A report on Nathaniel P. Banks, Second Battle of Bull Run and American Civil War

John Pope (March 16, 1822 – September 23, 1892) was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War.

He had a brief stint in the Western Theater, but he is best known for his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) in the East.

Lee, sensing that Pope was indecisive, split his smaller (55,000-man) army, sending Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson with 24,000 men as a diversion to Cedar Mountain, where Jackson defeated Pope's subordinate, Nathaniel Banks.

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) served as a Confederate general (1861–1863) during the American Civil War, and became one of the best-known Confederate commanders, after Robert E. Lee.

In the Northern Virginia Campaign that summer, Jackson's troops captured and destroyed an important supply depot for General John Pope's Army of Virginia, and then withstood repeated assaults from Pope's troops at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

Gen. Irvin McDowell's large corps was poised to hit Richmond from the north, and Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's army threatened the Shenandoah Valley.

Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.

But Pope was then soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1862, forcing the Army of the Potomac back to defend Washington.

In Louisiana, Lincoln ordered General Nathaniel P. Banks to promote a plan that would reestablish statehood when 10 percent of the voters agreed, and only if the reconstructed states abolished slavery.

The Army of Virginia was organized as a major unit of the Union Army and operated briefly and unsuccessfully in 1862 in the American Civil War.

The Army of Virginia was constituted on June 26, 1862, by General Orders Number 103, from four existing departments operating around Virginia: Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont's Mountain Department, Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell's Department of the Rappahannock, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's Department of the Shenandoah, and Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis's brigade from the Military District of Washington.

The entire army was soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run by Jackson, Longstreet, and Lee, and withdrew to the defensive lines of Washington, D.C. On September 12, 1862, the units of the Army of Virginia were merged into the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Virginia was never reconstituted.

Early in the American Civil War, Halleck was a senior Union Army commander in the Western Theater.

A telling example of his lack of control was during the Northern Virginia Campaign of 1862, when Halleck was unable to motivate McClellan to reinforce Pope in a timely manner, contributing to the Union defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

However, the 1864 Red River Campaign, a doomed attempt to occupy Eastern Texas, had been advocated by Halleck, over the objections of Nathaniel P. Banks, who commanded the operation.