Lee Looks Smart Beating a Stupid General
August 28, 1862: Second Battle of Bull Run
William Terdoslavich
Big battles often start with small skirmishes.
And so it was on the evening of August 28, 1862. The division of Brigadier General Rufus King was marching from Gainesville, Virginia, east along the Warrenton Turnpike when its brigades skirmished with Confederates posted on a wooded hill on his left called Stony Ridge. King was ill and could not make the brigades under his command fight as a single division. Two brigades exchanged volleys with elements of Major General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s corps, then broke contact.
King’s division fell away as evening twilight darkened into night; they retraced their steps to Gainesville, then marched four more miles southeast to New Market. This was to be the first of many errors that would punctuate the Second Battle of Bull Run. Too bloody to be a comedy, too flawed to be a tragedy, this battle was one the Union did not have to fight, but one that the Confederacy had to win.
Pope’s Infallibility
The Union’s Army of Virginia was a bastard child fathered by incompetence and born of defeat.
Its three independent corps, now bundled into an army, were commanded respectively by Major Generals John Frémont, Nathaniel Banks, and Irwin McDowell. Stonewall Jackson had whipped all three of them in a brilliant campaign of battle and movement in the Shenandoah Valley earlier that spring. The more senior Frémont refused to serve under the army’s new commander, Major General John Pope, and was quickly replaced by Major General Franz Sigel.
Pope, previously a corps commander in the Union’s Army of the Mississippi, was brought east following his victories at Island No. 10 and the siege of Corinth. Despite his reputation, Pope got off on the wrong foot that July when he issued an address to his troops: “I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies.” Pope never wanted to hear phrases like “taking strong positions and holding them,” or “lines of retreat” or “bases of supply.” Study the enemy’s line of retreat, he exhorted, and “leave ours to take care of themselves.” The only position the Army of Virginia shall have is the one that allows it to advance against the enemy, he thundered.
This sounded great if Pope was leading a brigade, where he only had to worry about fighting the enemy in front of him. But generals who command armies had to worry about “bases of supply” (logistics), “taking up strong positions and holding them” (defense), and “lines of retreat” (maneuver). Pope did not understand that there was more to army command than just ordering attacks.
Pope’s army was supposed to occupy central Virginia while Major General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac was pulled off “the Peninsula” southeast of Richmond. The assorted corps either went to Washington or the landing at Aquia Creek, just east of Pope’s army. The goal was to unite Pope and McClellan’s forces. No battle needed to be fought to do this.
General Robert E. Lee could not afford to let that happen, as the far larger combination would easily crush his army. In late August, using the corps of Major General James Longstreet as his “shield,” Lee marched his troops along the Rappahannock River, occupying Pope’s attention. Lee then used Stonewall Jackson as his sword, ordering his corps to march northwest, then east along a slightly roundabout route. Jackson covered more than fifty miles in thirty-six hours to reach Manassas Junction, well in Pope’s rear, and threaten Washington, D.C. Lee was breaking the rules by dividing his army in front of a larger force. But he had no choice, for playing the game by the rules risked defeat.
All Pope had to do was avoid battle so that the two Union armies could combine. But there was no gain or glory in that. That left Pope with two choices: He could attack and destroy Longstreet’s smaller force, leaving Jackson’s corps to the tender mercies of the Army of the Potomac, now strengthening in Washington. Or he could march back with the Army of Virginia and destroy Jackson. He chose to focus on Jackson and ignore all else.
Meanwhile, Lee marched north with Longstreet’s corps, hoping to reunite with Jackson and destroy the Army of Virginia before Pope’s headstrong retreat produced results. He had earlier maneuvered Pope out of central Virginia.
Hide and Seek
Pope had two of his corps from the Army of Virginia to work with, supported by three more corps from the Army of the Potomac. (Banks would sit out the battle with his command at Bristoe Station, to the south of the Manassas battlefield. Holding Bristoe Station was supposed to cover the Union left with Major General Fitz-John Porter’s corps.) As the sun rose over Virginia on August 29, Pope hoped to crush Jackson in a three-pronged attack, but he did not know that only one prong was handy.
