Porter

[MikeyB]

Does anyone have any easy to read maps or graphics that can explain to me Porter's position and why Pope was so ****** at him? Its still not clear to me what the issue was and why ultimately Porter was exonerated?

 

[RedRover]

Does anyone have any easy to read maps or graphics that can explain to me Porter's position and why Pope was so ****** at him? Its still not clear to me what the issue was and why ultimately Porter was exonerated?

The Library of Congress has this series of maps online of the progress of the battle... showing Porter's positions.

Troop movement map ... Second Battle of Manassas, August 28, [thru August 30] 1862 ... Manassas National Battlefield Park, Virginia

Relief shown by contours. "Produced by Eastern National Park and Monument Association." Includes location map. "379, 25,001, DSC, Oct. '85." Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster image. CW3

www.loc.gov

Henesey's thorough NPS report of troop movements, etc. in the battle gives detail and some maps of movements.

https://npshistory.com/publications/mana/hennessy-1985.pdf

Porter got into action on the 30th, but General Pope was generally dissatisfied.

The Charges and Specifications against General Porter were as follows:

On January 21, 1863 by the decision of the court-martial, Porter was found guilty of most of the charges and specifications, and was cashiered from the Army, and could not hold any office under the United States, etc. The Sentence was approved by the President.

Porter sought a reopening of the subject to seek relief from the above decision for many years. President Grant, who says he read carefully on the subject, let the decision stand while he was in office. Many years later the case was ordered reviewed by President Hayes.

In the last point by Lincoln's secretaries, Hay and Nicolay above, that Porter was convicted by the evidence of certain statements which gave the impression he had little interest in supporting General Pope, etc., Army Judge Advocate General Holt observed just so in 1863 on reviewing the Court-martial findings, that General Porter had during the period of receiving orders from Gen. Pope's headquarters, made notices to others of his disinclinations to obey them, etc., and a certainty the army would be driven back to Alexandria/Washington, etc. etc.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t9p27b258&seq=7

General E.A. Hitchcock, as military advisor to the President and War Department, etc., recorded in his diary his approval of the court-martial of Porter, adding his private opinion that he should have been sentenced to have been shot.

Hitchcock had noted in a testimony to the Joint Congressional Committee on the conduct of the war the risk military men generally took in departing from their orders...

Anyways, General Hitchcock was asked and answered as follows what the penalties of such, in the worst cases, entailed...

In Porter's case, there was the written commentary he made, that inferred his departure from strict obedience was not presaging his attempt at a "brilliant success" but that he was looking forward to retreating back toward Arlington and Washington to reunite with McClellan's army.

 

[J. Stanley]

After the disastrous battle, Pope blamed his misfortunes on McClellan, Franklin, Porter and several other generals and Porter was an especially easy target. The charges against Porter were:

1. Disobedience of orders under the 9th Article of War, specifically
   • Disobedience to the order of August 27th, requiring Porter to march from Warrenton Junction at 1 a.m. of the 28th and be at Bristoe Station by daylight.
   • Disobedience on August 29th, to the joint order to McDowell and Porter, directing them to march toward Gainesville and establish communication with the other corps.
   • Disobedience on August 29th, the 4:30 P.M. requiring Porter to attack the enemy's flank and rear.
2. Misbehavior before the enemy under the 52nd Article of War.
   • I will summarize this time because it's the same thing three times over: basically, the charge accuses Porter of shameful disobedience for not bringing his men into action on August 29 when there are the sounds of battle.

To actually discuss the events:

Charge #1A: Pope had been pushing north to Manassas after Jackson had raided the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, pushing his army hard. Learning from prisoners following a skirmish between Hooker and Ewell that Jackson was in front of Manassas, Pope wanted to close the distance ASAP. The whole army would march for Manassas through night and day. It was a mess from start to end for all units. In Porter's case, he set the time for 3:00 A.M. and his lead units arrived at Bristoe Station about 10:00 A.M. Porter blamed this
delay on the moonless night, wagons blocking the road, and the fatigue of his men.

