Cozzens, Peter and Robert Girardi - editors, THE MILITARY MEMOIRS OF GENERAL JOHN POPE. Chapel Hill, NC, 1998, 287 pages, portrait, notes, index, hardcover in dust jacket. Pope presents a detailed review of the campaigns in which he participated (Corinth, Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run Campaign) and offers eloquent character sketches of some of the war's most illustrious figures. (ISBN: 0807824445) BRAND NEW HARDCOVER in dust jacket! Never Read!
John Pope (March 16, 1822 – September 23, 1892) was a career
United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War. He had
a brief stint in the Western Theater, but he is best known for his defeat at
the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) in the East.
Pope was a graduate of the United States Military Academy in
1842. He served in the Mexican–American War and had numerous assignments as a
topographical engineer and surveyor in Florida, New Mexico, and Minnesota. He
spent much of the last decade before the Civil War surveying possible southern
routes for the proposed First Transcontinental Railroad. He was an early
appointee as a Union brigadier general of volunteers and served initially under
Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont. He achieved initial success against Brig. Gen.
Sterling Price in Missouri, then led a successful campaign that captured Island
No. 10 on the Mississippi River. This inspired the Lincoln administration to
bring him to the Eastern Theater to lead the newly formed Army of Virginia.
He initially alienated many of his officers and men by
publicly denigrating their record in comparison to his Western command. He
launched an offensive against the Confederate army of General Robert E. Lee, in
which he fell prey to a strategic turning movement into his rear areas by Maj.
Gen. Stonewall Jackson. At Second Bull Run, he concentrated his attention on
attacking Jackson while the other Confederate corps attacked his flank and
routed his army.
Following Manassas, Pope was banished far from the Eastern
Theater to the Department of the Northwest in Minnesota, where he commanded
U.S. Forces in the Dakota War of 1862. He was appointed to command the
Department of the Missouri in 1865 and was a prominent and activist commander
during Reconstruction in Atlanta. For the rest of his military career, he
fought in the Indian Wars, particularly against the Apache and Sioux.
Early life[edit]
Pope was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Nathaniel
Pope, a prominent Federal judge in early Illinois Territory and a friend of
lawyer Abraham Lincoln.[1] He was the brother-in-law of Manning Force, and a
distant cousin married the sister of Mary Todd Lincoln.[2] He graduated from
the United States Military Academy, 17th in a class of 56, in 1842, and was
commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the Corps of Topographical
Engineers.[2]
He served in Florida and then helped survey the northeastern
border between the United States and Canada. He fought under Zachary Taylor in
the Battle of Monterrey and Battle of Buena Vista during the Mexican–American
War, for which he was appointed a brevet first lieutenant and captain,
respectively.[2] After the war Pope worked as a surveyor in Minnesota. In 1850
he demonstrated the navigability of the Red River. He served as the chief engineer
of the Department of New Mexico from 1851 to 1853 and spent the remainder of
the antebellum years surveying a route for the Pacific Railroad.[1]
Civil War[edit]
Pope was serving on lighthouse duty when Abraham Lincoln was
elected and he was one of four officers selected to escort the president-elect
to Washington, D.C.[1] He offered to serve Lincoln as an aide, but on June 14,
1861, he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers (date of rank effective
May 17, 1861)[3] and was ordered to Illinois to recruit volunteers.[citation
needed]
In the Department of the West under Maj. Gen. John C.
Frémont, Pope assumed command of the District of North and Central Missouri in
July, with operational control along a portion of the Mississippi River. He had
an uncomfortable relationship with Frémont and politicked behind the scenes to
get him removed from command. Frémont was convinced that Pope had treacherous
intentions toward him, demonstrated by his lack of action in following
Frémont's offensive plans in Missouri. Historian Allan Nevins wrote,
"Actually, incompetence and timidity offer a better explanation of Pope
than treachery, though he certainly showed an insubordinate spirit."[4]
Pope eventually forced the Confederates under Sterling Price
to retreat southward, taking 1,200 prisoners in a minor action at Blackwater,
Missouri, on December 18. Pope, who established a reputation as a braggart
early in the war, was able to generate significant press interest in his minor
victory, which brought him to the attention of Frémont's replacement, Maj. Gen.
