Maj.Gen John Pope

[wzh55]

Ratings and Teaching Abilities are open to voting.....

Word Count: 3790

Maj.-Gen. John Pope
(b: March 18, 1822 Louisville, Kentucky – d: September 23, 1892, Sandusky, Ohio). Pope graduated from West Point in 1842 and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the Topographical Engineers. He later fought in the war with Mexico and was considered a top soldier and continued to rise regularly in rank. In June 1861, Pope was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and was ordered to Illinois to recruit volunteers. In the Western Department of Maj.-Gen. Frémont, Pope was given operational control along a portion the Mississippi River. He disliked Frémont and tried behind the scenes to get him removed from command. He quickly gained a reputation among his troops for insensitivity and bullying. Even so, in a minor action at Blackwater, Missouri, Pope forced the Confederates under Sterling Price to retreat southward. Pope had also established a reputation as a braggart early in the war and so generated enough interest in this minor victory to gain the attention of Frémont's replacement, Henry Halleck. Halleck appointed Pope to command the Army of the Mississippi in February 1862 and ordered him to clear Confederate obstacles on the Mississippi River. He surprised New Madrid, Missouri, and captured it in March. With the assistance of riverine gunboats he then captured Island No. 10, a strongly fortified post garrisoned by 12,000 men and 58 guns in April 1862. Pope's outstanding performance on the Mississippi earned him a promotion to major general of volunteers in March 1862. He was soon summoned east by Lincoln and in June 1862, was promoted to the rank of major general and given command of the new Army of Virginia. Pope was told to protect Washington, and draw away rebel forces contesting McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign. Pope soon made it clear he intended to develop an aggressive approach to the war. Soon after taking command he issued a proclamation to his troops: "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 where he was found; whose policy has been attack and not defense. 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." Despite this bravado, and despite receiving units from McClellan's Army of the Potomac, Pope's aggressiveness exceeded his strategic capabilities. Sensing that Pope was indecisive, Lee split his smaller army, sending Stonewall Jackson with 24,000 men as a diversion to Cedar Mountain, where Jackson defeated Pope's subordinate, Nathaniel Banks. As Lee advanced upon Pope with the remainder of his army, Jackson's swung around to the north and captured Pope's main supply base at Manassas Station. Confused and unable to locate the main Confederate force, Pope walked into a trap in the Second Battle of Bull Run. His men withstood a combined attack by Jackson and Lee on August 29,1862, but on the following day Longstreet launched a surprise flanking attack and Pope was soundly defeated and forced to retreat. Pope blamed his defeat on disobedience by Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter, who was found guilty by court-martial and disgraced. Pope himself was relieved of command in September 1862, and his army was merged into the Army of the Potomac under McClellan. He spent the remainder of the war in the Department of the Northwest in Minnesota, dealing with the Dakota War of 1862. He was promoted to brevet major general in the Regular Army in March 1865 for his service at Island No. 10. and was promoted to major general, Regular Army, in 1882, before retiring in 1886. He died September 23, 1892 at the Ohio Soldiers' Home near Sandusky, Ohio and was buried in St. Louis, Missouri.

Ratings:
Leadership: 2
Tactics: 2
Initative: 5
Command: 2
Cavalry: 0

Teaches: Chargers, (maybe Fast...any other suggestions?

[Gil R.]

Looks good -- thanks!

Pope was voted ratings of 4-4-3-4, and I assigned him Diggers and Fast. What do people think of changing the ratings? (I have to say, I don't think there's a single general with non-random ratings whose initiative is more than twice his other ratings -- interesting configuration. I might just switch to this for the sheer perversity of it!)

[Gil R.]

By the way, something you're doing -- perhaps just the way you have your word-processor set -- is producing "straight" quotation marks and apostrophes, instead of the curled kind. We need the curled kind, since otherwise FOF does odd things with the text. If it's easy for you to fix in the future please do so, since there's always the chance that I might miss one of these "dumb quotes" (as they're called).

[wzh55]

So, my quotes are "dumb". That's one of the oddest insults I have been handed lately. Actually, I do the bio's in MS Word and never knew there was two different types of quotation marks, I'll check into it and remendy the situation. Would it be better if I added the quotation marks when posting?

[Gil R.]

I'm not sure what you're asking. There's probably a preference somewhere in MS Word that automatically provides "smart" quotes and apostrophes, so if you toggle that on all will be fine.

