NOTE: With the material still to cover from February we did not attempt to cover all of Second Manassas in March 2019 but discussed the opening segments of the battle, getting through the engagement at Groveton (also referred to as Brawner's Farm).

(some January 2020 questions sent in by John Scales)

1. Why did Pope not detect the approach and positioning of Longstreet?

2. Why did Pope's attacks on Jackson fail in spite of Jackson's tactical blunders?

3. What was Longstreet's reasoning in waiting so long to conduct his attack?

4. Given the time he had available, why was Longstreet's attack disjointed?

5. Why did Jackson not immediately assist Longstreet once ordered by Lee?

6. What was the key position held by Pope that saved his army? Whose inaction let the position stand?

7. What prevented the Confederate army from exploiting its victory?

A general question as we cover this material is how to apportion the blame for the disaster that was Second Manassas; Lincoln , Stanton & Hallack, Pope, McClellan, McDowell, and luck all share in a portion of the blame. Interestingly the person most blamed at the time, Fitz Porter, was more injudicious than blameworthy.

Questions for the March 2019 Little Round Table

1. For guidance during Second Manassas, Pope had to rely on two generals, one far more informed regarding the strategic situation and one far more aware of the tactical situation. Who were they and how useful was their guidance?

2. Pope's first three notable actions as commander of the Army of Virginia were extremely counterproductive unforced errors. One was the replacement of a former Gettysburg College professor. What were these actions and what difficulties did Pope create for himself by taking them?

3. What commander in the Army of Virginia was more focused on redeeming himself against Stonewall Jackson than on the strategic picture?

4. As units from McClellan's army began reaching Pope what was Pope's belief as to which general(s) would command the combined forces?

5. Pope's fourth unforced error was an imprecise verbal order to General Banks. What resulted?

6. What should Pope have learned about his new army from the engagement at Cedar Mountain on August 9th?

7. When Jackson disengaged from the Confederate lines and began his flanking movement around the Union right, he and Lee were counting on something to disguise his movement from the enemy. What was it?

8. Convinced throughout the battle that Jackson was trying to escape the Union Army's overwhelming numerical superiority, Pope left no room for what possibility?

9. What was Gibbon's limited objective when he elected to interrupt his brigade's redirected march to Centreville on August 28th and go on the offensive?

10. Much to Jackson's dismay, his assault at Brawner's Farm engaged what would soon be regarded as the best brigade in the Union Army. That day they would shatter the famed Stonewall Brigade. What was this unit and what was their background before August 28th?

11. For the men on "both" sides, the Battle of Groveton was a surreal experience, more intense than any combat they had experienced or would later experience. Why are their accounts so similiar?

12. Groveton continued Jackson's string of mediocre battlefield performances, what are the others?

13. Brawner's Farm was an engagement with a singular lack of subtlety, but at a key juncture Gibbon nicely finessed one of Jackson's batteries out of an especially good artillery platform and effectively out of the battle. Who was in command of this battery?

14. For the Union Army the Battle of Groveton would be analogous to Second Manassas in that both featured excellent command and control at the Brigade level and minimal to nonexistent command and control at the Division, Corps, and Army levels. What supports that conclusion and what does it say about the development of the Army during the first year of the war?

To carve out how much blame to attach to Pope I suggest imagining that Lincoln and Stanton had gone with a far more logical alternative and simply given the command to Erasmus Keyes, McClellan's 4th Corps commander on the Peninsula. Like Pope, Keyes was a professional soldier who also an abolitionist Republican. McClellan hated him and would have been quite happy without him. Keyes was familiar with the war in the east and could have brought his 4th Corps staff with him to help him scale up to an Army commander. I suspect that things would have gone quite differently with Keyes in command of the newly created Army of Virginia.

Timeline

Mid-July - Lee sends Jackson to keep an eye on Pope and to guard Gordonsville and the Virginia Central.

July 27th - Lee reinforces Jackson with a division to enable him strike a blow at Pope and then return to Lee when done, if necessary.

August 3rd - Hallack's order to McClellan to immediately withdraw from the Peninsula. Porter's 5th Corps is the first to leave but not until August 21st. The last Corps and McClellan himself do not leave until August 26th.

Early August - Burnside's force arrives at Aquia Landing which tells Lee that McClellan will not be reinforced. McClellan abandons Malvern Hill which increases Lee's confidence that McClellan will not go on the offensive. He begins sending more troops to Jackson and prepares to send Longstreet's wing as well.

