General Quarters -> RE: Wish List (1/21/2007 9:44:11 PM)
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ORIGINAL: chris0827 On the day Pope took command McClellan was already retreating on the Peninsula. Pope's troops were scattered all over northern Virginia and he didn't start advancing until august 2nd. McClellan had been given orders only july 30th to prepare to move his army to Aquia harbor. Yes, it is good to be specific about dates, though I am not sure what the date of Pope's advance is apropos of. I was speaking about plans. From Civil War Day by Day, June 26, 1862: "A primary command change was announced in Washington. Maj. Gen. John Pope was formally assigned command of the newly created Army of Virginia .... The main tsk of the new command was to protect Washington and, more importantly, to consolidate all land forces in Virginia ... so that they could move overland to aid McClellan and take the pressue off his army near Richmond." From Shelby Foote: "On June 27, while Porter was under attack on Turkey Hill," McClellan wired the War Dept, "I will beg that you put some one general in command ...." Lincoln "had already done what he suggested ...." "John Pope was the man ...." "The Army of Virginia, it was called." "... its mission was to move in general down the line of the Orange & Alexandria Railroad ... so as to close in on the Confederate capital from the west and north, while McClellan's Army of the Potomac applied pressure from the east; thus Richmond would be crushed in a giant nutcracker, with Pope as the upper jaw." The documentary evidence, as far as I have seen it, is not as explicit as the nutcracker image suggests (that's why I called it "sorta the plan, insofar as they had a plan") but it was sufficient for me to suggest this should be a possibility in the game.
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