Who won the Second Battle of Bull Run?
The Confederates won. At the Second Battle of Bull Run, or Second Manassas, fought from 28 to 30 August 1862, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia defeated John Pope's larger Army of Virginia. Stonewall Jackson held a railroad cut against two days of attacks, then James Longstreet's flank attack drove Pope back across Bull Run toward Washington.1
On the night of 30 August 1862 a beaten Union army retreated across Bull Run, the stream where the North had lost the first great battle of the war thirteen months earlier. In three days of fighting around the village of Groveton, near Manassas Junction, General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had outmarched, outfought and finally outflanked Major General John Pope's Army of Virginia. During the war the Union usually named a battle after the nearest stream and the Confederacy after the nearest town or railroad junction, so the North calls it the Second Battle of Bull Run and the South Second Manassas, while Union reports in the Official Records speak of the battles of Groveton and Bull Run.2
The battle came only weeks after the Seven Days Battles had driven George McClellan's army back from Richmond. It was the second great clash on the ground of the First Battle of Bull Run of July 1861, it opened the road for Lee's first invasion of the North, and it cost John Pope his command and Fitz John Porter his career. It belongs to the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War, where Lee won his most famous victories.3
Who won the Second Battle of Bull Run?
Lee won a clear victory. The American Battlefield Trust calls it a decisive Confederate victory: Lee defeated a larger Union army and drove it back toward Washington. The National Park Service ranks it among the two most significant Confederate victories of the war, with Chancellorsville, because each opened the way for an invasion of the North.4
The victory had two halves. For two days Stonewall Jackson's wing held a defensive line against Pope's attacks. On the afternoon of 30 August, Longstreet's wing, which had come up on Jackson's right the day before, struck the open Union left. Lee himself wrote that the whole line then "swept steadily on," and the fighting ended only when darkness stopped the pursuit.5
Why did Lee march against Pope in August 1862?
In June 1862 the Union combined its scattered forces in northern Virginia into a new Army of Virginia under John Pope, brought east after successes in the West. Encyclopedia Virginia dates his appointment to 26 June. His army was to protect Washington and the Shenandoah Valley and to draw Confederate strength away from McClellan, who was then still on the Virginia Peninsula.6
Pope arrived with a reputation for boasting. Longstreet later recalled that the new commander was said to have adopted the phrase "Headquarters in the saddle," and Encyclopedia Virginia writes that Pope promised to make his headquarters in the saddle and that his proclamation belittled the Eastern troops. Pope later denied using the phrase. Lee, according to Longstreet, came to regard Pope as boastful and careless of the means to his ends.7
Jackson defeated part of Pope's army under Nathaniel Banks at Cedar Mountain on 9 August, and Pope halted to concentrate his forces. Lee's report explains the next step: with McClellan's army leaving the James River to join Pope, the best way to protect Richmond was to reinforce Jackson and advance against Pope before the two Union armies could unite. On 13 August Longstreet's command was ordered north to Gordonsville.8
After a week of sparring along the Rapidan and Rappahannock, on the night of 22 August J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry raided Catlett's Station and, as Jackson's report records, captured Pope's papers, including his dispatch book. Alexander notes that it held copies of Pope's most important correspondence with Lincoln, Halleck and others.9
How did Jackson get behind Pope's army?
On 25 August Lee sent Jackson's wing on a wide march around Pope's right flank while Longstreet held the Union army's attention along the Rappahannock. Jackson crossed the river above Waterloo, camped near Salem that night, and on 26 August passed through Thoroughfare Gap in the Bull Run Mountains and Gainesville. After sunset he struck the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, Pope's supply line, at Bristoe Station, where his men captured two trains. The National Park Service puts the march at more than 50 miles.10
Jackson then sent General Isaac Trimble with two regiments, about 500 men, and Stuart's cavalry seven miles up the line to Manassas Junction. Jackson noted that by the time they arrived his men would have marched more than 30 miles since dawn. The depot fell around midnight. Jackson's report lists eight guns, more than 300 prisoners, 175 horses and immense quantities of stores captured.11
The rest of Jackson's command reached the Junction on 27 August and spent the day feeding and equipping itself from the Union stores. That night, unable to carry away what remained, the Confederates burned it: Lee's report counts 50,000 pounds of bacon, 1,000 barrels of corned beef, 2,000 barrels of salt pork and 2,000 barrels of flour. Jackson then slipped away north to a hidden position near Groveton, on the edge of the 1861 battlefield, where he could wait for Longstreet.12
What happened at Brawner's Farm on 28 August?