August 13th - As McClellan marshalls his forces at Harrison's Landing to fend off attack, Lee sends Longstreet with the other wing of the army to join Jackson on the Rapidan.

August 15th - Lee leaves Richmond to join his army, leaving behind just two divisions and a cavalry brigade to guard the city.

August 22nd - JEB Stuart raids Catlett's Station behind Pope's lines, capturing dispatches that confirm Lee's appraisal that he had little time to spare if he was going to attack Pope before he was reinforced.

August 25th - Jackson begins his movement around Pope's right flank.

Throughfare Gap is six miles west of Gainesville, which is four miles west of Groveton, which is 7 miles west of Centreville.

On August 28th Jackson concentrated on the two final details of the campaign: linking with Longstreet and bringing Pope to battle before McClellan joined him. Jackson knew that Longstreet and his 30,000 men were about ten hours march away, time enough for Pope with almost threefold numbers to overwhelm Jackson's 24,000 men. Jackson had to find Pope so there were no surprises, and could only afford to fight on his own terms and on his own ground.

Pope's First Trap: At 9 P.M. on the 27th, Pope, believing Jackson still in Manassas, orders an all-or-nothing (5/6ths of his force - 50,000 men) morning march of his scattered units on the town to trap Jackson. Sigel was to start immediately for Manassas with his right resting on the Manassas Railroad, McDowell was to deploy on Sigel's left as they approached Manassas from the north.

Pope's Second Trap: Failing to find Jackson at Manassas and believing him now in Centreville, Pope had ordered his scattered units (many had yet to reach Manassas) to converge on Centreville and trap Jackson, and everyone had spent the 28th marching toward that objective. In the midst on this Pope, acting on new information that Longstreet was approaching Thoroughfare Gap, ordered his eastward marching army to reverse direction and engage Longstreet instead. Shortly after this, newer information convinced Pope that Jackson was in fact in Centerville, so he countermanded his westward marching order and directed the army to resume their march east toward Centreville.

Pope's Third Trap: Late in the evening of August 28th word of the Groveton fight reached Pope who leaped to the conclusion that Jackson had been intercepted in flight to the west from Centreville. Pope assumed that McDowell (Hatch and Ricketts) was on the Warrenton Turnpike west of Jackson so he ordered Sigel's Corps (three divisions) and Reynold's division to march north and attack Jackson at first light. He ordered Kearny's Division to march west from Centreville at 1AM and at dawn attack Jackson from the east, Hooker's Division would follow Kearny. Kearny, whose men Pope had been marching back and forth all day in great urgency and to no purpose, replied: "Tell General Pope to go to hell. We won't march until morning".

Pope's Fourth Trap: Just after dawn on August 29th John Gibbon hunted up Pope in Centreville and updated him on Groveton, including Hatch and Rickett's withdrawal from Groveton to Manassas. Pope tried to reset the trap by sending Gibbon to Manassas with orders for Hatch, Ricketts, and Porter to march to Gainesville west of Jackson's position in order to cut off his retreat. Reno was ordered to follow Hooker west.

McDowell had not reported to Pope for 12 hours (much of the time spent lost with his staff on the battlefield) and had not reported that Longstreet was through Thoroughfare Gap and just hours from linking up with Jackson.

Porter thought to send a situation update regarding the past 24 hours to Burnside in Fredericksburg - direct communication to Washington having been cut by Jackson - which was then forwarded to Washington. "Rebels are wandering around loose; but I expect they know what they are doing, which is more than anyone here or anywhere knows".

The Army of Virginia

There was little in the commanding officers of the three armies Pope was consolidating into his Army of Virginia that would inspire confidence.

German emigre Franz Sigel had just assumed command of his corps. Pope and Sigel had both come east from Missouri and detested each other. Pope considered Sigel hopelessly inept and a coward. Sigel considered Pope an imbecile and a coward.

Sigel hated fellow corps commander Irvin McDowell as thoroughly as he hated Pope. But nearly the whole Union army despised McDowell. McDowell was arrogant and easily excited, a martinet with little human warmth who had alienated nearly everyone but Pope.

Banks was the third corps commander, a politician (former Speaker of the House) who owed his commission to purely political considerations. Banks (Jackson's primary victim in the Valley) was a brave if not prudent commander and a loyal subordinate. He and Pope respected each other and their relations were cordial.

