Bull Run 2

Near the same battlefield of a year earlier, Union commander John Pope’s Army of Virginia skirmished repeatedly with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. In the late morning of August 29, 1862, Pope found his army in a classical position: Lee’s force was split into two wings, and Pope’s army lay squarely between them. With aggressive action, Pope could destroy each Confederate force in turn.

Pope hurled two corps against Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s men, dug in along an unfinished railroad cut. Soon many Confederates were reduced to hurling rocks at Pope’s men. But while Pope ignored the other Confederate wing and failed to concentrate his forces, Lee had quickly gathered his other corps, led by James Longstreet, and sent them into Pope’s flank in a crushing attack that nearly destroyed the Union army. Only Union Gen. “Fighting Joe” Hooker’s sharp rearguard action kept Lee from ending the war in what many historians call his finest battle as commander.