#second battle of bull run

General Fitz John Porter(Union)

Hat in his right hand and sword at his left, Porter looks like the smart and distinguished general he was during the early stages of the war. But events in the summer of 1862 would lead to a controversial court martial and the effective end of his military career.

A professional soldier and veteran of the Mexican-American War, Porter was appointed to a senior command within George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. He developed a good reputation, which was shattered when he took the blame for the fiasco at the Second Battle of Bull Run. Porter refused an order from John Pope to mount an attack on Stonewall Jackson’s Confederates, because he feared exposing his men to a rebel force under James Longstreet which had just arrived on the battlefield. A day later, Porter reluctantly agreed to the attack, and his men were duly routed along with the rest of the Union Army. Once his friend McClellan was relieved of command later in the year, Porter no longer had any political cover, and was soon arrested, tried and convicted for his initial refusal to follow orders. He spent much of the rest of his life seeking to clear his name, and his sentence was eventually commuted in 1886.

General James Longstreet(Confederate)

One of the most prominent generals of the war, and later one of the Confederacy’s most controversial figures, this picture of Longstreet was taken at some point after the war had ended. We find him looking well-fed and distinguished, with his salt-and-pepper beard perhaps betraying a touch of artificial help in his very dark hair.

Longstreet was one of the best generals on either side, a senior corps commander in General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia for much of the conflict. His finest moment came perhaps at the Second Battle of Bull Run, when he led 25,000 men in the largest mass assault of the entire war to rout the Union Army’s left flank. After the war, Longstreet became the most senior Confederate to join the Republican party during Reconstruction, supporting his old military school friend Ulysses S Grant’s bid for the presidency 1868. Longstreet later served the US government in a variety of roles, including Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Derided as a traitor by many in the South, Longstreet was blamed for the defeat at Gettysburg and much else besides, and his reputation has only recovered in recent times.

Major General John Pope(Union)

Of all the union generals to have lined up against Robert E Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, perhaps none suffered as infamous a defeat as John Pope did at the Second Battle of Bull Run. But then, none had a beard quite like this, bushy and surprisingly extensive, despite the absence of either sideburns or a moustache.

Pope took command of the Union army in Virginia in the summer of 1862, as President Lincoln reacted to the failure of the famously cautious George McClellan’s efforts in the Peninsula Campaign. Pope, flush with military successes over the Confederates on the Mississippi River, promised to aggressively pursue the enemy in Virginia too. But he fell into a trap near Manassas, was hopelessly outmanoeuvred, and the Union suffered arguably its most humiliating defeat of the war. Pope was immediately sent into a virtual military exile, fighting Indian tribes in Minnesota.