consider, I value John J. Hennessy’s Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas (1993, Simon & Schuster) as one of my very favorite Civil War battle books.
Let’s see…where to begin?
First of all, the subject has to be important, and the battle fought on Aug. 29-30, 1862 certainly was. For Gen. Robert E. Lee, Second Manassas was, in Hennessy’s fine words, “the happiest marriage of strategy and tactics he would ever attain.”
Longstreet’s attack on the second day, with 25,000 troops, was the biggest assault Lee launched in the entire war. And when it succeeded, “Lee came as close as he ever would to destroying a Union army.” I remember reading this sentence two decades ago, and it has stuck with me ever since.
The author’s narrative must be comprehensive. This doesn’t mean that the book has to be long--although, at just over 600 pages, this one is.
Hennessy sets the battle in just the right perspective. After McClellan’s failure in the Seven Days, hardliners in the Lincoln administration wanted to shift away from McClellan’s gentlemanly style of leading an army to a harder war, one which would punish Southern civilians for their treason.
Maj. Gen. John Pope, brought from out west, was thought just the man to do this. So Lincoln and Stanton created a new army of some 50,000 men and sent Pope forth with it into central Virginia to wreck farms while subsisting on the countryside.
By Stephen Davis
What makes a good battle book?
eaders of military history will have a variety of criteria, but it is easy to agree upon a few standards.
And because it eminently meets all of those I
General Lee, rightly offended by “the miscreant Pope,” determined to “suppress” him before he could be reinforced by McClellan’s troops. Second Manassas, Hennessy writes, “would be his first full campaign as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.”
A good battle history has to capture the drama. Hennessy’s certainly does. Lee’s plan, sending Stonewall Jackson with half the army around Pope’s flank and into his rear, was audacious and brilliantly executed.
Hennessy describes Jackson’s march—54 miles in 36 hours, Aug. 25-26—breathlessly, but the real fun begins when Jackson’s tired veterans captured Pope’s big supply base at Manassas Junction.
“From boxcar to boxcar and warehouse to warehouse the men dashed,” he writes, “uncovering ever more desirable delicacies”: cakes, candy, oranges, canned oysters—you name it. For John Worsham of the 21st Virginia, it was French mustard.
“To see a starving man eating lobster salad and drinking Rhine wine, barefoot and in tatters, was curious,” Worsham reflected. I’ll say. August 27, 1862 ranks as one of the most “curious” days of the war.
The traits and performance of the key leaders must be thoughtfully depicted. Jackson is the hero here. “History must judge him,” the author contends, “as the man who by boldness and incredible speed made Lee’s greatest triumph possible.”
In contrast is poor John Pope. He was laughably pompous, “I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies.”
He was pitifully opaque, unable to perceive the danger crashing his way, as when he ordered his army to chase after Jackson and “bag the whole crowd.” On the morning of the 30th, Pope “was practically paralyzed with uncertainty.” When Longstreet began massing for his afternoon attack, Pope continued to disregard the warnings streaming into his headquarters.
The best battle books describe the fighting with enough detail to be definitive without sinking to excessive militrivia. This Hennessy does admirably. He has the added advantage of knowing the terrain—he was NPS historian at Manassas National Battlefield.
I remember decades ago, in Dr. Bell Wiley’s Civil War course at Emory, hearing him voice suspicion that Bruce Catton never visited Gettysburg, based on his description of the battlefield terrain.
Military history demands a writing style that is spare and pithy, but the best books are written gracefully as well. A confident author is also unafraid to use colorful language.
Here, in Hennessy’s words, a Union battery galloping hard for the rear ran through a Federal infantry line and “completely discombobulated” it.
Full annotation and explanatory endnotes are the clearest measures of the author’s scholarship. Hennessy once told me that when researching this book he was reading so much microfilm that he bought a microfilm reader for home use. That’s research.
An outstanding battle book does not have to be flawless. In Hennessy’s, my eyes strain to see a statement of Confederate casualties from the battle. A footnote refers us to the Official Records (1,090 K, 6,154 W).
We insist, of course, on good maps. There have to be enough of them to complement and clarify the text (fifteen here, the work of Richard Darling). To my eye, they should not be too detailed; brigade-level will do unless the book portrays itself as a “microhistory” (think George R. Stewart’s Pickett’s Charge [1959]).
I also believe a good military history will offer stories that stick with you. I remember reading Hennessy’s history and coming upon the story of Captain David Gibson, Co. H, 3rd West Virginia. Before a Federal assault Gibson walked up to another officer and said, “Major, I shall be killed in this charge.”
Maj. Theodore Lang tried to brush off Gibson’s dark premonition. “I tell you, I am going to be killed in this charge,” Gibson repeated. “I knew it last night; I have known it all morning.”
Sure enough, the Federals charged; Captain Gibson was shot in the head and killed.
I remember telling this story to my wife-of-the-time. Her practical response: “If he knew he was going to be killed, why did he charge?”
I have told this story countless times, illustrating how this one vignette from Hennessy’s history illustrates what
“Major, I shall be killed
in this charge. I tell you, I
am going to be killed in this
charge. I knew it last night;
I have known it all morning.” – Captain David Gibson
I call the difference between the practical and the sublime. Everyone gets it.
So how many criteria are we articulating? By all of mine, I wish to thank John Hennessy for a fine battle book on Second Manassas.
Wait—one more. One can see quality in a good book’s final sentences. Hennessy tells how a humiliated Pope, removed from command and sidelined to fight the Sioux
Stephen Davishasbeenwritingaboutthe Civil War foralongtime—“since Jesuswasinthirdgrade,” he contends. from 1985 to 2005 workedas Book Review EditorforBlue & Gray Magazine. HeisauthorofTexas Brigadiertothe Fallof Atlanta: John Bell Hood (2019) andInto Tennessee & Failure: John Bell Hood (2020). With Bill HendrickhewroteThe Atlanta Intelligencer Coversthe Civil War(2022).
to be held on Shenandoah University’s campus in Winchester, VA to be held on Shenandoah University’s campus in Winchester, VA
McCormick Civil War Institute McCormick Civil War Institute
“Quenching the… Embers”: Victory, Defeat, “Quenching the… Embers”: Victory, Defeat, and Challenges After Appomattox and Challenges After Appomattox
2026 Spring Conference 2026 Spring Conference
in Minnesota, en route stopped over in Chicago. A crowd formed and called for remarks.
“My friends, I am glad to see you tonight,” he began. “I am glad to be back to breathe again the pure air of the State of Illinois. It has been for many years my home, and I am glad to return to it. God almighty only knows how sorry I am I ever left it.”
