John Pope

[Specster]

IIRC, didnt Lee have a great dis

So Hanna it appears that the short answer is yes. He was pretty bad. Maybe not the worst but far, far from the best. He does hold the dubious distinction of being the one Yankee Lee personally wanted "to suppress."

IIRC Didnt Lee have a great dislike of B Butler?

 

[Jamieva]

The miscreant.

The problem was Pope's mouth was writing checks his butt couldn't cash.

In his defense, his corps commanders are Sigel, Banks and McDowell. You have got to be kidding me.

As for Pope extricating himself out of the trap between the Rappahannock and Rapidan, that was more blind luck than skill. Lee's plan fell apart.

 

[novushomus]

Pope to me seems to have good enough strategic aims, but he was overwhelmed by his ego and his tactical tunnel vision at Second Manassas, starting with the decision to fight there. Hennessy makes a very good point that Pope could have achieved his campaign objective by simply withdrawing to Centreville and re-establishing communications with Washington and the Army of the Potomac without even having to fight Lee. Yet he became almost to the point of monomania focused on engaging and destroying Jackson, and to that end he ignored everything that contradicted the picture he had painted in his head that he was beating Jackson and that Jackson was about to retreat. He cherry-picked reports to this end and ignored a gradually rising mound of evidence that Lee and Longstreet had arrived with the Army of Northern Virginia's Right Wing (though McDowell played a role in reinforcing this self-deception as well).

The battle was not well commanded by the Union side. Though several instances Jackson's line was broken by individual thrusts (Cuvier Grover's attack in particular comes to mine) in particular, nobody in the Army of Virginia or the Army of the Potomac's high command seemed to coordinate supports or reinforcements. The only tactically articulate moment by a Federal high commander in the battle was Porter's attack on August 30, with around 10,000 Federals. The preceding attacks were either by single brigades or divisions alone.

It is true that Pope was not well served; Sigel had seen his best days in the west, Banks's corps was too badly hurt from Cedar Mountain to participate, and McDowell played a large part in decieving Pope about Longstreet to his left before stripping it of troops right before Longstreet's assault. The best corps commander from the Army of the Potomac that Pope had, Reno, largely had his troops dispatched piecemeal to various parts of the line and thus could do little with little. Heinztelman, though possessing Hooker and Kearny, did not distiguish himself (Kearny himself had a spotty performance). The troubles between Fitz-John Porter and Pope are well documented and though Porter did not deserve the scapegoating he got after the battle, he set himself up by criticizing Pope in official correspondence.

 

[mofederal]

I don't care much for Pope, he wasn't the worst general, but he was somewhere in the middle, after having been a successful general. He had some bad people under him, Sigel, Banks and McDowell. His mouth was his worst enemy, from his early days in various commands in Missouri. The Fitz John Porter mess did not win him any friends in the Army. The thing is though in a war like the Civil War, one bad day can end your career for all intents and purposes, two or three days, even worse. Look at the generals, who were competent whose careers are remembered for the one bad decision they made. There were more than a few such generals, who made a career of doing this, being upward failures, who got rewarded for their incompetence. Pope was sent out west, where he did not have to face Confederates, but he did have to deal with the Indians. He continued to make enemies in Washington during his tenure in Command of the Department of the Northwest in Minnesota. Pope did go on in the Army, until he retired.

 

[SWMODave]

"Pope's?" first victory in Missouri

The circumstances which led to this engagement and capture of the rebel force is thus related by Adjutant D. A. Kerr. On the afternoon of the 19th, while on the march, the First Iowa Cavalry having the rear, a negro came running up and informed Major Torrence that " Dar was more dan a tousand rebs in de bend of Black ribber." Major Torrence, after listening to his storv, questioned him closely, and was convinced the man was telling the truth, and with Adjutant Kerr accompanied the negro to General Pope in the advance. General Pope, upon being informed of the facts, replied, "Oh yes, another G## D##### ni#### story. There is no rebel force within forty miles of this place." The Major with some of the others suggested that, as the information might be correct, they thought it advisable to send a small force out and if they were there to capture them. To which the General replied, "Well, if you want to go, you can go and make d--- d fools of yourselves. "
.........
Three hundred and fifty men of the First Iowa Cavalry, under command of Major Torrence, and two companies, and seventy-five men, of the Fourth United States Cavalry, under command of Lieutenants Gordon and Amory respectively, with a section of the Missouri Light Artillery, all under the command of Colonel Jefferson C. Davis, of the Twenty-Second Indiana Infantry Volunteers, attacked and captured a rebel camp numbering 1,300 men, infantry and cavalry, with all the camp equipage, under Colonels Robinson, McGoffin and Alexander, recruits from northern Missouri on their way to join the rebel army.
...........

Brigadier General JOHN POPE, Sedalia, Mo.:
I congratulate you and your command on the brilliant success of your expedition. I hope it will prove the forerunner of still greater success.
H. W. HALLECK,
Major-General.

Pope achieved a victory at Blackwater, Missouri, that resulted in the Confederates in the region retreating and the capture of 1,200 prisoners-of-war. Suitably impressed with this achievement, Halleck appointed Pope to command the Army of the Mississippi in February 1862.

Source