Union general John Pope was among the most controversial and misunderstood figures to hold major command during the Civil War. Before being called east in June 1862 to lead the Army of Virginia against General Robert E. Lee, he compiled an enviable record in Missouri and as commander of the Army of the Mississippi. After his ignominious defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, he was sent to the frontier. Over the next twenty-four years Pope held important department commands on the western plains and was recognized as one of the army's leading authorities on Indian affairs, but he never again commanded troops in battle. In 1886, Pope was engaged by the National Tribune, a weekly newspaper published in Washington, D.C., to write a series of articles on his wartime experiences. Over the next five years, in twenty-nine installments, he wrote about the war as he had lived it. Collected here for the first time, Pope's "war reminiscences" join a select roster of memoirs written by Civil War army commanders. Pope presents a detailed review of the campaigns in which he participated and offers vivid character sketches of such illustrious figures as Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Clearly written and balanced in tone, his memoirs are a dramatic and important addition to the literature on the Civil War. Originally published in 1998. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Ambitious and outspoken, John Pope was one of the most controversial figures to hold high command during the Civil War, Reconstruction, and in the American West. General John Pope: A Life for the Nation is the first full biography of this much maligned figure who played crucial roles in both the Eastern and the Western Theaters of the Civil War. Renowned Civil War scholar Peter Cozzens has mined Pope's own memoirs and a wealth of other primary sources to provide a complete picture of this gifted strategist. Uncovering new information about Pope's pre- and postwar career and his path to power, Cozzens delineates the political environment that surrounded Pope and provided the context for his actions. Cozzens examines Pope's early career first as commander of the Army of the Mississippi and then as leader of a hastily formed Army of Virginia against Robert E. Lee. After his famous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Pope was sent to the frontier. There he held important commands on the western plains over the next twenty-four years, all the while struggling to clear his reputation of the events at Second Bull Run. A principal architect of the Red River War, which broke the resistance of the Southern Plains Indians, Pope espoused humanitarian treatment of subjugated tribes and was recognized as one of the army's leading authorities on Indian affairs. In place of the simplistic caricature that has satisfied most historians, Cozzens has crafted an accurate, humane, balanced portrait of a complex man involved with the most complex issues of his day. A monumental work on a long-neglected figure, General John Pope offers a fresh look at a key nineteenth-century military leader as well as the most detailed analysis available of Federal leadership during the Second Bull Run campaign.

Memoirs of the author of what life was like under the command of United States General John Pope during the American Civil War. Includes Stonewall Jackson, Gainesville, Cedar Mountain, Manassas, McClellan and more.

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Was the failure of the Army of Virginia at the Second Battle of Bull Run a result of General John Pope being a failure as a leader or were there other circumstances that helped him in his loss? General Pope had a long career in the Army that to the Second Battle of Bull Run had gone well. Pope had distinguished himself in the Mexican-American War and had done well early on in the western theater of operations during the Civil War. With his assumption of command in northern Virginia, Pope entered a realm in which he was unfamiliar, not welcomed by the troops he led and out of his league with regards to the Confederate leaders arrayed against him. Pope’s paranoia regarding commanders who had come from General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac resulted in a lack of trust in first-hand accounts from senior officers as well as intelligence presented. This lack of trust resulted in his disregarding the fact that General Lee and Longstreet had moved 25,000 Confederate soldiers through Thoroughfare Gap and combined forces with General Jackson and deployed them along the right flank of Jackson’s forces and perpendicular to Pope’s force. This force than proceeded to assail the Union flank to nearly disastrous proportions. The fog of war has clouded the judgment of many generals throughout history and Pope was no exception. The fog of war negatively affected his imagination and ability to think critically throughout the battle.

William Passmore Carlin (1829-1903), a native of Illinois, graduated from West Point in 1850 and served on frontier duty and in Utah before the Civil War. He began his Civil War career as the colonel of an Illinois regiment, served with distinction in early fighting in Missouri and Mississippi, and participated in important command roles at the battles of Perryville, Stones River, Liberty Gap, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Buzzard Roost, Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain, Jonesboro, and Bentonville and at the siege of Atlanta. He was a successful and important brigade and division commander from Perryville to Sherman's March to the Sea and into the Carolinas at the close of the war. Carlin remained in the army until he retired in 1893 as a brigadier general after significant further service in the West. To supplement Carlin's memoirs, the editors have provided two biographical essays and extensive annotation. They have consulted manuscript holdings in twenty-five repositories, including pertinent material from diaries, letters, reminiscences, and unit histories written by contemporaries. Readers of these memoirs have a rare chance to follow the career of an officer from the 1850s through Reconstruction and beyond.