Part 1
Following Confederate General Thomas Jackson’s Shennandoah Valley Campaign in the spring of 1862, Union President Abraham Lincoln sought to unify the union forces in the Shennandoah Valley and northern Virginia. Union General John Pope’s sound performance in command of the Army of Mississippi during the spring of 1862 led to his selection by President Lincoln to command this reorganized force in June.1 Pope’s mission was to “protect Washington, threaten Richmond, and relieve pressure on (General George) McClellan.”2 Initially General Henry W. Halleck objected to the loss of an efficient commander to the western armies.3 After the battle of Shiloh in April 1862, Halleck had posted General U.S. Grant to the position of assistant commander of the union armies in Mississippi.4 It was after Shiloh that Lincoln answered Grant’s critics by saying “I can’t spare this man, he fights.”5 Its clear Lincoln believed Grant to be a fighting general and that Grant desired independent command. In July Halleck was appointed General-in-Chief of the Union Armies and moved his headquarters to Washington. What may have been the out come of the Second Manassas Campaign in the event that Grant and not Pope had been transferred to command the new Army of Virginia?
Halleck, up to that time, did not regard Grant as any special asset as a commander and may have reasoned that sending Grant east would have saved him the efficient Pope, while ridding him of Grant. Halleck had been impressed with General John Pope’s campaign against Island Number Ten in April 1862 and saw it as a more important victory than the Donelson Campaign.6 Pope’s performance in command of the Army of Mississippi during the spring of 1862 brought him to the President’s attention. General Halleck was a highly qualified and dedicated Union officer who put military considerations before personalities.7 Had Halleck been more inclined, as many civil war commanders were, to make appointments based on personalities and personal interest, perhaps Grant could have been transferred to command in Virginia in June 1862.
The union forces in Virginia under Union Generals Fremont, Banks, and McDowell in June 1862 were regrouping after Jackson’s startling Shennandoah Valley campaign. General John C. Fremont and General Nathaniel Banks’ troops were in the upper valley near Harrisonburg. The forces under General Irvin McDowell were spread out from the Valley to Manassas.8 Jackson’s campaign had clearly shown the pitfalls in sending three separate commands against one unified force. He had shown that rapid and decisive movements could offset the disadvantage of inferior numbers. Jackson continued to show the power of mobility by action against General George McClellan’s army on the Peninsula while under General Robert E. Lee’s command in June.9 While McClellan and Lee grappled before Richmond, Lincoln ordered reorganization of the union forces in northwestern Virginia. He sought, in contrast to McClellan, an aggressive fighting general.10 The job would require patience to coordinate with the union force on the Peninsula and the judgement to respond independently to any threat to Washington.
Most historians agree that two of Grant’s most important qualities were aggressiveness and determination.11 Grant himself told how at his first significant action as a commander in 1861, he at first felt great apprehension for what the result may be. When Grant’s force had finally reached the enemy’s position the force had already retreated. After more thought, he realized that the opposing commander must feel much the same aniexty for success in battle. This led to the conclusion that if he could only keep his head and avoid panic he would enjoy at least a small advantage over his nervous opponent.12 Grant, armed with this understanding, was able to stay cool under pressure since his very coolness acted as an additional weapon. His tendency to be aggressive and determined was the natural result of this philosophy. Grant saw combat as a contest as to which commander would blink first, a test of the leader’s will. He proved that on most fields, his was the superior will. This was largely the limit of Grant’s knowledge and philosophy of war, strategy, and tactics. His background and experience could support little more.13
In contrast, General Pope was a professional soldier who graduated from West Point one year ahead of Grant. At the start of the war, he had 19 years continuous service.14 His victory at Island Number Ten was largely a precursor to Grant’s Vicksburg campaign though much smaller in scale. Nonetheless, Pope’s use of gunboats, a canal bypass of the Mississippi and ferrying of his troops across the river to cut the enemy line of retreat are strikingly similar to the action against Vicksburg, April to July 1863. Pope began his operation February 20, 1862 and captured Island Number Ten on April 7th the second day of the battle of Shiloh.15 Grant operated against Vicksburg for nine months making five failed attempts from October 1862 to April 1863.16 He finally succeeded, in July 1863, by making a strategic move reminiscent of Pope’s victory at Island Number Ten over a year before.
If Grant had been sent east to command the army of Virginia instead of Pope, what are the relative command characteristics of the two men that would support a conclusion that the out come of the campaign would have been different based on a different commander? The primary command characteristics of both Grant and Pope were that each was an aggressive and determined commander. Another characteristic common to both men is that they each were in general agreement with Lincoln’s political aims and policies in how to fight the war.17 Pope was surprised by Lee and Jackson’s envelopment of the Army of Virginia. Grant was surprised by Confederate Generals A. S. Johnston and Pierre Beauregard’s attack at Shiloh.18 In Dec 1862, Grant was surprised by General Earl Van Dorn’s envelopment and capture of Holly Springs in Grant’s rear in a way similar to the envelopment of Pope in August in the Second Bull Run campaign, though by a much smaller force.19 With the background and general characteristics of Grant and Pope being so similar, what factors would have contributed to a different outcome if Grant had been in Pope’s place?