Henry W. Halleck.[1]
Halleck appointed Pope to command the Army of the
Mississippi (and the District of the Mississippi, Department of the Missouri)
on February 23, 1862.[2] Given 25,000 men, he was ordered to clear Confederate
obstacles on the Mississippi River. He made a surprise march on New Madrid,
Missouri, and captured it on March 14. He then orchestrated a campaign to
capture Island No. 10, a strongly fortified post garrisoned by 12,000 men and
58 guns. Pope's engineers cut a channel that allowed him to bypass the island.
Assisted by the gunboats of Captain Andrew H. Foote, he landed his men on the
opposite shore, which isolated the defenders. The island garrison surrendered
on April 7, 1862, freeing Union navigation of the Mississippi as far south as
Memphis.[1]
Pope's outstanding performance on the Mississippi earned him
a promotion to major general, dated as of March 21, 1862.[2] During the Siege
of Corinth, he commanded the left wing of Halleck's army, but he was soon
summoned to the East by Lincoln. After the collapse of Maj. Gen. George B.
McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, Pope was appointed to command the Army of
Virginia, assembled from scattered forces in the Shenandoah Valley and Northern
Virginia. This promotion infuriated Frémont, who resigned his commission.[1]
Pope brought an attitude of self-assurance that was
offensive to the eastern soldiers under his command. He issued an astonishing
message to his new army on July 14, 1862, that included the following:[5]
Let us understand each other. 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. In but one instance has the enemy
been able to place our Western armies in defensive attitude. 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 am sure you long for an
opportunity to win the distinction you are capable of achieving. That
opportunity I shall endeavor to give you. Meantime 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. Let us act on this understanding,
and it is safe to predict that your banners shall be inscribed with many a
glorious deed and that your names will be dear to your countrymen forever
— John Pope, message to the Army of Virginia
Despite this bravado, and despite receiving units from
McClellan's Army of the Potomac that swelled the Army of Virginia to 70,000
men, Pope's aggressiveness exceeded his strategic capabilities, particularly
since he was now facing Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Lee, sensing that
Pope was indecisive, split his smaller (55,000 man) army, sending Maj. Gen.
Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson with 24,000 men as a diversion to Cedar
Mountain, where Jackson defeated Pope's subordinate, Nathaniel Banks.[1]
As Lee advanced on Pope with the remainder of his army,
Jackson swung around to the north and captured Pope's main supply base at
Manassas Station. Confused and unable to locate the main Confederate force,
Pope walked into a trap in the Second Battle of Bull Run. His men withstood a
combined attack by Jackson and Lee on August 29, 1862, but on the following day
Maj. Gen. James Longstreet launched a surprise flanking attack and the Union
Army was soundly defeated and forced to retreat. Pope compounded his unpopularity
with the Army by blaming his defeat on disobedience by Maj. Gen. Fitz John
Porter, who was found guilty by court-martial and disgraced.[1]
Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams, who served briefly
under Pope, held the general in particularly low esteem. In a letter to his
daughter, he wrote:
All this is the sequence of Gen. Pope's high sounding
manifestoes. His pompous orders ... greatly disgusted his army from the first.
