Osprey Campaign 95 : Second Manassas 1862 : Robert E. Lee's Greatest Victory

'There never was such a campaign, not even by Napoleon.', so wrote William Dorsey Pender, a brigadier-general in the Army of Northern Virginia, to his wife in the wake of the Second Battle of Manassas. His words were not hollow boasts - the campaign in north Virginia in the late summer of 1862 demonstrated Robert E. Lee's 'great generalship and the greatest boldness' to draw on Pender's assessment once more. Although overshadowed by later clashes such as Antietam and Gettysburg, the Second Manassas campaign was a military masterpiece in which Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia came as close as they ever would to exterminating their Federal opponents and ending the war. In so doing Lee confirmed himself as the South's pre-eminent military leader and helped forge his Army into the formidable force it would remain for the rest of the war. According to E.P. Alexander, another Southern officer, it was this campaign which tempered the Army of Northern Virginia and established 'that magnificent morale which made them the equal to twice their numbers, and which they never lost even to the surrender at Appomattox.'. The crushing defeat of Federal General John Pope's Army of Virginia provided the springboard for Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North which would reach it's climax along the banks of Antietam Creek that September. Text by John P. Langellier with illustrations by Mike Adams.

Contents

• Origins of the Second Manassas Campaign
• Chronology
• Opposing Commanders
• Opposing Armies
• Opposing plans
• Jackson's Raid on Manassas
• The Second Battle of Manassas
• Aftermath - The Road to Antietam
• Bibliography
• The Battlefield Today
• Index