In the Second Bull Run Campaign Lee and Jackson succeeded in distracting Pope well enough to put Jackson’s command of 25,000 men nearly 20 miles in the rear of Pope’s main position behind the Rappahannock River. Pope had actually noted the movement by a part of Lee’s force but accepted it as a move into the lower Shenandoah Valley and away from his position. After a two day march covering some fifty miles Jackson made contact with Pope’s depot near Bristoe Station. Pope moved aggressively to meet Jackson before Lee’s whole force could join him. For two days, August 29 and 30, Pope’s force of 60,000 attacked Jackson’s position on Sudley Ridge held by about 24,000 men. Late in the afternoon of the 30th, Pope was surprised again by General James Longstreet’s attack on the union left. Pope completed his withdrawal to Centerville by evening of the 31st. The next day Pope continued his retreat into the defenses of Washington.20
General A.S. Johnston succeeded in placing his army of 40,000 men in attack formation on the night of April 5-6 1862 not more than a mile from the union position at Shiloh without being noticed by Grant.21 The next morning the Confederate attack surprised the union forces in their camps and drove them back about four miles. In the process, Johnston was mortally wounded. By evening, and after some twelve hours of action, the Confederate force lost steam and the fighting stopped.22 Next morning, reinforced by 25,000 fresh troops from General Don Carlos Buell’s army, the union force attacked and succeeded in forcing the southern troops back to their original attack positions. That evening Confederate forces retreated to Corinth.23 At the close of the first day’s fight at Shiloh both sides were exhausted. Its not clear that the union force would have been able to attack at all on the morning of the 7th without the reinforcements from Buell’s army, and doubtful that the attack would have been so effective. But for union reinforcements, Johnston’s mortal wound and the exhausted southern troops, it is not likely that the union force could have avoided an indecisive and even more costly stalemate.
At Second Bull Run, Pope was surprised and his right enveloped after losing contact with a sizable portion of Lee’s army. At Shiloh the confederates surprised and drove Grant’s troops four miles after he had lost contact with Johnston’s Army. In September 1862, Grant’s force of some 60,000 in west Tennessee was distributed from Memphis to Corinth, a distance of about 90 miles.24 Van Dorn succeeded in penetrating this area, gained the rear of Rosecrans advance force at Corinth, and attacked Rosecrans from the northwest.25 Again, failure to maintain contact with a sizable portion of the enemy force resulted in a surprise and risked defeat for the union forces. By December the advance of Grant’s force, now led by Grant himself, had advanced into Mississippi fifty miles to Oxford. On December 20 Van Dorn led a small column and again enveloped Grant’s advance force striking his main supply base at Holly Springs, 30 miles north. The next day Grant began his withdrawal fifty miles to Grand Junction near the Tennessee border. He then withdrew to Memphis and transferred his force by river to Young’s Point about two hundred miles down the Mississippi.26
We see that from April to December 1862 Grant repeatedly lost contact with substantial portions of the opposing force, resulting in enemy envelopment of large units of his command and in each case a real disaster was narrowly avoided. Any suggestion that Grant had learned the lesson of maintaining contact with his enemy after Shiloh is clearly discredited by his performance against Van Dorn in Tennessee and Mississippi. To suggest that had Grant been in Virginia in Pope’s place in August; that he would have some how managed to avoid being enveloped as Pope was, is contrary to his proven tendency to allow himself to be enveloped during this period. Given that Lee and Jackson had accomplished more surprise envelopments than any other Civil War generals and with Grant’s vulnerability to this kind of action clearly demonstrated, it is very difficult to accept the suggestion that Lee and Jackson would not have been able to execute the same movement with much the same effect, or something very close to it, against Grant.27
Pope’s reaction to Jackson’s movement was in keeping with his natural aggressiveness. He withdrew to cover his rear and when in contact he attacked. Pope continued his attack for two days and withdrew only when Longstreet surprised his left flank.28 At Oxford, Grant withdrew to cover his rear. At Shiloh Grant counter attacked when the enemy gave him the chance. Both of these reactions are consistent with Pope’s reponses to similar situations. Pope was new to the Virginia campaign area and had not had time to establish a moral connection to his new army. Grant would have been in just the same situation. McClellan was resentful of Pope’s position and withheld his cooperation.29 There does not appear to be any reason to think that McClellan would have received Grant any differently. It is very unlikely that Grant could have gained any advantage from better cooperation with McClellan. Part of Pope’s army included corps from McClellan’s army and included commanders loyal to McClellan. There is no reason to expect that their cooperation with Grant would have been significantly better than with Pope. We can not then suggest that more troops or more support from other units would have helped Grant.
Grant’s consistent attack pattern was to deploy his force across the front of the enemy from flank to flank and attack frontally. He did this at Belmont, Shiloh, Champion’s Hill, Black River Bridge, and Chattanooga.30 It is well recognized that Grant was determined as well as aggressive. This characteristic meant he tended to make sustined attacks in the face of an initial repulse. This is the same pattern of attack as shown by Pope at Second Bull Run. Therefore, once Jackson had gotten in Grant’s rear, there is no evidence that he would have behaved much different than Pope. Further, we can find no evidence to suggest that the overall out come could reasonably be expected to have been much different.