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

This comprehensively researched, well-written book represents the definitive account of Robert E. Lee's triumph over Union leader John Pope in the summer of 1862. While Pope, supported by President Lincoln, sought to bring the war home to Virginia, Lee proposed to carry the war to the North. Lee befuddled, then defeated Pope in a campaign of masterful maneuvering that rivaled Chancellorsville as the Army of Northern Virginia's greatest achievement. Hennessey, a National Park Service historian, expertly depicts the horror and confusion of battle, highlighting the difficulties of controlling a Civil War battle once it had begun. Lee's strategic skills, and the capabilities of his principal subordinates James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson, brought the Confederates onto the field of Second Manassas at the right places and times against a Union army that knew how to fight, but not yet how to win. History Book Club dual main selection. (Dec.)