All language subtitles for The.Ultimate.Civil.War.Series.S01E02.A.Deep.Steady.Thunder.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

We called
to them,

tried to tell them there was
no danger,

called them to stop, implored
them to stand.

We called them cowards,
denounced them in the most

offensive terms, put out our
heavy revolvers and threatened

to shoot them, but all in
vain;

a cruel, crazy, mad, hopeless
panic possessed them,

and communicated to everybody
about in front and rear.

The heat was awful, although
now about six;

the men were exhausted, their
mouths gaped,

their lips cracked and
blackened with the powder of

the cartridges they had bitten
off in battle,

their eyes starting in frenzy;
no mortal ever saw such a mass

of ghastly wretches.

Thus reported Ohio
Congressman Albert Riddle,

after witnessing the rout of
Union forces at the First

Battle of Bull Run, July 21,
1861.

This first major conflict of
the war went badly for the

north, shaking the confidence
of northern leaders as it

strengthened the resolve of
those in the south.

After the fall of Fort Sumter
three months earlier,

tens of thousands of men
answered Lincoln's call for

90-day enlistments to defend
the nation

from internal threat.

But by mid-July 1861, their
enlistments were nearly

expired, and these men were
looking to go home.

President Lincoln felt the
pressure of those coming

expirations, not to mention
the growing number of

Confederate troops on the
other side of the Potomac

from Washington, D.C.

Even more, the public was
demanding action.

Editorials in northern papers
clamored for General in Chief

Winfield Scott to strike for
the capital

of the Confederacy.

"On to Richmond!" they cried.

Lincoln hoped a more limited
attack,

at the Confederate forces
gathered in Manassas,

Virginia, would be able to
accomplish what he wanted most

a quick end to the
insurrection,

without doing irreparable harm
to the South.

And so, Brigadier General
Irvin MacDowell was sent to

lead his unseasoned troops
into battle with P.T.

Beauregard's equally
unseasoned Confederate troops

near the vital rail junction
in Manassas.

"You are green, it is true,"
Lincoln told McDowell,

"but they are green also..."

But a series of problems for
the north resulted in the

green Confederates under
Beauregard,

assisted by troops under
General Joseph E.

Johnston, whipping the
short-timers under McDowell.

An orderly retreat turned into
a panicked rout as Union

troops threw aside their guns
and equipment in desperation.

The Union suffered almost five
hundred dead and twenty-five

hundred wounded, captured, or
missing.

In comparison, the Confederate
troops lost almost four

hundred dead, sixteen hundred
wounded,

and a handful missing.

To those in the north who had
expected an easy victory,

defeat came as a shock.

New York attorney George
Templeton Strong

wrote in his diary:

Today
will be known as

BLACK MONDAY.

We are utterly and
disgracefully routed,

beaten, whipped by
secessionists.

The First Battle of
Bull Run,

or the First Battle of
Manassas,

as it was called by the
Confederates,

had long-reaching effects.

Beauregard was promoted for
his actions that day,

and Brigadier General Thomas
Jackson

earned his famous nickname,
Stonewall.

Meanwhile, McDowell was soon
replaced by Major General

George B. McClellan, as
Commander of the

Army of the Potomac.

Though much smaller than some
battles that would occur later

in the war, at the time, Bull
Run was the largest battle

in American history.

The Confederate victory in
this fight led many in the

south to think that they had all
but won the war.

But despite the sense of
humiliation and despair among

many in the north, the defeat
at Manassas actually served to

strengthen Union forces.

General Benjamin Butler
recognized this in a letter to

Montgomery Blair, the
Postmaster General.

We have heard the sad
news from Manassas,

but are neither dismayed nor
disheartened.

It will have the... good
effect...

to teach us wherein we are
weak and they are strong,

and how to apply the remedy to
our deficiencies.

Lincoln seemed to
see the same lesson

in the defeat.

The day after the rout at Bull
Run,

Lincoln signed a bill calling
for the enlistment of five

hundred thousand volunteers,
these to serve three years

rather than three months.

Just three days later, he
signed a bill

raising that to one million.

