Second Battle of Bull Run | History, Summary, Casualties, & Facts britannica.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from britannica.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Northern Virginia Campaign
Military operations in Virginia in the spring and summer of 1862, which included the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas), were a showcase of Confederate generalship. From Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s masterful performance in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign to Gen. Robert E. Lee’s triumph in the Seven Days’ Battles, Confederate forces consistently engaged much larger Union armies and emerged victorious. With the failure of Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign, commanding Union Gen. Henry Halleck ordered McClellan’s Army of the Potomac to assist Maj. Gen. John Pope’s newly created Army of Virginia in central Virginia. Until the two Union armies could be combined for a renewed assault upon the Confederate capital of Richmond, it fell upon Pope to defend Washington, D.C., and to engage Confederate forces in the area.