2nd Manassas 2nd Manassas

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HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF VIRGINIA,
Washington, D.C., July 14, 1862.

To the Officers and Soldiers of the Army of Virginia:

By special assignment of the President of the United States I have assumed the command of this army. I have spent two weeks in learning your whereabouts, your condition, and your wants, in preparing you for active operations, and in placing you in positions from which you can act promptly and to the purpose. These labors are nearly completed, and I am about to join you in the field.

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.

JNO. POPE,
Major-General, Commanding.

I never saw a picture of General Pope until my uncle told me we were related to him. It's funny now looking at him, seeing how much he looks like that same uncle.
 
"Why, General," said the cannoneer in aggrieved and familiar tones, "don't you know me?"

It was Robert. -RE Lee Volume II, pages 335-336
When Lee returned from the Mexican War, he showed up at Arlington and picked up some neighbor kid, thinking it was Rob Jr., who was standing nearby staring at him.

It's enough to give the poor guy a complex...
 
That's Brian Pohanka? Very handsome. He could have played James B. McPherson.

After his death, I came across his unit at a memorial service to him after the Rememberance Day parade. A nice guy.
 
Pohanka is standing directly above Hancock. And there's Ken Burns standing to Chamberlain's right.

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I've seen that guy before, providing comments and information on many documentaries on the Civil War. Didn't know who he was. Now that I know who he is finally I find out that he died in 2005 at age 50. Here's his obit from the Washington Post:

Brian Pohanka Dies; Civil War Historian, Film Adviser

By Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 17, 2005

Brian C. Pohanka, 50, a Civil War historian who advised filmmakers, preserved battlefields, reenacted troop movements and dressed the part, died of cancer June 15 at his home in Alexandria.

As an adviser and military coordinator on major motion pictures, including "Glory" (1989) and "Cold Mountain" (2003), he ensured the historical accuracy of films that would be seen by millions in theaters and on television.

His expertise stemmed, in part, from his work as the senior researcher, writer and adviser on the 27-volume Civil War series by Time-Life Books. He also was series consultant for the History Channel's "Civil War Journal."

So immersed was he in the Civil War era that he trimmed his beard in a style called the Imperial, popular in the 1860s. One of the legions of Civil War reenactors in the area, Mr. Pohanka served as captain of the 5th New York Infantry. When he donned its red-and-gold trimmed Zouave, or French-style, uniforms, the dapper historian looked as if he had stepped out of history.

Mr. Pohanka also engaged in contemporary political activism, resisting a number of development projects on the sites of Civil War battles in Northern Virginia.

"Some kid a hundred years from now is going to get interested in the Civil War and want to see these places. He's going to go down there and be standing in a parking lot. I'm fighting for that kid," Mr. Pohanka said during a 1990 demonstration in Culpeper County.

He was that kid 40 years ago; his father said that as a 7-year-old, Brian pored over American Heritage history books and historian Bruce Catton's works.

"I saw the battle lines in those books and took my toy soldiers and set them up the same way," he told a battlefield preservation group last year, according to his father. "I saw the connection between the men and the land."

At 12, Mr. Pohanka was doing research at the National Archives, thanks to a friendly employee who waived the minimum age requirement. Years later, when he became editor of the Time-Life series, some of the correspondence and other first-person artifacts he found as a youth proved handy.

Mr. Pohanka was born in Washington. He was a graduate of Sidwell Friends School and received a degree in history from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.

Although the Civil War dominated his work, Mr. Pohanka also studied the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry was wiped out after attacking a large encampment of Sioux and Cheyenne in southeastern Montana. He spent some time there every summer for the past 25 years and participated in two archaeological digs at the site. He also made trips to South Africa, where he investigated the 19th-century Zulu wars.

But his interest, and the interest of the public, in the War Between the States kept him employed.

In 1988, he recruited and instructed actors portraying the soldiers in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first black regiment in the Union Army, for the movie "Glory." Because few African Americans are reenactors, Mr. Pohanka recruited Washington area residents through newspaper ads and unemployment offices.

"There were 300,000 blacks in that war. We think their role has been badly neglected, and we hope this picture will encourage more black people to take an interest in the history," he told The Washington Post while the movie was being made.

Mr. Pohanka enlisted two other veteran reenactors to help him teach 1,000 Romanian soldiers, who portrayed the Union and Confederate troops in "Cold Mountain," how to wear their uniforms, carry their weapons and perform their duties.

"We were struck by their lean and hungry look," he told the Dickinson College alumni magazine. "Their physical build is much closer to the way Americans looked back then."

Mr. Pohanka was pleased with how the film turned out, especially the opening scene of the 1864 Battle of the Crater, when the Union Army tunneled explosives under a Confederate fort, then ordered its untrained troops to charge the pit. A massacre ensued.

"I was glad that the battle scene was graphic, violent and gory," he said. "That's what war is. It's not a bunch of people in costume. If it's not as violent and horrible as it really is, it's not being true to reality."

He wrote and edited about a dozen books, including "Mapping the Civil War" (1992), "Distant Thunder: A Photographic Essay on the Civil War" (1988) and "Myles Keough: An Irish Dragoon in the 7th Cavalry" (1991). A regimental history of the 5th New York Infantry, which he worked on for more than a quarter-century, will be published posthumously, his father said.

He even met his wife, a costume historian, through "living history" reenactment activities. They lived in an 1880s-era home near Mount Vernon, once owned by a veteran of the 10th New York Cavalry.

Mr. Pohanka served on the boards of several local preservation associations, and he was named Battlefield Preservationist of the Year in 2004 by the Civil War Preservation Trust and the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust.

Survivors include his wife of seven years, Cricket Pohanka of Alexandria; his father, John Pohanka of Washington; a brother, Geoffrey Pohanka of Vienna; and a sister, Susan Pohanka of Bryn Mawr, Pa.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company
 
"We were struck by their lean and hungry look," he told the Dickinson College alumni magazine. "Their physical build is much closer to the way Americans looked back then."

Great minds think alike.:angel:
 
Hi,

May I ask what book this illustration came from? I remember these from a kid too, I believe it was the Civil War, American Heritage but not sure what edition or year. I loved these!
 
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