In August 1862 Union General John Pope, brought east by Abraham Lincoln to deliver an aggressive victory, commanded the new Army of Virginia while George McClellan’s army withdrew from the Peninsula. Robert E. Lee, facing the threat of the two Union forces combining, split his army and sent Stonewall Jackson with roughly 24,000 men on a 50-mile march in two days around Pope’s right flank. Jackson destroyed the Union supply depot at Manassas Junction, cut the telegraph to Washington, then hid behind an unfinished railroad grade near Stony Ridge. On August 28 he opened fire on a passing column, starting the fight at Brawner’s Farm, where the two lines stood about 80 yards apart in an orchard and traded volleys for over two hours.
Convinced Jackson was trapped and retreating, Pope fed piecemeal assaults against the railroad cut on August 29, issued a contradictory Joint Order to Irvin McDowell and Fitz John Porter, and dismissed cavalry reports that James Longstreet’s 25,000 men had arrived. On August 30 he ordered Porter across 600 yards of open pasture into a crossfire. Longstreet then launched the largest simultaneous mass assault of the war, driving the Union back over Chinn Ridge and Henry House Hill, the same ground lost at First Bull Run. Union casualties topped 14,000, Pope was sent to Minnesota, and Lee’s confidence carried him into Maryland and Antietam.
- Jackson reportedly rode out dressed like a local farmer to scout the Union column before ordering the attack.
- At Brawner’s Farm the 2nd Wisconsin lost 276 of 430 men and the Stonewall Brigade lost 340 of 800.
- Franz Sigel’s largely German immigrant corps broke the Confederate line in places but was pushed back without timely support.
- Confederate defenders who ran out of ammunition pried rocks from the railroad bed and threw them, and Union troops threw them back.
- Pope blamed Porter, who was court-martialed and ruined until a commission exonerated him decades later.
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