Many of these men would form the
Army of the Potomac.

Over the next two months,
McClellan would take these raw

undisciplined troops and train
them into a fine army.

By October he had one hundred
twenty thousand men

in his army.

By November, one hundred sixty
eight thousand.

Along the way, he would build
near-impregnable

fortifications around the city
of Washington.

Scores of forts and hundreds
of big guns defended the

capital from Confederate
forces

just across the Potomac.

But the war did not wait for
McClellan to ready his forces.

To the west, Missouri was in
the middle of its own internal

civil war, with Unionist and
Secessionist guerilla bands

fighting back and forth for
control of the state.

Just after Bull Run, General
John C. Fremont arrived in

Missouri to take command of the
Western Department.

He found himself in the middle
of a bloody struggle between

groups who had been trading
shots for months.

About a month before the
assault on Fort Sumter,

the Missouri Constitutional
Convention voted 98 to 1 that

the state would remain in the
Union but would not contribute

arms or men to either side if
war broke out.

But a week after Sumter, a
secessionist mob overran the

arsenal in Liberty, Missouri,
making off with a thousand

rifles and muskets.

Union commanders were right to
be concerned.

Despite Missouri's official
position,

Governor Claiborne Jackson was
working with Confederate

President Jefferson Davis to
arrange bringing Missouri

into the Confederacy.

The Confederates smuggled a
shipment of artillery to

Jackson, who in turn moved it
to a military encampment a few

miles out from St. Louis.

On May 9, the howitzers, siege
guns,

and five hundred muskets
arrived in the camp.

Jackson had organized a
pro-secession militia to

practices maneuvers there, and
they were now ready

to move on the arsenal.

Governor Jackson was able to
get the legislature to approve

a new Missouri State Guard.

Led by Major General Sterling
Price,

the Guard's purpose was to
resist invasion by federal

troops, and to squash
rebellion.

Rebellion, in this case, meant
Missourians

who had joined the Union forces.

Nathaniel Lyon was promoted to
Brigadier General and put in

charge of Union forces in
Missouri.

On June 11, 1861, he met with
Governor Jackson to negotiate

a treaty between their two
sides.

That proved impossible.

Over the next few weeks, the
two sides fought

a series of skirmishes.

Meanwhile, the Missouri
Constitutional Convention

appointed a new governor,
Hamilton Rowan Gamble,

a man loyal to the Union.

Then, on August 10, at the
Battle of Wilson's Creek,

Union forces suffered a
significant defeat.

General Lyon and his force of
about six thousand men were

camped in Springfield.

Approaching them were twelve
thousand men from the combined

forces of the Missouri State
Guard,

Arkansas militia, and
Confederate regulars under

Brigadier General Benjamin
McCulloch.

Lyon planned to hit the
Confederates in surprise

attack, then withdraw to seek
reinforcement and supplies.

So at 5 a.m. on the tenth, he
split his force in two,

planning to strike the larger
Confederate force

in a pincer movement.

But in the confusion of the
battle,

the two Union forces were
unable to communicate

and coordinate movement.

General Lyon was killed in the
battle,

and Major Samuel Sturgis was
forced to lead the Union

troops in an organized
retreat.

With the loss at Wilson's
Creek,

the Union lost control of
Southwest Missouri.

General John C. Fremont, the new
commander in the west,

had to find a way to turn
things around.

Militarily, he failed to do
so.

Secessionist guerillas roamed
across the state.

The Confederate troops under
Sterling Price moved north,

and by September 20th they had
captured the city

of Lexington as well.

In August, Fremont tried a
completely different approach.

He declared martial law in
Missouri.

Any Confederate guerillas
would face the death penalty.

And all slaves belonging to
Confederates would be freed.

This order outraged the border
states,

which Lincoln was struggling
to maintain within the Union.

In the early stages of the war,
relatively few northerners saw

their goal as freeing the
slaves.

The northern armies fought to
preserve the Union,

not to end slavery.

But individuals, such as
Fremont,

took steps early on that moved
the Union

closer to emancipation.