Charge #1B: This was after the fight at Brawner's Farm. Believing he had Jackson right where he wanted him, Pope needed to make sure Jackson could not get out. Hence, Pope ordered both McDowell and Porter toward Gainesville. At Dawkins' Branch, however, Porter ran into Stuart's cavalry, screening Longstreet's advance. Soon, McDowell brought information that Longstreet had arrived with the rest of Lee's army and was between Porter and Gainesville. McDowell told Porter to decide to fall back, stay where he was, or attack while McDowell himself took his troops to join Pope and hopefully link up his left with Porter's right. Porter stayed in place, unintentionally forcing Lee to pause his plan to attack on the 29th. However, this leads to...

Charge #1C & Charge 2: Pope did not know Longstreet had arrived, for McDowell did not pass that news along to him. He therefore
Porter to attack Jackson's right flank. Pope was very much counting on Porter to come in and save the day after many fruitless attacks on Jackson. The order came fairly late at 6:30 P.M. Given that Porter was not in fact looking at Jackson's flank, this is of course not very practicable and no such attack was made.

Porter's actions on the 29th especially incensed Pope and were the easiest to find fault in, especially with Pope's faulty understanding of Longstreet's presence. Nobody could say Porter did not attack weakly on the 30th and with much confusion about Confederate dispositions, it was easy to present Porter as disobedient in the face of the enemy.

Porter's first step to redemption was the Schofield Board in 1878, which concluded in March 1879 with the recommendation to throw out the court martial findings and restore Pope to his position in the army. When that wasn't acted upon, Grant came out in 1881 to call for Pope to be exonerated. Grant's article can be read here for free. He was pardoned but received no restoration to the army. Ultimately, Porter had to wait for a Democrat administration to be restored to his old position.

 

[Saphroneth]

Does anyone have any easy to read maps or graphics that can explain to me Porter's position and why Pope was so ****** at him? Its still not clear to me what the issue was and why ultimately Porter was exonerated?

I'm basing the following substantially on Hennessy's map study and am using his base map. What I will be showing is the true dispositions on the 29th along with what Pope wanted Porter to do (though I should note that Pope did not actually order Porter to do this).

Positions are approximate but should show the situations in question.

I've simplified things somewhat here in my (coloured) draw-over to keep the narrative simple, because this is a big complex battle, but here's the basic summary.

Note on strengths: each Confederate corps is about 30-35,000 AP. Porter's corps by itself is about 18,000 AP, and the rest of Pope's force (including McDowell's corps) is probably somewhere around 80,000 AP; that is, Porter's force is probably less than a fifth of Pope's total force on the field.



Pope's plan of operations to attack Jackson on the 29th was that he would push Porter and McDowell to the vicinity of Gainesville to cut off Jackson's retreat, while the rest of Pope's force attacked Jackson frontally as he retreated. Pope remained convinced that Jackson was retreating until the afternoon of the 30th, and similarly remained convinced that Longstreet could not have possibly arrived yet.

His orders to Porter and McDowell did not actually tell them to attack (McDowell then took his corps, the greater part of the combined column, to join Pope) and Pope didn't send updated orders to Porter to attack until late on the 29th; by the time they reached Porter it was dusk and so it was impossible to action them. Pope considered Porter's lack of attack on the 29th as disobedience to orders in the face of the enemy.

If you assume Longstreet doesn't exist, then Pope's concept of operations (assuming he had actually sent an order to attack, which he had not but he may not have remembered this, as he may have remembered his Joint Order as an order to attack rather than to cut off Jackson's retreat) is quite clear and would probably have worked. I suspect that if Longstreet wasn't there then Porter may well have come around Jackson's flank without positive orders to do so, but by all indications Porter was quite aware that Longstreet was there.


What Porter does is actually quite a good display of corps commander initiative. Absent clear instructions, he accurately evaluates that there is a larger force in front of him, and what he does in response is that he disposes his forces for defence and keeps an eye on Longstreet. If Longstreet ignores Porter and tries to get involved substantially in the rest of the battle, Porter can take Longstreet's corps in the flank; if Longstreet either focuses on Porter or mostly doesn't get involved in the fighting, Porter has taken 30%-50% of Lee's infantry out of consideration in return for less than 20% of Pope's infantry being out of consideration.


Ultimately, though, Pope needs someone to blame (in particular in front of Lincoln) for the disaster of Second Bull Run, and blamed Porter. I do not think that there is a course of action Porter could take that would have produced a better outcome given the situation as it existed on the 29th; he certainly can't attack Longstreet successfully while Longstreet is unengaged.