Late on 28 August a Union column, Rufus King's division of Irvin McDowell's corps, marched east along the Warrenton Turnpike past Jackson's hidden men. Around 6 p.m. Jackson attacked it on the farm of the Brawner family. Jackson's report says the lines stood less than 100 yards apart until about 9 p.m., when the Federals fell back.13
The heaviest Union share of the fight fell on John Gibbon's brigade of Wisconsin and Indiana regiments, untried troops facing Jackson's veterans, including the Stonewall Brigade. Edward Porter Alexander, a Confederate artillery officer who later wrote a careful history of the campaign, estimated that Gibbon's brigade lost about 750 of its 2,300 men. On the Confederate side Richard Ewell was badly wounded and lost a leg, and William Taliaferro was also wounded. King's division withdrew at about 1 a.m.14
The clash revealed Jackson's position, but Pope believed Jackson was trying to escape and ordered his scattered corps to converge and destroy him, not realizing that Longstreet was already marching through Thoroughfare Gap to join Jackson.15
Why did Pope's attacks on the railroad cut fail on 29 August?
On 29 August Jackson's three divisions held the grade of an unfinished railroad that ran north from near the turnpike toward Sudley Ford, its cuts and embankments a ready-made breastwork. Alexander estimates Jackson's strength at about 18,000 infantry with 40 guns, and the Union forces within reach of the field at about 64,000.16
The Union attacks began early in the morning and continued through the afternoon, but they came one brigade or division at a time. Several broke into the line: Cuvier Grover's brigade made a bayonet charge that Pope says pierced two Confederate lines, and at about 5 p.m. the divisions of Philip Kearny and Jesse Reno drove back A. P. Hill's brigades on Jackson's left. Each time Confederate reserves restored the line. Lee's report says that Maxcy Gregg's brigade fought until its ammunition was gone and all but two of its field officers were killed or wounded.17
Meanwhile Longstreet's wing arrived. By Longstreet's own account the head of his column reached Gainesville at about 9 a.m. and his line was deployed on Jackson's right by noon, overlapping the Union left. Lee urged him to attack. Longstreet, judging the position unfavorable, persuaded Lee to wait, a delay that the National Park Service also records.18
Pope did not know this. At 4.30 p.m. he sent Fitz John Porter, whose corps stood south of the turnpike, an order to push forward into action on the enemy's right flank and, if possible, his rear. Alexander records that the order did not reach Porter until about 6.30 p.m., and that Porter's 9,000 to 10,000 men faced Longstreet's corps of nearly 25,000. Porter did not attack, and the day ended with Jackson's line intact.19
How did Longstreet's flank attack win the battle on 30 August?
On the morning of 30 August Pope wrongly concluded that the Confederates were retreating and, just before noon, ordered a pursuit. Longstreet recalled that Pope telegraphed Washington that the enemy was in full retreat. The pursuit ran into Jackson's men, who were still behind the railroad.20
Around 3 p.m. Pope sent Porter's corps, with part of McDowell's, against Jackson's right at the "Deep Cut," held by William Starke's division. Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, commanding a brigade in the cut, reported that a Union flag stood within ten yards of his line for half an hour and that his men "fought until their ammunition was exhausted and then threw stones." Artillery on Longstreet's front, including Stephen D. Lee's battalion, swept the supporting Union lines from the flank, and the attack broke.21
At about 4 p.m. Lee ordered a general advance, and Longstreet threw his whole wing against the Union left. Encyclopedia Virginia puts the attack at nearly 25,000 infantry and calls it one of the largest flank attacks of the Civil War, while a later American Battlefield Trust article gives nearly 30,000 men.22
Union brigades rushed south to Chinn Ridge and fought there through the late afternoon. Their resistance crumbled shortly before 6 p.m., but the American Battlefield Trust notes that their stand bought time for Pope to shift troops onto Henry Hill.23
What happened on Henry Hill and how did Pope retreat?
Henry Hill was the plateau where Jackson had earned his nickname in 1861. Alexander, who fought on the Confederate side, describes how Union regulars and other veteran troops made desperate stands there, knowing that its loss would cut the army's road back across Bull Run by the turnpike and the Stone Bridge. Their line held into the evening, and the Confederate advance stalled as darkness fell.24
After dark Pope withdrew across Bull Run to the strong position at Centreville. Lee's report says darkness and the uncertain fords stopped the pursuit, and a letter from Lee to Jefferson Davis adds that the Federals destroyed the Stone Bridge behind them.25
Lee tried once more to cut Pope off. On 31 August Jackson marched around the Union right by Sudley Ford toward the Little River Turnpike. On 1 September, in a cold thunderstorm at Ox Hill, near Chantilly, his men collided with Union divisions covering the retreat. The Union generals Philip Kearny and Isaac Stevens were killed, and on 2 September Pope fell back into the defenses of Washington.26
How many soldiers fought and died at Second Bull Run?