General Benjamin Butler, in
Virginia,

May 1861, made the decision
that he would not return

fugitive slaves to their
southern masters.

Those states, he argued, could
not secede from the Union and

then demand that their rights
to human property under the

Fugitive Slave Law be
protected

by the federal government.

Butler declared that these
slaves were contraband of war,

and put them to work for the
Union forces.

He did not arm them, but every
job completed by a contraband

freed a white soldier to
fight.

And within a few months he had
almost a thousand contrabands.

Harriet Tubman, the famed
conductor of the Underground

Railroad, joined General
Butler's forces,

to help organize and care for
the contrabands.

In August 1861, Congress
passed,

and Lincoln signed, the First
Confiscation Act,

which made this policy
official.

When Fremont issued his
personal emancipation

proclamation in Missouri,
Lincoln directed him to

modify it to comport with the
Confiscation Act.

That is, rather than freeing
all slaves belonging to

Confederates, Fremont could
only declare free those slaves

who had been used to support
the Confederacy.

When Fremont refused to make
these changes,

Lincoln was forced to overrule
the general

and remove him from office.

This decision helped Lincoln
maintain the loyalty of the

border states, but drew a
harsh reaction

from radical Republicans.

Frederick Douglass in
particular had praised

Fremont's action, and was
angered by Lincoln's move.

The
weakness and imbecility of the

letter of the President,
condemning that proclamation,

have thus far characterized
the whole war.

But Lincoln believed
that people in the north were

not ready to make this war
about abolishing slavery.

What Lincoln - and many in the
north -

felt was lacking in this war,

was actual fighting by those
now splendidly-trained and

equipped troops under
McClellan.

McClellan had no interest in
freeing the slaves.

He wrote to influential fellow
Democrat Samuel Barlow:

Help me to dodge
the nigger -

we want nothing to do with him.

I am fighting to preserve the
integrity of the Union and the

power of the Government - and
no other issue.

To gain that end we cannot
afford to mix up the negro

question - it must be
incidental and subsidiary.

McClellan had done
an excellent job training the

new Army of the Potomac, as
well as preparing the defenses

of Washington.

But he was showing himself to
be overcautious

as a military commander.

Again and again, when pressed
by Lincoln for action,

he would insist that Confederate
forces outnumbered his own.

This despite the fact that in
October he had one hundred

twenty thousand men, facing
just forty-five thousand

Confederates across the
Potomac.

In October there was one minor
skirmish,

but once again it turned out
badly for the Union.

Colonel Edward Baker, who was
a Senator from Oregon and a

personal friend of Lincoln's
was attempting to dislodge

Confederate forces from
Leesburg, Virginia.

Instead, he and his men were
surrounded by Confederates,

at a place called Ball's
Bluff.

Baker was killed in the
fighting,

and his men were driven back,
over the edge of the bluff in

a panicked rout.

As many men died of drowning
as of bullet wounds,

and hundreds more were
captured by the rebels.

This debacle did not encourage
McClellan into action.

As the fall wore on, finally
becoming winter,

the Army of the Potomac sat.

As historian James M. McPherson
has noted,

"McClellan excelled at
preparation,

but it was never quite
complete.

The army was perpetually
almost ready to move - but the

enemy was always larger and
better prepared."

In early 1862, a fighting
general did emerge,

in the western theater of the
war.

General Ulysses S. Grant led
assaults on important

southern river forts.

On February 6, he led two
divisions in the capture of

the undermanned Fort Henry, on
the Tennessee River.

The fort was taken with
minimal losses,

and Grant moved quickly over
land to assault Fort Donelson,

on the Cumberland River.

Grant faced stronger
resistance at Donelson.

But after a series of attacks
and counterattacks between the

two sides, by February 16,
Grant's command of the field

was so clear that the
Confederate commanders,

Brigadier General John Floyd
and his second in command,

Brigadier General Gideon
Pillow, panicked.

Buckner was an old acquaintance
of Grant's,

going back to their years at
West Point

and service in the army.

Perhaps Buckner thought this
would mean better terms of

surrender for him and his men.

If so, he was proven wrong.