If McDowell's Corps was still with Porter, that's completely different - McDowell plus Porter was probably nearly half of Pope's army and it's more realistic that that combined force could have contended with Longstreet successfully. But that's McDowell's decision, not Porter's.

 

[35th MA InfRegt]

After the disastrous battle, Pope blamed his misfortunes on McClellan, Franklin, Porter and several other generals and Porter was an especially easy target. The charges against Porter were:

1. Disobedience of orders under the 9th Article of War, specifically
   • Disobedience to the order of August 27th, requiring Porter to march from Warrenton Junction at 1 a.m. of the 28th and be at Bristoe Station by daylight.
   • Disobedience on August 29th, to the joint order to McDowell and Porter, directing them to march toward Gainesville and establish communication with the other corps.
   • Disobedience on August 29th, the 4:30 P.M. requiring Porter to attack the enemy's flank and rear.
2. Misbehavior before the enemy under the 52nd Article of War.
   • I will summarize this time because it's the same thing three times over: basically, the charge accuses Porter of shameful disobedience for not bringing his men into action on August 29 when there are the sounds of battle.

To actually discuss the events:

Charge #1A: Pope had been pushing north to Manassas after Jackson had raided the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, pushing his army hard. Learning from prisoners following a skirmish between Hooker and Ewell that Jackson was in front of Manassas, Pope wanted to close the distance ASAP. The whole army would march for Manassas through night and day. It was a mess from start to end for all units. In Porter's case, he set the time for 3:00 A.M. and his lead units arrived at Bristoe Station about 10:00 A.M. Porter blamed this
delay on the moonless night, wagons blocking the road, and the fatigue of his men.

Charge #1B: This was after the fight at Brawner's Farm. Believing he had Jackson right where he wanted him, Pope needed to make sure Jackson could not get out. Hence, Pope ordered both McDowell and Porter toward Gainesville. At Dawkins' Branch, however, Porter ran into Stuart's cavalry, screening Longstreet's advance. Soon, McDowell brought information that Longstreet had arrived with the rest of Lee's army and was between Porter and Gainesville. McDowell told Porter to decide to fall back, stay where he was, or attack while McDowell himself took his troops to join Pope and hopefully link up his left with Porter's right. Porter stayed in place, unintentionally forcing Lee to pause his plan to attack on the 29th. However, this leads to...

Charge #1C & Charge 2: Pope did not know Longstreet had arrived, for McDowell did not pass that news along to him. He therefore
Porter to attack Jackson's right flank. Pope was very much counting on Porter to come in and save the day after many fruitless attacks on Jackson. The order came fairly late at 6:30 P.M. Given that Porter was not in fact looking at Jackson's flank, this is of course not very practicable and no such attack was made.

Porter's actions on the 29th especially incensed Pope and were the easiest to find fault in, especially with Pope's faulty understanding of Longstreet's presence. Nobody could say Porter did not attack weakly on the 30th and with much confusion about Confederate dispositions, it was easy to present Porter as disobedient in the face of the enemy.

Porter's first step to redemption was the Schofield Board in 1878, which concluded in March 1879 with the recommendation to throw out the court martial findings and restore Pope to his position in the army. When that wasn't acted upon, Grant came out in 1881 to call for Pope to be exonerated. Grant's article can be read here for free. He was pardoned but received no restoration to the army. Ultimately, Porter had to wait for a Democrat administration to be restored to his old position.

Just to note, Porter's conviction was never vacated, and nor was he ever pardoned as such. President Arthur remitted (on May 4, 1882) that portion of his sentence which disqualified him from holding any office under the United States (including an appointment to any grade in the Army). Congress later authorized the president to appoint Porter as a colonel in the Army and to place him on the retired list. His back pay was not restored and nor was he ever restored to the grade of major general of volunteers (his highest grade at the time of his dismissal). Porter had never been a general officer in the regular army and after the war Congress had terminated all authority to raise and maintain volunteer forces. Porter had to be content with his appointment as a colonel.

Fitz-John Porter • Cullum's Register • 1238

A biographical entry, part of a large site on West Point. Parent site on American history includes 6200 webpages, 92 books, 38,000 pages of print.

penelope.uchicago.edu

 

[Jamieva]

This is the best map source for the battle and might help you the best

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1611217083?tag=civilwartalkc-20

 

[Old Soldier]

And I thought this would be about a pint of Guinness!