General John Pope : A Life for the Nation

by Cozzens, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780252023637
• ISBN10: 0252023633
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

Ambitious and outspoken, John Pope was one of the most controversial figures to hold high command during the Civil War, Reconstruction, and in the American West. General John Pope: A Life for the Nation is the first full biography of this much maligned figure who played crucial roles in both the Eastern and the Western Theaters of the Civil War. Renowned Civil War scholar Peter Cozzens has mined Pope's own memoirs and a wealth of other primary sources to provide a complete picture of this gifted strategist. Uncovering new information about Pope's pre- and postwar career and his path to power, Cozzens delineates the political environment that surrounded Pope and provided the context for his actions.Cozzens examines Pope's early career first as commander of the Army of the Mississippi and then as leader of a hastily formed Army of Virginia against Robert E. Lee. After his famous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Pope was sent to the frontier. There he held important commands on the western plains over the next twenty-four years, all the while struggling to clear his reputation of the events at Second Bull Run. A principal architect of the Red River War, which broke the resistance of the Southern Plains Indians, Pope espoused humanitarian treatment of subjugated tribes and was recognized as one of the army's leading authorities on Indian affairs. In place of the simplistic caricature that has satisfied most historians, Cozzens has crafted an accurate, humane, balanced portrait of a complex man involved with the most complex issues of his day. A monumental work on a long-neglected figure, General John Pope offers a fresh look at a key nineteenth-century military leader as well as the most detailed analysis available of Federal leadership during the Second Bull Run campaign.

Author Biography

Peter Cozzens is a foreign service officer with the U. S. Department of State and the author of the trilogy No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River, This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga, and The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga, among other books

Table of Contents

List of Maps	viii
List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Prologue	1	(2)
The Approbation of My Own Conscience	3	(13)
The Most Ridiculous Assumption of Position	16	(10)
A Favorite Son of Illinois	26	(26)
You Deserve Well of Your Country	52	(22)
A Moral Odor of Sewer Gas	74	(24)
The Enemy's Purpose is not Easy to Discover	98	(23)
We Shall Bag the Whole Crowd	121	(15)
No Place to Fight a Battle	136	(21)
Leave Pope to Get Out of His Scrape	157	(18)
If I Could Be of Further Service, I Would Remain	175	(27)
I Could Tell a Sad Story	202	(23)
I Confine Myself to My Duty	225	(19)
Posterity Will Bless Your Name	244	(32)
I Find the Situation Very Perplexing	276	(20)
I Speak not now of Myself	296	(24)
A Life for the Nation	320	(21)
Notes	341	(44)
Bibliography	385	(20)
Index	405