War Clouds Gather as General Pope Stumbles

August 26, 1862

At a morning meeting, the Lincoln cabinet is “decidedly more hopeful than for some time past.” according to the Boston Advertiser.  President Lincoln trudges repeatedly from the White House to the nearby War Department to read telegrams from the war front in Virginia.

Peter Cozzens wrote in General John Pope: “August 26 was the watershed of the short life of the Army of Virginia.  Until that date, Pope handled the army commendably.   He countered Lee’s every move and from each fashioned opportunities of his own.  But Jackson’s flank march bewildered him.  For the next five days, Pope planned his actions on the basis of where Jackson and Longstreet had been, or where he hoped they would be, rather than where solid information placed them.”