Strength estimates vary with who is counted and when. The American Battlefield Trust gives about 70,000 Union and 55,000 Confederate troops. The editors of the Century Company's Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, writing in 1887, put Pope's effective strength at a minimum of 63,000 and Lee's at about 54,000, and noted that the Confederate artillery officer William Allan counted 70,000 Union troops, Banks's corps included, against about 49,000. Encyclopedia Virginia, citing the historian Joseph Harsh, gives 61,430 Union and 55,097 Confederate soldiers engaged.27
| Side | Killed | Wounded | Missing or captured | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Union (ABT) | 1,747 | 8,452 | 4,263 | 14,462 |
| Confederate (ABT) | 1,096 | 6,202 | 89 | 7,387 |
| Union (B&L, whole campaign) | 1,747 | 8,462 | 4,263 | 14,462 |
| Confederate (B&L, whole campaign) | 1,553 | 7,812 | 109 | 9,474 |
ABT: American Battlefield Trust, total 21,849 for both armies. B&L: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. 2 (1887), figures for all the fighting from the Rappahannock to the Potomac. A casualty is any soldier killed, wounded, or missing or captured.
The American Battlefield Trust estimates 21,849 casualties in all: 14,462 Union and 7,387 Confederate. Battles and Leaders gives the same Union total but stresses that it covers every combat of the campaign, because Pope's army never reported the battles of 29 and 30 August separately. Its Confederate figure, 9,474, likewise covers the whole campaign, and the editors judged that the figures for both armies were "unquestionably" too small. Lee's medical director, Lafayette Guild, reported 1,090 killed and 6,154 wounded at Manassas Plains.28
Lee's report claims more than 7,000 prisoners, about 2,000 Union wounded left on the field, 30 guns and upward of 20,000 small arms taken in the series of engagements. By either count the Union lost far more men than the Confederates, between one and a half and two times as many.29
Why was Fitz John Porter court-martialed?
Pope blamed his defeat on Fitz John Porter. In his report of January 1863 he wrote that Porter's corps had lain idle "within sight and sound of the battle" on 29 August and that a vigorous attack would have crushed Jackson before Longstreet could arrive. Porter, a corps commander from McClellan's army who made no secret of his low opinion of Pope, was relieved of his command in November 1862 and tried for disobedience of orders and misbehavior before the enemy.30
The court found him guilty on 10 January 1863, and Lincoln approved the sentence on 21 January: Porter was cashiered and barred from holding federal office. The decisive question was when Longstreet had arrived. Longstreet himself later wrote that he had been in position since noon on 29 August, "anxiously awaiting attack," and that Porter knew he was there.31
After the war the Confederate reports became public. A board of officers convened in 1878 under John Schofield found in Porter's favor and concluded, as the American Battlefield Trust puts it, that his conduct had most likely saved the army. President Chester Arthur remitted the bar on holding office in 1882, and in 1886 an act of Congress restored Porter to the army as a colonel.32
Why did the Second Battle of Bull Run matter?
The historian John Hennessy calls Second Manassas the largest battle yet fought on North American soil. In about three months of command Lee had pushed the Union armies from the outskirts of Richmond back to the defenses of Washington. Alexander reckoned that the two campaigns cost the Union about 33,000 men, and Longstreet called the whole campaign "clever and brilliant," conceived entirely by Lee.33
The defeat ended Pope's career in the East. He was relieved of command in September 1862 and sent to the Department of the Northwest, to deal with the Dakota (Sioux) uprising in Minnesota. On 2 September Lincoln placed McClellan in command of the fortifications and troops defending Washington, and Encyclopedia Virginia dates his return to the head of the Army of the Potomac to 5 September, as Lee moved north.34
Within days Lee's army crossed the Potomac into Maryland, the first Confederate invasion of the North, which led directly to the Battle of Antietam on 17 September. The careers of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and those of the other generals in this story, are traced in our guide to the commanders of the American Civil War, and the battle's place in the war in the greatest battles of the Civil War.35
The ground is preserved today in Manassas National Battlefield Park, run by the National Park Service, which protects the fields of both battles of Bull Run, and its Second Manassas Trail leads past the Unfinished Railroad, the Deep Cut, the Dogan house, Chinn Ridge and Henry Hill. The day-by-day story continues on the 29 August and 30 August pages.36