In response to Buckner's
request to discuss terms,

Grant sent the following
message:

Yours of this date,
proposing armistice

and appointment of
Commissioners to settle terms

of capitulation, is just
received.

No terms except an
unconditional and immediate

surrender can be accepted.

I propose to move immediately
upon your works.

Buckner replied that
circumstances compelled him to

accept Grant's "ungenerous and
unchivalrous terms."

The capture of Fort Henry and
Fort Donelson were the first

major victories by Union
forces,

and they were celebrated
wildly.

Ulysses S. Grant became known
throughout the north as

"Unconditional Surrender Grant."

Over twelve thousand
Confederate soldiers were

captured, setting up another -
much bloodier - Union victory

months later at Shiloh.

The Battle of Shiloh, in
southwestern Tennessee,

April 6-7, 1862, was very nearly
a Union defeat.

Grant had developed a
reputation for focusing more

on his own plans than on the
enemy's actions.

This contributed to
significant losses on April 6,

when his men were encamped at
Pittsburg Landing

along the Tennessee River.

Grant was criticized later for
failing to have his men

prepare adequate
fortifications at Shiloh.

He responded, in his memoirs:

Up to that time the pick
and spade had been but little

resorted to at the West.

Besides this,
the troops with me,

officers and men, needed
discipline and drill more than

they did experience with the
pick, shovel and axe.

Reinforcements were arriving
almost daily,

composed of troops that had
been hastily thrown together

into companies and
regiments -

fragments of incomplete
organizations,

the men and officers strangers
to each other.

Under all these circumstances
I concluded that drill and

discipline were worth more to
our men than fortifications.

Nonetheless, the
lack of fortifications made it

all the easier for Albert
Sydney Johnston and P.T.

Beauregard to strike the Union
troops

in a bloody surprise attack.

Grant, nursing an ankle that
had been badly injured when

his horse had fallen days
earlier,

had not expected an attack,

and was miles away in Savannah.

While I was at
breakfast...

heavy firing was heard in the
direction of Pittsburg

landing, and I hastened
there...

On reaching the front...
about eight A.M., I found that

the attack on Pittsburg was
unmistakable...

Captain Baxter, a
quartermaster on my staff,

was accordingly directed to go
back and order General Wallace

to march immediately to
Pittsburg by the road

nearest the river.

Miscommunications
resulted in General Lew

Wallace not arriving where and
when Grant needed him,

and Wallace's troops would not
take part

in the first day of fighting.

The Battle of Shiloh took its
name from what Grant called a

"log meeting-house" two to
three miles

from the Pittsburg landing.

This point was the key
to our position

and was held by Sherman.

His division was at that time
wholly raw,

no part of it ever having been
in an engagement;

but I thought this deficiency
was more than made up

by the superiority of the
commander.

Grant's faith in
General William Tecumseh

Sherman was complete, and
would remain so

throughout the war.

In the Battle of Shiloh,
Sherman proved himself

deserving of Grant's trust.

Grant described the first day
of battle.

During the whole of
Sunday I was continuously

engaged in passing from one
part of the field to another,

giving directions to division
commanders.

In thus moving along the
lines, however,

I never deemed it important to
stay long with Sherman.

A casualty to Sherman that
would have taken him from the

field that day would have been
a sad one for the troops

engaged at Shiloh.

And how near we came to this!

On the sixth Sherman was shot
twice,

once in the hand, once in the
shoulder,

the ball cutting through his
coat and making a slight wound,

and a third ball passing
through his hat.

In addition to this he had
several horses shot

during the day.

The Confederate assaults were
made with such a disregard of

losses on their own side that
our line of tents soon fell

into their hands.

The ground on which the battle
was fought was undulating,

heavily timbered with
scattered clearings,

the woods giving some
protection to the troops

on both sides.

A number of attempts were made
by the enemy to turn our right

flank, where Sherman was
posted,

but every effort was repulsed
with heavy loss.

But the front attack was kept
up so vigorously that,

to prevent the success of
these attempts to get on our

flanks, the National troops
were compelled,

several times, to take
positions to the rear

near Pittsburg landing.

