Chutz Wallace Walter Trenerry (1 results)

Octavo, navy blue cloth (hardcover), 243 pp. Fine in a Near-Fine, mylar protected dust jacket. From dust jacket: General John Pope is best known as the Union general who lost the Second Battle of Bull Run, a defeat that branded him as incompetent and a military bungler. Wallace J. Schuts and Walter N. Trenerry take issue with those they feel tarnished Pope's reputation. The authors characterize Pope as an able army officer with many good qualities but who ultimately lacked "the deviousness that went with success." Pope's career reached its aspex in 1862 when, as commander of the Army of Virginia, he was seen as pivotal to Republican hopes. A victory by Pope's forces could have clinched the congressional elections for Lincoln and the Republicans and warded off any possibility of foreign intervention, the authors believe. Complicating the situation were Salmon Chase's and Edwin Stanton's simultaneous plans to gain control of the Republican party by making Pope their protege and thus controlling the Army. Suspecting intrigue, General McClellan, a Democrat, apparently was willing to imperil the Union cause rather than stand by while the opposing party won an electoral victory. This first-ever published biography of Pope provides substantial background, much of it previously unpublished, on all aspects of his forty-four-year army career. Pope emerges as a competent officer who successfully carried out a wide variety of assignments, but never quite escaped the stigma of his loss at Bull Run. Civil War, Nonfiction, War Between the States, War of Rebellion, Union, United States History, American History, Military History, Military Leadership, Confederacy, War of Northern Aggression, American Biography. zslic.