The McDowell Factor

McDowell was the only one of his Corps commanders whose military judgment Pope trusted, and McDowell had commanded the Union army a year earlier on this same battlefield. Initially McDowell understood that he had been ordered to Gainesville to forestall a Confederate march through Thoroughfare Gap and on the evening of August 27th made plans to seal it off. He knew from Buford that Longstreet was near. Rather than forward this information to Pope's HQ he was making plans to independently seal it off with Sigel's Corps (which Pope had placed under his command) when Pope's orders to immediately proceed to Manassas reached him. McDowell got underway but left Rickett's Division behind to cover the Gap.

On the afternoon of the 28th Pope received a dispatch from McDowell advising him of Buford'a assessment that Longstreet was not headed to the valley but was just west of the gap. Pope responded with his briefly-in-force order to suspend the just ordered advance on Centreville. He closed by begging McDowell to: " give me your views fully, you know the country much better than I do".

At sunset, with news that Longstreet had forced his way through the Gap, McDowell left his corps and rode off in search of Pope's Manassas HQ. But Pope was headed to Centreville. On the way to Manassas McDowell and his escort heard firing behind them from the direction of Groveton and turned around. McDowell led his party on what he thought a short cut and in the dark led them into a swamp, they finally ended up spending the night in a bivouac of Sigel's corps. During this crucial time McDowell did not communicate with Pope for more than 12 hours.

Jackson's Performance At Brawner Farm

The fight at Brawner Farm (Groveton) would leave Jackson disappointed and frustrated. His strategic brilliance over the previous three days had culminated in a battle ill-managed and indecisive. The opportunity he had been yearning for and for which he desperately grasped - to get at Pope - had come with every promise of lopsided success: King's untried division, alone and unaware, in front of Jackson's twenty-four thousand veterans. But he had failed to deliver sufficient numbers to overwhelm them, or indeed to seriously stress their battle lines. After two hours of the nastiest musket fight the war had yet seen, Gibbon's and Doubleday's regiments stood decimated, shaken, but still able to fight; having inflicted substantially more casualties on the southern forces and earned a surprised Jackson's respect. Jackson's string of mediocre battlefield performances continued.

We will give him what he wants, but not the way he wants it!

John Pope's troubles are a classic example of a scalability problem, it was hoped that because he had performed well managing forces of one size that his command ability would scale well to a much bigger force size. But 19th century military forces were not conducive to such changes in scale because of coordination requirements. It is reasonable to expect that a well-performing regional manager of ten McDonald's will be able to successfully scale up to 100 restaurants, as the challenge is one of integration rather than coordination. But assembling a massive field army is entirely different and in 1862 the headquarter's staff function had not evolved sufficiently to provide the support necessary for a new commander to effectively direct and coordinate the deployment and coordination of the units under his command. Further, while Pope had success maneuvering to attack fixed objectives he had no experience against fluid targets and masters of movement like Lee and Jackson.

Related to scalability, during Second Manassas Pope exhibited a condition now called a lack of situational awareness. This occurs when someone becomes focused on a micro issue (trapping Stonewall Jackson) and entirely loses track of the big picture (in this case Longstreet bringing the remaining half of Lee's army into the operational area). Pope had not really needed this skill during his time in the west. This is somewhat like when Bragg went into a major sulk midway through the Battle of Chickamauga, so upset that the wheels had fallen off of his planned assault that he refused to recognize that his troops were winning a decisive victory with improvised tactics.

Lincoln actually issued the Emancipation Proclamation twice.

Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22nd, 1862. It stipulated that if the Southern states did not cease their rebellion by January 1st, 1863, then Proclamation would go into effect. When the Confederacy did not yield, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863.

Lincoln considered the Emancipation Proclamation the crowning achievement of his presidency.

Heralded as the savior of the Union, President Lincoln actually considered the Emancipation Proclamation to be the most important aspect of his legacy. “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper,” he declared. “If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it."

John Pope was a significant player in the lead up to the most important event of the war, the Emancipation Proclamation. Unknowingly and unintentionally, his actions would be instrumental in moving the country toward this event. Making him among the top ten most influential figures of the war.

The Battle of Antietam provided the necessary Union victory to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

President Lincoln had first proposed the Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet in July 1862, but Secretary of State William Seward suggested waiting for a Union victory so that the government could prove that it could enforce the Proclamation. Although the Battle of Antietam resulted in a draw, the Union army was able to drive the Confederates out of Maryland – enough of a “victory,” that Lincoln felt comfortable issuing the Emancipation just five days later.