When the firing ceased at
night the National line was

all of a mile in rear of the
position it had occupied

in the morning.

Both sides had taken
shockingly high casualties,

the highest seen in the war to
that point.

The Confederates had indeed
lost over eight thousand men

that first day.

Among them was the commander
of the Confederate forces.

With Johnston's death,

General P.T. Beauregard took
command.

Beauregard sent a telegram
that night

to President Jefferson Davis,
that read:

"A COMPLETE VICTORY."

Unfortunately for him, his
assessment was premature.

Many later criticized
Beauregard for calling a halt

to the attack at dusk, feeling
that if he had continued to

push then perhaps a COMPLETE
VICTORY

would have been possible.

But his men were exhausted,
and there was less than an

hour of daylight remaining.

And Beauregard did not know
what was happening

in the Union camp.

Grant's forces had been
reinforced by fifteen thousand

men in Major General Don
Carlos Buell's army.

And General Lew Wallace's
division of five thousand men

were also fresh troops, having
not seen major fighting

on the first day.

With these additional Union
forces,

and the loss of troops on the
Confederate side,

Beauregard would find himself
outnumbered on April 7,

when Grant and Buell
counterattacked.

Shiloh was a Union victory,
but a terribly costly one.

Union forces lost over 1,750
killed,

8,400 wounded, and almost
three thousand

captured or missing.

The numbers on the Confederate
side were similar,

except for a much smaller
number captured or missing.

The willingness of the
Confederate army to take such

losses worked to change
Grant's understanding of how

victory could be accomplished.

I saw an open field, in
our possession on the second

day, over which the
Confederates had made repeated

charges the day before, so
covered with dead that it

would have been possible to
walk across the clearing,

in any direction, stepping on
dead bodies,

without a foot touching the
ground...

Up to the battle of Shiloh I,
as well as thousands of other

citizens, believed that the
rebellion against the

Government would collapse
suddenly and soon,

if a decisive victory could be
gained over any of its armies.

Donelson and Henry were such
victories...

Up to that time it had been
the policy of our army,

certainly of that portion
commanded by me,

to protect the property of the
citizens whose territory was

invaded, without regard to
their sentiments,

whether Union or Secession.

After this, however, I
regarded it as humane to both

sides to protect the persons
of those found at their homes,

but to consume everything that
could be used to support

or supply armies.

Grant took a lot of
heat in the north

for the Union losses.

There were false reports of
him being drunk,

and criticisms of his lack of
fortifications.

Some wanted him removed from
command,

to which Lincoln replied,
famously,

"I can't spare this man; he
fights."

This in contrast to his
premier general in the east,

George McClellan.

Yet McClellan, finally, was
preparing to move.

He planned an invasion of
Virginia by water,

taking his army down the
Chesapeake Bay,

near the mouth of the James
River.

They would land at Fort
Monroe,

seventy miles southeast of
Richmond,

and then move toward the
Confederate capital.

Whether or not this plan was
sound,

the execution was problematic.

After landing on the Virginia
Peninsula,

in early April, McClellan and
fifty-five thousand troops

laid siege to Yorktown.

Defending the site were just
thirteen thousand Confederate

soldiers, commanded by Major
General John Magruder.

Though McClellan had an
overwhelming numerical

superiority, he was convinced
that Magruder

had far more men.

This was aided by Magruder's
theatrics,

in which he moved men about
quickly to create the sense of

greater numbers.

Though pressed by Lincoln to
attack,

McClellan dug in and lay siege
for a month.

During that time, Johnston's
forces

moved in to support Magruder.

And in the end, all of the
Confederate forces fell back

toward Richmond, before
McClellan could finally make use

of his heavy artillery.

A month spent, and almost
nothing gained.

Battle finally occurred in
Williamsburg,

where thirty-two thousand
Confederates,

under Major General James
Longstreet,

fought a delaying action
against forty-one thousand

Union troops under Brigadier
General Joseph Hooker.

The Union troops were
eventually able to push back

the Confederates, and claim
victory.

