Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS349 Additional chapters outline very well the medical aspects of the Crimean war, with its importance for American military medicine, and the FrancoPrussian war. The roles of Florence Nightingale and of Jean-Henri Dumont and his Red Cross organization are also reviewed. Hard-to-find material on the medical care for Americans involved in the Phillipine Insurrection, Spanish-American War, and the border conflicts with Mexico in 191 1 provide insight into our medical involvement there and do a real service for the general reader. I think that one of the most valuable contributions of Farmcarts to Fords is the very excellent collection of illustrations and photographs. The many graphic pictures related to transportation of the wounded in World War One bring home the stark reality of the medical problems encountered and the transition between horse-drawn vehicles and modern times. I found this section to be well written and the most fascinating part of the book. I would recommend this publication to readers interested in the development of triage systems for transportation of the wounded. It can certainly serve as a very good textbook for a course in the history of military medicine. Ralph C. Gordon Michigan State University Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. By John J. Hennessy. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. Pp. xiv, 607. $27.50.) The Battle of Second Manassas rarely has attracted much attention from military historians. Squeezed in between the Army of Northern Virginia's ferocious assaults during the Seven Days battles to save Richmond and the bloodiest day of the war along the banks of Antietam Creek, Second Manassas has too often served as a postscript to the Union's command problems in the wake of George McClellan's leadership, as a prelude to Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North, or simply as a more costly repeat of the first great battle of the Civil War. John J. Hennessy argues convincingly that Second Manassas was in itself "a campaign of high stakes" at a time when the war's outcome still remained far from decided. Return to Bull Run picks up the military situations in the eastern theater where Robert K. Krick's outstanding Stonewall Jackson and Cedar Mountain ends, in mid-August 1862, and follows the paths of the two armies through the end of the intense battles from August 28 through August 30. Hennessy is adept at explaining the rapidly changing strategic picture of that summer and places it within the context of important political and diplomatic actions outside the Virginia theater of war. There simply is no better analysis ofthe complex maneuvering of the two great armies as they jockeyed for position along 350CIVIL WAR HISTORY the river banks, mountain gaps, and farm fields in the rolling country of northern Virginia in the last two weeks of August 1862. One of the special strengths of Hennessy's analysis is his perceptive insights into the character and competence of the rival commanders and their senior subordinates. Describing Union general John Pope, commander ofthe Army of Virginia, as both self-promoting and politically astute is not new, but rarely do we see the connection between personal views and professional performance so clearly drawn. An ardent Republican with Radical leanings in a generally conservative officer corps, Pope applied his political views as well as his military knowledge in planning his campaign in Virginia. His orders to round up and detain suspected Confederate sympathizers, to remove all protection previously granted to private houses and property, and to hold Southern civilians responsible for any losses suffered by Union troops at the hands ofthe persistant guerrilla bands ofnorthern Virginia revealed the hardline approach to fighting that made him, at least for a while, the darling of the Radicals. Of Pope's subordinates, only a few of whom (such as cavalryman John Buford) shone during the campaign, Gen. Irvin McDowell comes off most poorly; according to Hennessy, McDowell was responsible for "one of the worst tactical errors of any Civil War battle" (466) when his meddling with troop dispositions helped precipitate the collapse of the Union line and the rout of the...