King’s division of McDowell’s corps was supposed to be facing Jackson’s corps at Stony Ridge, but was in the wrong place, at New Market. McDowell’s other division, under Brigadier General James Ricketts, was supposed to block Thoroughfare Gap, about seven miles west of Gainesville. But Longstreet outnumbered Ricketts by at least four to one and had no trouble outflanking the lone division, forcing it back east toward Pope’s army.
Pope’s orders showed little situational awareness, nor did he know where his units were or what they could do. McDowell was supposed to bring the remainder of his forces to attack Jackson from the west and cover Thoroughfare Gap to stop Longstreet. It was beyond McDowell’s means to do both.
McDowell at least posted two cavalry brigades to cover Longstreet’s corps and report back. At 9 A.M., the move paid off. “Seventeen regiments, one battery five hundred cavalry passed through Gainesville three-quarters of an hour ago, on the Centreville Road,” reported Colonel John Buford. Did McDowell pass on the message to Pope? Nope. He just put it in his pocket.
Sigel’s corps began its attack in the morning. Had King’s division held its ground the night before, Sigel would have had better information to plan with. But he had to find out Jackson’s dispositions the hard way, launching a broad attack with five brigades to probe the enemy line.
The base of Stony Ridge was fringed with a railroad cut that acted like a well-placed trench, strengthening Jackson’s position. Sigel’s brigades were blindly “probing” into a strong position and getting shredded, with regiments bleeding half or two-thirds their strength. Sigel’s and Jackson’s brigades attacked and counterattacked over the same ground, but by late morning, Jackson was still king of his hill. He had brushed back the “probe” on his left, while his center held.
Meanwhile . . .
McDowell was marching north toward the battle with Porter’s corps. Pope’s order to McDowell showed some vague awareness that Longstreet’s corps was coming, and also gave McDowell the discretion, but not the command, to attack this force. With dust clouds to the west and gunfire to the north, McDowell had to make a decision. McDowell ordered Porter west to mask Longstreet’s approach while he galloped north to the sound of the guns.
Porter’s corps was well positioned to confuse Longstreet. It just dangled off to the southeast, ready to knife into Longstreet’s right flank should he advance his troops to relieve pressure on Jackson’s position. Longstreet could not make a move until Porter did. And Porter did nothing. (The average Union corps commander in 1862 was good at that.)
By early afternoon, Pope brought the corps of Major Generals Samuel Heintzelman and Jesse Reno to bear on Jackson from the east, supporting Sigel. Badly pressed on his left, Jackson carefully shuffled brigades and reinforced threatened sectors, and actually came close to losing several times. But Pope didn’t know how to press the blade home. His corps commanders continued making stupid, straight-ahead attacks with single brigades up and down Jackson’s line. These attacks were annoying finger pokes, not corps-sized fists smashing into Jackson’s positions.
By day’s end, Pope had still gotten nowhere. He tried once more to bring Porter’s corps into play, ordering it to attack Longstreet and march north to attack Jackson’s right flank. Porter got a second order from Pope ordering his corps north immediately. Porter would later face a court-martial for “disobeying” these contradictory orders. In 1862, Union generals rarely exceeded orders on their own initiative, no matter how screwed up. Porter would eventually move his corps north to join Pope’s line—after Longstreet’s move.
That night, Pope held a meeting with his commanders. He finally got the morning message from McDowell about those all those Confederate regiments Buford sighted. Pope assumed Longstreet would line up on Jackson’s right and extend the line westward. Instead, Longstreet joined Jackson’s line at a forty-five-degree angle, facing Pope’s flank. Pope never saw it.
Any ground gained against Jackson convinced Pope that the Confederates were retreating. On that basis, Pope stayed to renew battle the next morning, issuing orders to pursue “the broken Confederates.”
Overnight, Longstreet’s corps received reinforcements: the division of Richard H. Anderson and S. D. Lee’s artillery battalion. Lee and Longstreet contemplated a corps-sized attack driving east into Pope’s left flank. With the inactive Porter no threat to Longstreet’s flank, this move was possible.
Denial Before Truth
As the sun rose on the second day of battle, Lee and Pope prepared to make the right move. One of them had to be wrong.