But the fighting in
Williamsburg had allowed the

bulk of the Confederate forces
to reach Richmond in time to

defend it against the invading
forces.

By late May, McClellan's Army of
the Potomac had advanced

to the outskirts of Richmond.

At a little spot just south of
the Chickahominy River,

known as Seven Pines, his
forces would be temporarily

halted by the bloodiest battle
to date

in the eastern theater of the
war.

Confederate General Joseph
Johnston developed a complex

plan in which fifty-one
thousand of his men would

strike McClellan's second and
third Corps,

about thirty three thousand
troops.

Implementation of the plan
proved difficult,

and though the Union advance
was slowed,

the Confederates took heavy
casualties.

Both sides claimed victory,
though both suffered

significant losses.

The Union took five thousand
casualties - including almost

eight hundred killed,
thirty-six hundred wounded,

and over six hundred missing
or captured.

But the Confederates were hit
even harder,

with almost an thousand killed
and almost five thousand

wounded, plus four hundred
captured or missing.

McClellan spent the next three
weeks entrenching and

regrouping, settling in for a
long siege of Richmond.

On the Confederate side,
General Johnston had been

wounded in action, and a new
leader

of the southern forces emerged.

A man whose aggressive tactics
were the precise opposite of

McClellan's excessive caution,
and who would build a name for

himself that would long
survive the war,

and all its participants.

A man named Robert E. Lee.

While McClellan spent the next
weeks preparing

to lay siege, Lee spent the
time preparing to strike.

From June 25 to July 1, 1862,
there was a brutal series of

battles outside of Richmond,
which brought McClellan's

Peninsular Campaign to an
ignominious end.

On the 25th, the Union gained
a pyrrhic victory in the

Battle of Oak Grove, where
they gained a mere six hundred

yards of ground at the cost of
almost seventy dead and five

hundred wounded, versus a
similar death toll but fewer

wounded among the
Confederates.

This minor battle was the only
actual offensive strike

against Richmond during the
campaign.

Over the next several days,
Lee's army

struck at McClellan repeatedly.

In battles at Beaver Dam
Creek,

Gaine's Mill, Garnett and
Golding's Farm,

Savage's Station, and
Glendale,

Lee's assaults had limited
success in damaging

McClellan's forces, but they did
succeed in pushing the Army of

the Potomac back and back,
further from Richmond.

The final fight occurred on
July 1,

at the Battle of Malvern Hill.

Union forces that day were
commanded

by Major General Fitz John
Porter.

Lee had prepared another
complex plan of attack,

but muddy roads and poor maps
prevented the coordinated

effort that was required to
succeed.

General Porter later described
the action of that day.

About 10 A.M. the
enemy's skirmishers

and artillery began feeling for
us along our line;

they kept up a desultory fire
until about 12 o'clock,

with no severe injury to our
infantry,

who were well masked, and who
revealed but little of our

strength or position
by retaliatory

firing or exposure.

The spasmodic, though
sometimes formidable attacks

of our antagonists, at
different points along our

whole front, up to about 4
o'clock,

were presumably demonstrations
or feelers,

to ascertain our strength,
preparatory to their engaging

in more serious work.

At about 5:30 o'clock, as
column after column advanced,

only to meet the same
disastrous repulse,

the sight became one of the
most interesting imaginable.

The havoc made by the rapidly
bursting shells from guns

arranged so to sweep any
position far and near,

and in any direction, was
fearful to behold.

Pressed to the extreme as they
were,

the courage of our men was
fully tried.

The safety of our army - the
life of the Union -

was felt to be at stake.

In one case the brigades of
Howe,

Abercrombie, and Palmer, of
Couch's division,

under impulse, gallantly
pushed after the retreating

foe, captured colors, and
advantageously advanced the

right of the line, but at
considerable

loss and great risk.

The brigades of Morell, cool,
well-disciplined,

and easily controlled, let the
enemy return after each

repulse, but permitted few to
escape their fire.

I sent messages to the
commanding general,

expressing the hope that our
withdrawal had ended and that

we should hold the ground now
occupied,

even if we did not assume the
offensive.

It was now after 9 o'clock at
night.