[jkBluesman]

Such bad ratings for leadership and tactics might be too bad, even for Pope. I would at least put leadership up to 4.

One thing in the well-done bio sounded strange: on the first day of Second Bull Run, Pope attacked and was not attacked by Jackson.

[wzh55]

Sorry Gil,

I tend to make everything a joking matter, probably a defensive thing to cover my grotesque appearance (see?). I was asking if it would work better to add any quotation marks needed when posting it to the forum, after creating it in MS Word. That is, providing I cannot figure out how to correct in Word, which I hope to do. And again, thanks for being a great help in every regard (no joking).

[wzh55]

jkBluesman,



[Such bad ratings for leadership and tactics might be too bad, even for Pope. I would at least put leadership up to 4.

I debated whether to have a higher leadership rating for Mr. Pope. The way it seemed he treated his troops plus his confusion at 2nd Manassas caused me to go low. I will bow to anyone's more informed and experienced opinion.

One thing in the well-done bio sounded strange: on the first day of Second Bull Run, Pope attacked and was not attacked by Jackson.

As far as Pope attacking, with the research I did, I though Pope was kind of stumbling around, looking for the Confederates and found them...unfortunately! If you have different info, let me know and I will edit.

"Confused and unable to locate the main Confederate force, Pope walked into a trap in the Second Battle of Bull Run. His men withstood a combined attack by Jackson and Lee on August 29,1862, but on the following day Longstreet launched a surprise flanking attack and Pope was soundly defeated and forced to retreat."

[General Quarters]

I like the high initiative rating for Pope. That was his outstanding characteristic, almost to a fault, before and during 2nd BR. Only guys like Stonewall had more initiative.

Until his final battle, he was clearly an above-average and successful commander, both in corps command and in independent command. And he was trying to do the right thing at 2BR. He knew that Jackson was there without the rest of the ANV and this was a great opportunity to concentrate Union forces against him and destroy him. Unfortunately and not entirely due to his own fault, he just ran his forces ragged and found Jackson only when the latter was well entrenched and Longstreet was moving up fast. So, all in all, I think he deserves a very high initiative rating -- 5 AT LEAST.

But it is hard to rate him better than average in leadership, since he was too self-satisfied and bombastic to be a great leader of men; or tactics, because he was more impetuous than canny on a battlefield; or command, since he failed to keep close tabs on his forces once he was at the army level (he did not ride the line, for example).

So I would tend to go for Init of 5 or 6, and other numbers no better than 3. My personal preference would be 3-3-6-3. I don't see a problem with having one rating twice that of others, and his totals are too low otherwise. Makes it more interesting. I also agree with Chargers and Fast.

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: wzh55

Sorry Gil,

I tend to make everything a joking matter, probably a defensive thing to cover my grotesque appearance (see?). I was asking if it would work better to add any quotation marks needed when posting it to the forum, after creating it in MS Word. That is, providing I cannot figure out how to correct in Word, which I hope to do. And again, thanks for being a great help in every regard (no joking).

No need to trouble yourself that way. If you can't change MS Word, I'm sure I'll catch the dumb quotes -- I'm actually phenomenally good at it. (Anecdote: Just out of college I had a job at a small Washington p.r. working for two bosses, one of whom was a formidable and somewhat humorless Washington figure. At a meeting one day I pointed out that our work product was full of dumb quotes, and that these look less professional. It was agreed that the computers should all be set to produce smart quotes. The next day, as a gag, I wrote her a memo about how we also had to switch from "dumb periods" to "smart periods," but her colleagues told me not to give it to her because she might not realize it was a gag and would be confused trying to figure out the difference between the two identical punctuation marks.)

[jkBluesman]

ORIGINAL: wzh55

jkBluesman,


"Confused and unable to locate the main Confederate force, Pope walked into a trap in the Second Battle of Bull Run. His men withstood a combined attack by Jackson and Lee on August 29,1862, but on the following day Longstreet launched a surprise flanking attack and Pope was soundly defeated and forced to retreat."[/b]

You might confuse August 28 and 29. The 28th is sometimes (e.g. wikipedia) counted as part of the battle. There Jackson attacked to keep Pope in the area. On the 29th Jackson was in a good position to receive attacks at a railway fence. Pope attacked and almost managed to break the Confederate left. In late afternoon, Longstreet arrived and used artillery to stop the Federal attacks on the right. The next day the Southern I corps smashed into the flank of the Army of Virginia.