reason he was brought east. Lincoln knew him and his family well from Illinois. Pope was with Lincoln on the train from Springfield that carried Lincoln to Washington, D.C. for his inauguration. Pope was a Republican that would fight a “hard war” against the South. Lincoln and his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, and Secretary of State, Salmon P. Chase felt that Democratic Generals like George McClellan were too soft on the South. They wanted someone who would bring the war home to the population of the South especially in the state of Virginia. In addition, Stanton wanted to bring Pope east specifically to humiliate McClellan whom he despised. When Pope was called before the House of Representatives on June 26th to testify, he was disparaging of McClellan and his prosecution of the war on the Peninsula ensuring that McClellan would never cooperate with him in the future. Initially, Pope remained in Washington, D.C. to act as Lincoln’s advisor. A mistake that another General from the West, Ulysses S. Grant, would not make in 1864 when appointed to head all Federal Armies. Pope had a big job in trying to unite the three separate parts of his army and he should have been in the field. In addition, he set about sending out a series of telegrams that would offend not only the leaders of the armies he was to command, but which rank and file soldiers found offensive as well. Statements such as “I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies”, I hear constantly of taking “strong positions and holding them”, of “lines of retreat”, and of “bases of supplies”. Let us discard such ideas. The strongest position a soldier should desire to occupy is one from which he can most easily advance against the enemy. Let us study the probable lines of retreat of our opponents and leave our own to take care of themselves.” This proclamation was a terrible mistake ensuring the animosity of virtually everyone who served below him.

He followed this up with a series of General Orders. On July 18th in General Order #5 Pope stated that his army would subsist off the land. His soldiers could take provisions from the local population (in Virginia) in exchange for vouchers payable at the end of the war, if and only if the owner could provide testimony that they had been loyal to the Federal government from the date of the voucher. Soldiers would no longer place guards over private property. General Order #7 dealt with guerrilla activity. If shots were fired from a home at Union forces the home would be burned to the ground and the occupants treated as P.O.Ws. If railroads were damaged all civilians within five miles would be required to work to repair them and would have to pay for the Union troops needed to oversee them. Lastly, General Order #11 on July 23rd gave officers of the Army of Virginia the authority to arrest any disloyal male citizen and require them to take the Oath of Allegiance. If they agreed and followed it they would be allowed to go about their normal activities. If they violated it, they would be shot, and their property confiscated. Those refusing to take the oath would be conducted south beyond the furthest Union pickets. If they returned, they would be treated as a spy and hung. Robert E. Lee referred to Pope as a “miscreant”. These activities are interpreted in another Civil War Trails marker in Sperryville, Virginia.

On July 19th Pope would suffer a personal tragedy when his two-month-old daughter would die. Pope would not leave Washington, D.C. until July 29th. Pope did succeed in getting Lincoln to name Henry Halleck as general-in-chief, who would turn out to be a disappointment. The post on the Battle of Cedar Mountain has already covered the controversy of whether or not General Banks had permission to attack at Cedar Mountain. Both he and McDowell were both too far from the scene of the action back in Culpeper to provide effective leadership. Pope then made another error in dismissing the superintendent of army railroads, Colonel Herman Haupt. This created logistical problems for moving food to Pope’s troops forcing Pope to hire him back. These logistical problems would be especially damaging to the Union Cavalry, for without adequate forage for their horses they would be ineffective in scouting Jackson and Longstreet’s movements toward Manassas. Pope also failed to adequately guard his supply depots first at Catlett Station and then later at Manassas Junction. He also misinterpreted Jackson’s northwestern march along the Rappahannock River as a retreat into the Shenandoah Valley rather than a move around his right flank into his rear, this tendency toward interpreting information more from a standpoint of wishful thinking than considering the worst case scenario for him and his men was a major weakness in his generalship during this campaign.

Pope’s job was not made any easier by the fact that he was depending on direction from Henry Halleck, the general-in-chief, a man who was clearly overwhelmed by the task of joining the Army of Virginia and the Army of the Potomac. On August 24th McClellan telegraphed Halleck four times asking him where Pope’s Army was located so that he could direct his troops there. Sadly, Halleck sitting in Washington, D.C. had no idea. He telegraphed back, “There is nothing more to communicate tonight. I do not hope to hear from Pope before tomorrow, good night.” When McClellan arrived in the capitol he was placed in charge of its defenses. Halleck responded to one of McClellan’s telegraphs with “I can give you no details on Pope’s location. As you must be aware more than three-quarters of my time is taken up with the raising of new troops and matters in the west. I have no time for details.”

With respect to Longstreet, Pope seemed to hope that he too was headed off in the direction of Winchester rather than the worst-case scenario that he would move through Thoroughfare Gap to join Jackson. Thoroughfare Gap was a narrow gap that could be defended by a smaller competent force. It contained a mill, a small country road and Broad Run. Pope ignored the possibility but Irvin McDowell did not. However, the forces he had at his disposal under Rickets were too small to stop Longstreet’s movement through the gap. Pope failed to adequately guard his supply lines at Bristoe Station and Manassas Junction resulting in millions of dollars in losses.

Pope singularly focused on Jackson while ignoring the threat of Longstreet. After Jackson burned the Union supply base at Manassas Junction Pope ordered all his troops to Manassas Junction seemingly with the expectation that Jackson would wait for him to arrive. During the Battle of Second Manassas Pope’s shortcomings as a commanding General became apparent. When under stress he became angry and flustered, failed to process information from subordinates, issued conflicting orders, and failed to set up an adequate communication system between himself and key Corps commanders. He became so obsessed with destroying Jackson that he completely ignored the threat that Longstreet posed. After his defeat Pope returned to Washington where he prepared a report laying the blame for his defeat on others, chiefly Porter and McClellan.

McClellan certainly had done nothing to help Pope during the campaign. The public turned on Pope and McDowell,however, with the publication in the newspaper of a letter written on the battlefield by a dying member of the First Michigan Cavalry, Colonel Thornton Brodhead. He stated “I have fought manfully and now die fearlessly. I am one of the victims of Pope’s imbecility and McDowell’s treason. Tell the president that to save our country he must not give our flag to such hands.” Pope’s army was consolidated into McClellans and he was relieved of command. At the advice of Secretary of the Treasury Chase, McDowell asked to be relieved pending a court of inquiry. John Pope received orders to proceed to Minnesota as commander of the newly formed Department of the Northwest to deal with an Indian uprising. On September 9th he boarded a train and left Washington.

John Pope was brought east in an attempt to change the character of the war. Pope may have been the right man for that job but not the right person to lead an army in the turbulent circumstances existing at the time in 1862. Given a challenging job the flaws in his leadership became apparent. He began by alienating those he would rely on to execute his orders. Then he pushed to bring his old boss east in Henry Halleck, which was an error. Lincoln eventually came to view Halleck as “little more than a first-rate clerk”, an accurate assessment. Pope’s Army of Virginia was cobbled together by merging three forces, two of which had been operating in the Shenandoah Valley, into three Corps. Two of the Corps commanders General Franz Sigel and Nathaniel Banks were very weak and had already shown themselves as no match for Stonewall Jackson. The third Irvin McDowell was the best of the group but that is faint praise indeed. Given his leadership flaws it’s unclear if John Pope would have succeeded, even if given better subordinates to command, when facing the likes of Lee, Jackson and Longstreet.

Source-

General John Pope A Life for the Nation by Peter Cozzens

Next- The final post in the From Cedar Mountain to Second Manassas Series- Additional sites from Second Manassas