I received orders...
to withdraw, and to...

move at specified hours to
Harrison's Landing.

One should never
forget that these battles took

place on roads, fields, and
woods near the homes of

civilian families, trying to
survive while the world

exploded around them.

Edward Neill was a chaplain
with the First Minnesota

Volunteer Infantry Regiment,
at the Battle of Malvern Hill.

He described one family's
experience.

When night came,
I slept on a sofa

in the West house.

The person who seemed to be
the head of the household was

a gentle manly man, but
greatly worried by the

eruption of an invading army,
trampling down his crops.

Before the morning of... the
first of July,

Sumner's Corps reached Malvern
Hill from Glendale,

and was posted on the right of
the Union army.

About eight o'clock.

Confederate artillery took
position in a wheat field,

on the Poindexter farm, and
opened fire,

the shells bursting near the
West house.

The family, with some of their
neighbors,

in consternation fled into the
cellar,

to which there was access by a
large outside door.

The Confederate
assault at Malvern Hill failed

to gain ground against the
Union troops,

whose position was nearly
impregnable.

The rebels never got within
two hundred yards

of the main Union line.

Union artillery tore the
Confederates apart,

as wave after wave of rebels
continued to attack.

Lee's men took over fifty-six
hundred casualties,

compared with twenty-one
hundred

for the Army of the Potomac.

However, despite achieving
victory in the battle,

McClellan withdrew to
Harrison's Landing on the

James River, where his army
could be protected

by Union gunboats.

McClellan informed the
President that Richmond could

not be taken at this time, and
they returned north.

Once again McClellan had failed
to deliver the

offensive strike that Lincoln
was looking for.

McClellan himself blamed the
failure on delays by Lincoln

and Halleck, in providing
reinforcements,

but Lincoln was convinced,
now,

that McClellan was not the man
he needed

to lead the Union attack.

On June 26, 1862, President
Lincoln reorganized the Union

forces, creating the Army of
Virginia - not to be confused

with Robert E. Lee's Army of
Northern Virginia.

Lincoln gave the command to
Major General John Pope,

who had recently been highly
successful

in the Western Theater of
operations.

Lincoln's orders to the Army
of Virginia were for it to

protect the capital, but also
"in the speediest manner

attack and overcome the rebel
forces..."

In other words, Lincoln wanted
action.

Pope issued a number of orders
that indicated that he would

take a harder approach against
the rebels than McClellan

would have considered.

His General Order Number Five
directed that his troops

"be subsisted on the country in
which their operations

are conducted..."

In other words, the soldiers
should take what they needed -

food, supplies, horses, mules -

from the citizens of rebel
states.

A harbinger of things to come,
under Generals Sheridan and

Sherman in 1864.

In mid-July, Pope led a force
into Culpeper Court House.

By the end of the month, Pope
had over forty thousand men

occupying the village.

Lee, ever the aggressive
fighter,

was confident that McClellan
would not attack - though he

was still camped near
Richmond.

Lee sent Stonewall Jackson,
with General A.P. Hill's

division, to head off Pope in
Gordonsville.

On August 9th, Union and
Confederate forces clashed at

the base of Cedar Mountain,
eight miles south of Culpeper.

Pope's forces were moving
south,

toward Gordonsville.

Jackson hoped to strike at the
lead elements,

under General Banks, and
defeat them before they could

merge again with the rest of
the Union force.

Jackson was surprised by the
force of the attack by Banks'

troops, and initially the
Confederate general and his

men were pushed back.

But Jackson was able to rally
his men,

especially the famous
Stonewall Brigade,

and they were able to drive
the Union forces

from the field.

Jackson was unable to shatter
Banks' corps,

but the very presence of
Jackson's troops made the

Union nervous.

Having once again been given the
initiative,

Robert E. Lee would not waste
it.

Lee needed to smash Pope's
army before it was joined by

the Army of the Potomac.

On August 25th, Lee sent
Jackson on a wide movement

around Pope's west flank, to
strike in the rear

of Pope's forces.

Jackson's infantry was
referred to as "foot cavalry,

for they moved faster on foot
than most believed possible.

