The Second Battle of Manassas was fought in Northern Virginia from August 28-30, 1862 near the town of Manassas and Bull Run Creek. It had been just over a year since the Confederate Army defeated the Union Army in this same location. Once again the area would see a Confederate victory.
On August 28, 1862 General Robert E. Lee ordered General Stonewall Jackson to engage Union Major General John Pope in battle. It had become Pope’s objective to protect the Union Capital. To engage Pope was a risk for the Confederates because General Jackson’s army was far fewer in number, by approximately 20,000 men. However, the Confederates attacked Pope’s army and engaged in battle for several hours. The day ended with neither side able to claim victory.
General Pope believed this was his chance to defeat the great General Stonewall Jackson. However, he was unaware that at this time, General Longstreet and his army of 28,000 had joined General Jackson in the battle. General Porter joined General Pope, however he did not believe he was in position to battle and so did not come to the aid of his comrade. Both armies fought fiercely on August 29 with heavy casualties.
Still unaware that General Longstreet had joined General Jackson and wanting to secure victory against the man who earned his name on this very spot the year before, General Pope made a tactical error on August 30 that cost him the battle. He depleted his ranks on the left flank in order to secure victory on the right. Longstreet’s Army attacked the Union army on its weak side. The Union Army was not able to hold against this surprise attack, despite the aid of General Porter, and was forced to retreat. However, unlike the year before, the Union army was able to retreat in an organized fashion and reached the safety of the fortified capital.
Although the second Battle of Manassas was not as decisive a victory for the Confederate States as the first, it was a measure of the supreme command of General Robert E. Lee. With a much smaller army, he was able to defeat the Union soldiers with fewer casualties. The Confederate Army suffered roughly 9,000 casualties while the Union Army suffered roughly 15,000 casualties.
The Polar Bear Expedition was a unique event in American and Russian history as well. It stands as the only time that Allied forces including Americans invaded Russia. It began in 1918 when Great Britain and France requested that the US join the Allied Intervention in North Russia. The primary objective of the Intervention was to prevent Allied war material stockpiles in Archangelsk from falling into German hands.
On July 14th, 1918, the Army’s 85th Division set out from their training camp in Michigan to France. Within three days, Woodrow Wilson had agreed to the intervention as long as American forces where only used for guarding the Allied war material stockpiles. The 85th was immediately rerouted through Great Britain and equipped with winter gear and Russian arms. When they arrived in Arkhangelsk on September 4th, 1918, they were placed under British command.
When the British initially arrived in Arkhangelsk ahead of the Americans, they had discovered that the stockpiles had already been moved up the Dvina River by Bolshevik forces. Because of this, the Americans were first used in an offensive rescue of the Czech Legion.
Over time, the offensive gains slowly decreased as the front line was stretched taut. The thin line was difficult to logistically resupply and therefore forced the Allies to adopt a more defensive posture. During the coming winter, Bolshevik forces began an offensive near the Dvina River where they inflicted several casualties and forced the Allies to retreat a considerable distance.
The final withdrawal of Americans came long after the Armistice in November of 1918. Friends and relatives of the 85th division began writing letters and petitioning for the return of the American soldiers. The local newspapers in turn editorialized the petitions and managed to get the issue raised in Congress. Regardless, it was impossible to extract the Americans because the Arctic ocean was frozen over near Archangelsk. The morale of the American soldiers plummeted as they came to grips with their situation. Forced to fight to survive with no easy way out, the Americans trudged on.
The Americans weathered the winter and in February, President Wilson began drawing up plans for the withdrawal of the Americans in Archangelsk. By early June, most of the Americans were on boats heading back home via the port of New York City.
September 17, 1862, proved to be a monumental moment in The War Between the States. The battle that day had the power to determine the likely outcome of the war and the life of a nation. Confederate General Robert E. Lee had just succeeded in defeating the Union Army at the second Battle of Manassas and he assumed it would take several weeks for the Union army to recover from their losses. Rather than maintain a defensive strategy, Lee decided to force the Union to fight the war on his terms. He planned his first attack on Northern soil, initiating battle in Maryland.
Lee hoped to achieve several objectives with this strategy; He hoped to give Virginia a chance to recover from battle and his troops to have access to new food and supplies, He hoped to put his Army in a position to attack the Capital of the United States, He hoped to persuade Maryland, a slave state loyal to the Union, to join the Confederacy, and he hoped to gain the support of England and France.
The two armies engaged in battle on September 17, 1862 in Maryland near the town of Sharpsburg and Antietam Creek. Thus the Union name for the battle is the Battle of Antietam and the Confederate name for the battle is the Battle of Sharpsburg. Unfortunately for General Lee, a scout of Union General George B. McClellan had discovered a copy of Lee’s battle orders. The Union army was well prepared.
Lee’s Confederate troops fired upon advancing Union soldiers, but many broke through confederate lines. Throughout the day both side encountered musket and artillery fire. The Confederates could not hold on. General Stonewall Jackson provided artillery cover as General Lee’s troops retreated across the Potomac River.
The battle was the bloodiest in American history. The Union forces suffered 12,400 casualties and the Confederate forces suffered 10,320 casualties. The 22,720 casualties incurred in this one day battle were greater than the deaths in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War and the Spanish American War combined.
President Lincoln took the Union Victory as on opportune time to issue his first Emancipation Proclamation on September 22. The Proclamation declared the Confederate States must cease fire by January 1, 1863 or Lincoln would free all slaves in Confederate territory. Many historians believe that this proclamation led to England’s decision not to support the Confederacy. Lee failed to achieve his objectives and the outcome of the Civil War had virtually been decided.