With Porter’s corps in hand, Pope launched an attack on Jackson’s right while Heintzelman’s corps attacked Jackson’s left. Already bled white from the previous day’s fighting, Jackson’s line was buckling under the large Union attacks. Jackson urgently asked Lee for a division to reinforce his hard-pressed line. But Lee and Longstreet judged that it would take too long to get there. The crisis was happening now. And it was at times like this that the cautious Longstreet was most dangerous. Whenever an opportunity beckoned to mess up the enemy, he pounced.
Noticing how his line flanked Porter’s attacking waves, Longstreet posted S. D. Lee’s artillery battalion on high ground with a good view. It took S. D. Lee’s eighteen guns less than eighteen minutes to destroy Porter’s attack. The corps broke and retreated in disorder. Now McDowell screwed up by ordering the division of John Reynolds, which faced west toward Longstreet, to pull out of line and fill the gap left by Porter’s retreat. Only two brigades were left on Chinn Ridge to cover Pope’s left flank.
General Robert E. Lee gave Longstreet the green light. Five divisions sprang forward, looking to overrun Chinn Ridge and seize Henry House Hill just a half mile beyond. Taking that hill would bring the entire Union Army under Confederate artillery fire. But Longstreet had to work fast. It was 4 P.M. Only three hours of daylight remained.
The two Union brigades on Chinn Ridge were little better than speed bumps quickly flattened by Longstreet’s massive attack. McDowell saw his mistake immediately, pulled the nearest brigade out of reserve, and sent it to hold Chinn Ridge. The brigade under Colonel Nathaniel McLean should slow Longstreet’s assault long enough for other units to rush to the scene.
The Texas brigade that spearheaded Longstreet’s attack had already blown through the two Union brigades in just forty-five minutes. But losses from the attack had already weakened the brigade as it was climbing the last stretch of high ground to face McLean’s brigade. Union artillery fire from the north was raking the flanks of the Confederate follow-on brigade to the rear of the Texans, robbing the assault of some punch.
The two southern brigades attacked in quick succession, but McLean held. Those were even-money fights. But the division of Brigadier General James Kemper followed, and its lead brigade climbed Chinn Ridge to the south of McLean’s position and wheeled left, facing McLean’s flank. One Union regiment turned to meet the threat, outnumbered. The two lines exchanged volleys at close range. Men dropped by the dozens. The Confederate brigade simply outnumbered the enemy, its extra regiments outflanking both sides of the thin blue line. The Yankees broke. More than 400 Union dead were left behind, but they had purchased thirty precious minutes with their lives.
Jackson’s corps was fought out and did not attack, so now idle Union units could be rushed to backstop McLean’s position. Two brigades from Ricketts’s division would have to do. Brigades from Sigel’s corps soon followed.
The Union reinforcements were beaten back by Longstreet’s men, who eventually captured Chinn Ridge in ninety minutes of hard fighting. It was 6 P.M. An hour of daylight remained. Henry House Hill was only a half mile away. Lee tried to take the hill by sending one of Longstreet’s divisions around the Union’s line, but the attack proved tired and halfhearted while the Union’s left held fast.
Pope’s sense of denial ended at sunset. Knowing his left flank was smashed, he pulled in his line to front Henry House Hill and began an orderly retreat across Bull Run. Jackson’s worn corps did nothing. Pope pulled back east to Centreville.
Fixing Problems? Fixing Blame?
In the days following the Second Battle of Bull Run, Pope oscillated between depression and optimism before he settled down to blame his defeat on the poor performance of corps commanders from McClellan’s army, principally Porter. Pope’s forces fought one more battle at Chantilly, checking Jackson, before Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck ordered Pope to fall back on Washington. Pope was then relieved of his command.
The Army of Virginia was turned back into a bunch of corps for McClellan to reorganize within the Army of the Potomac. Within a week, it would be ready to move—a stunning example of McClellan’s organizational talent.
The blood price for Second Bull Run was still steep, even by Civil War standards. Lee lost 9,500 men out of 55,000 compared to the 14,500 lost by Pope out of a force of 62,000.
With Pope out of the way and McClellan in Washington reorganizing his troops, Robert E. Lee was now free to invade Maryland. Little did he know that he was soon going to face McClellan again near an obscure town named Sharpsburg, which lay beside Antietam Creek.