Jackson used his knowledge of
the terrain to find unexpected

routes to and around the
enemy,

and he had the ability to
inspire his men to endure

long, hard marches.

Confederate Major General W.B.
Taliaferro

described Stonewall Jackson's
"Raid Around Pope."

Stonewall Jackson,
with Ewell's and A.P. Hill's

divisions and his own old
division under my command,

marched northward...

to cut Pope's communications
and destroy his supplies.

Quartermasters
and commissaries...

were left behind...

three days' meager rations had
been cooked and stowed away in

haversacks and pockets; and
tin cans and an occasional

frying-pan constituted the
entire camp-equipage.

Jackson kept their
destination known

only to a few, to ensure
secrecy.

This extreme
reticence was very

uncomfortable and annoying to
his subordinate commanders,

and was sometimes carried too
far;

but it was the real secret of
the reputation for ubiquity

which he had acquired, and
which was so well expressed by

General McClellan in one of
his dispatches:

"I am afraid of Jackson; he will
turn up where least expected."

Jackson marched his
re-supplied men through the

night, toward the field where
the South had earned its first

great victory: Manassas, near
Bull Run Creek.

The Battle of Second Manassas,
or Second Bull Run,

began on August 28, near the
Brawner family farm.

After their long night march,
Jackson and most of his men

were catching a few precious
moments of sleep.

Then a captured Union message
was brought to Jackson,

indicating that Pope intended
to concentrate his forces

at Manassas Junction.

Taliaferro writes:

The captured
dispatch aroused Jackson

like an electric shock.

He was essentially a man of
action;

he rarely, if ever, hesitated;
he never asked advice;

he did not seem to reflect, or
reason out a purpose;

but he leapt by instinct...

to a conclusion, and then as
rapidly

undertook its execution...

In this fight there
was no maneuvering,

and very little tactics - it
was a question of endurance,

and both endured.

Jackson did not achieve a
decisive victory,

with both sides taking heavy
casualties.

But he did succeed in getting
General Pope's attention.

Pope had been looking for
Jackson,

fearful of where and when he
might crop up.

And now he'd found him.

But he miss-read the
situation.

He believed that Jackson had
been in retreat

when the forces clashed.

Pope knew that Longstreet was
coming to reinforce Jackson,

but he thought that now he had
"caught" Jackson before those

reinforcements could arrive.

The next day, August 29, Pope
threw his forces at Jackson,

who had entrenched along an
unfinished railroad grade.

Pope had the numerically
superior force,

but Jackson's defenses were
strong.

Again, casualties were high.

But the Confederates pushed
the Union forces back

time and again.

Around noon on that day,
Longstreet's force arrived,

marching out of Thoroughfare
Gap to take position

on Jackson's right.

Pope ordered Major General
Fitz John Porter to attack,

but Porter, seeing that he
would be overwhelmed by

Longstreet's force, held firm.

The next day, August 30, Pope
again ordered Porter's Fifth

Corps to attack.

He seemed oblivious to the
fact that Longstreet's arrival

eliminated the Union's
advantage in men.

Pope didn't realize it, but he
was playing

into Robert E. Lee's hands.

Pope kept expecting the
Confederates to retreat,

but Lee was hoping to be
attacked.

Confederate artillery tore
apart the attack by Porter's

Fifth Corps, and then
Longstreet's twenty-five

thousand infantry crushed the
Union left flank.

It was not the rout of First
Manassas,

with terrified Union troops
fleeing the field

in complete disorder.

But it was another
embarrassing Union defeat.

Pope was removed by Abraham
Lincoln,

and sent back west, on
September 16.

Faced with his broken and
disorganized army,

Lincoln now turned - no doubt
reluctantly - to the man who

had rebuilt the Army of the
Potomac after the first loss

at Bull Run: General George
McClellan.

McClellan would get one more
chance to create a highly

trained, professional army,
and prove that he could then

lead that army to victory
against the Confederacy's

greatest general.

For in the wake of another
stunning victory

at Manassas, Virginia, Robert E.
Lee was turning north.