When a general boasts that he will look only on the backs of his enemies, that
he takes no care for lines of retreat or bases of supplies; when, in short,
from a snug hotel in Washington he issues after-dinner orders to gratify public
taste and his own self-esteem, anyone may confidently look for results such as
have followed the bungling management of his last campaign ... I dare not trust
myself to speak of this commander as I feel and believe. Suffice it to say (for
your eye alone) that more insolence, superciliousness, ignorance, and
pretentiousness were never combined in one man. It can with truth be said of
him that he had not a friend in his command from the smallest drummer boy to
the highest general officer. All hated him."[6]
Pope himself was relieved of command on September 12, 1862,
and his army was merged into the Army of the Potomac under McClellan. He spent
the remainder of the war in the Department of the Northwest in Minnesota,
dealing with the Dakota War of 1862. His months campaigning in the West paid
career dividends because he was assigned to command the Military Division of
the Missouri on January 30, 1865, and received a brevet promotion to major
general in the regular army on March 13, 1865, for his service at Island No.
10.[1][2]
On June 27, 1865, the War Department issued General Order
No. 118 dividing the entire United States, including the states formerly a part
of the Confederacy, into five military divisions and 19 subordinate
geographical departments. Major General William T. Sherman was assigned to
command the Division of the Missouri. Pope then became commander of its
Department of the Missouri, replacing Major General Grenville M.
Dodge.[citation needed]
Shortly after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House,
Pope wrote a letter to Edmund Kirby-Smith offering the Confederates in
Louisiana the same surrender terms that Grant allowed for Lee. He told
Kirby-Smith that further resistance was futile and urged the general to avoid
needless bloodshed, devastation, and misery by accepting the surrender terms.
Kirby-Smith, however, rejected Pope's overtures and said that his army remained
"strong and well equipped and that despite the 'disparity of numbers' his
men could outweigh the differences 'by valor and skill'." Five weeks later
Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner signed the surrender in New Orleans.[7]
Postbellum years[edit]
In April 1867, Pope was named governor of the Reconstruction
Third Military District and made his headquarters in Atlanta, issuing orders
that allowed African Americans to serve on juries, ordering Mayor James
Williams to remain in office another year, postponing elections, and banning
city advertising in newspapers that did not favor Reconstruction. President
Andrew Johnson removed him from command December 28, 1867, replacing him with
George G. Meade.[8] Following this, Pope was appointed head of the Department
of the Lakes (based in Detroit, Michigan) from January 13, 1868, to April 30,
1870.[9]
Pope returned to the West as commander of the Department of
the Missouri (the nation's second largest geographical command) during the
Grant presidency, and held that command through 1883.[9] He served with
distinction in the Apache Wars, including the Red River War relocating Southern
Plains tribes to reservations in Oklahoma. General Pope made political enemies
in Washington when he recommended that the reservation system would be better
administered by the military than the corrupt Indian Bureau. He also engendered
controversy by calling for better and more humane treatment of Native
Americans,[1] but author Walter Donald Kennedy notes that he also said "It
is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux" and planned to make a
"final settlement with all these Indians".[10]
Pope's reputation suffered a serious blow in 1879 when a
late-convened Board of Inquiry called by President Rutherford B. Hayes and led
by Maj. Gen. John Schofield (Pope's immediate predecessor in the Department of
the Missouri and then head of the Department of the Pacific) concluded that
Major General Fitz John Porter had been unfairly convicted of cowardice and
disobedience at the Second Battle of Bull Run. The Schofield report used
evidence of former Confederate commanders and concluded that Pope himself bore
most of the responsibility for the Union loss. The report characterized Pope as
reckless and dangerously uninformed about events during the battle, also
criticized General Irvin McDowell (whom Pope detested), and credited Porter's
perceived disobedience with saving the Union army from complete ruin.
Pope was promoted to major general in the Regular Army in
1882 and was assigned to command of the Military Division of the Pacific in
1883 where he served until his retirement.[11]
Death and legacy[edit]
Pope retired as a major general in the Regular Army on March
16, 1886, and his wife, Clara Pope, died two years later. The National Tribune
serialized his memoirs, publishing them between February 1887 and March
1891.[12] General Pope died on September 23, 1892, at the Ohio Soldiers' Home
near Sandusky, Ohio.[2] He is buried beside his wife in Bellefontaine Cemetery,
St. Louis, Missouri.[9]