СНАР. І. W. R. Vol. XII., Part III., pp. 473, 474. of conduct he ever committed. He had issued an address "To the officers and soldiers of the Army of Virginia," containing a few expressions which had made almost all the officers of the Army of the Potomac his enemies. He said: "I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when he was found; whose policy has been attack, and not defense. . . I presume that I have been called here to pursue the same system and to lead you against the enemy. It is my purpose to do so, and that speedily. . . I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases which I am sorry to find so much in vogue amongst you. 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. Let us look before us, and not behind. Success and glory are in the advance, disaster and shame lurk in the rear." This address, which had no other purpose than to encourage and inspirit his men, was received, to Pope's amazement, with a storm of angry ridicule, which lasted as long as he remained in command of the Army of Virginia, and very seriously weakened his hold upon the confidence of his troops and the respect of the public. As a matter of course it rendered impossible any sincere sympathy and support from General McClellan and those nearest to him. It may even be doubted whether there had been from the beginning any probability of a good understanding between them. From the moment Pope arrived from the West he was regarded with jealousy by the friends of McClellan as a certain rival and possible successor. СНАР. І. 1862. W. R. Vol. XI., Part III., In the last days of June, when McClellan made his first intimation of a change of base, Pope had suggested, and the President had conveyed his suggestion to McClellan, that it would be better for the latter, if forced to leave the line of the Chickahominy, to fall back on the Pamunkey. The source from which the suggestion came was sufficient to insure its rejection if there had been no other reason. Pope had taken great pains to establish friendly relations with McClellan, writing him as soon as he assumed command a long and cordial letter, giving him a full account of his situation and intentions, and inviting his confidence and sympathy in return. McClellan answered a few pp. 295-297. days later in a briefer letter, in which he clearly foreshadowed an intention to resist the withdrawal of his army from its present position. Handi- Ibid., p. 306. capped by this lack of cordial sympathy with him in the Army of the Potomac, Pope left Washington on the 29th of July to begin his work, the first object of which was to make a demonstration in the direction of Gordonsville to assist in the withdrawal of McClellan's army from the James. In pursuance of this intention Generals Banks and Sigel were ordered to move to Culpeper Court House. Banks promptly obeyed his orders, arriving there shortly before midnight on the 8th of August. Sigel, from some mistake as to the road, CHAP. I. did not get there until the evening of the next day. By that time Banks had gone forward to Cedar Mountain, and at that point, with a force of less than 8000 men of all arms, he attacked the army corps of Stonewall Jackson, consisting of Ewell's, A. P. Hill's, and Jackson's divisions, with such vigor and impetuosity that he came near defeating them. Though finally repulsed, he inflicted such a blow upon Jackson as to give him an exaggerated idea of his numbers; and hearing two days afterwards that Banks had been reënforced, Jackson thought best to retire to the Rapidan. W. R. Vol. XII., Part II., pp. 183-185. 1862. By this time General Lee, having become convinced that McClellan was about to leave the Peninsula, concluded to concentrate a large force upon Pope's advance, to attack and if possible to destroy it. On the 13th of August General Longstreet was ordered to the Rapidan with the divisions of Longstreet and Jackson and Stuart's cavalry corps. General Lee disposed of an army of about 54,000 men. Pope, finding himself so greatly outnumbered, retreated behind the Rappahannock, where he established himself without loss on the 20th of August. Thus far Pope had made no mistake. He had succeeded in checking the advance of Jackson, in withdrawing such a force of the enemy from Richmond as to leave McClellan's retreat unmolested, and had established his army in good condition on the north bank of the Rappahannock. Under orders from General Halleck he held the line of this river for eight days, repulsing several attempts of the enemy to cross, in hope, as the General-in-Chief said, "that during this time sufficient forces from the Army of the Potomac would reach Aquia Creek to enable us to prevent any further advance of Lee, and eventually, with the combined armies, to drive him back upon Richmond." Baffled in his repeated attempts to cross the Rappahannock in front of Pope's position, General Lee resolved upon a flank movement to the left, and intrusted it to Stonewall Jackson. The latter executed the task with amazing audacity and swiftness, marching round the right and rear of the Union army through the villages of Amissville, Orlean, and Salem, pouring his forces through Thoroughfare Gap in the Bull Run Mountains and striking Pope's line of communication and a valuable depot of supplies at Manassas Junction. Jackson retired from this place and took up his position in the morning of the 28th of August just north of the Warrenton turnpike, near the old battlefield of Bull Run. Longstreet's corps was so far behind Jackson that a rapid change of front and concentration of all the troops at Pope's and Halleck's disposal ought to have destroyed Jackson, isolated as he was from the rest of Lee's army. But his position was not ascertained as soon as it should have been. Owing to causes which have led to infinite controversy, the Union forces were not brought together with the directness and celerity required, and therefore it came about that in the morning of August 29 Pope's main army confronted Jackson on the Warrenton pike at Groveton; Porter was some three miles on the left near the Manassas Gap Railroad, and Longstreet was on the march from Thoroughfare Gap to effect his junction with Jackson's right. There was still an opportunity to win a great victory. CHAP. I. Halleck, Report, Nov. 25, 1862. W. R. Vol. XII., Part II., p. 6. 1862. СНАР. І. 1862. W. R. Part II., p. 76. General Fitz-John Porter, when at Warrenton Junction on the evening of the 27th of August, had received an order from General Pope to march at 1 A. M. to Bristoe Station; but, in the exercise of his own discretion, he did not march until dawn. This delay, however, had as yet no specially disastrous results, and would probably never have been brought into such prominence as it afterwards assumed had it not been for the light which it was supposed to cast upon subsequent events. Porter was, however, in his place on the morning of the 29th, with his splendid corps in fighting trim, some distance from General Pope's left and a little in rear of his line of battle. He had been ordered to Centreville the night before, but his orders had been changed, early in the morning, to proceed to Gainesville instead. No time had been lost by this change, as his new order found him, on his march, at Manassas Junction, whence he pushed out his column on the Gainesville road, his advance reaching a little stream called Dawkins Branch, where it halted. About nine o'clock General Pope issued to McDowell and Porter a joint order directing them to move their commands towards Gainesville, and to Vol. XII., establish communication between themselves and the main body on the Warrenton Turnpike. General McDowell relates in his testimony before the general court martial of Fitz-John Porter that he met General Porter near the little stream just mentioned, about three miles from Manassas Junction and five miles from Gainesville. They had some conversation in regard to the joint order, and McDowell communicated to Porter a dispatch he had |