The three day battle of 2nd Manassas opened tonight, the 28th August, in 1862.
It would prove the culmination of a splendid three week campaign to oust a Federal army of 50000 from deep in Virginia and lead to an unsuccessful invasion of Maryland in September. Its instigator was the great Southern General Lee.
There were to be consequences for the later Gettysburg battle fought in July of 1863.
Pope thought he had trapped Jackson’s fabled Corps and was preparing, in his arrogant manner, to finish him off. He ignored signs that Lee’s other, larger, Corps was nearby. The trap would be a Southern one.
The battle opened early evening with the advance of one unit, the 2nd Wisconsin, of the soon to be famous Black Hats Brigade. This 430 man Regiment was caught in flank by 800 men of Jackson’s Stonewall Brigade of Virginians. But did not flee, instead stood their ground. Their Brigade commander, an Artillery officer, John Gibbon fed the rest of his 2100 man Brigade into the melee, until they faced 6000 men of Jackson’s Corps.
The action would result in this Western Brigade earning the nickname Iron Brigade.
Its units were the 2, 6, 7 Wisconsin and 19 Indiana. The Southern troops in Lee’s army would forever remember these men.
Two Southern Generals were wounded in today’s action. The senior was Major General Richard Stoddert Ewell. He had attended West Point and graduated in 1840, serving on the frontier. He had commanded a mixed State Brigade at 1st Manassas and was now Jackson’s senior Division commander and his right hand man. The wound was in the leg and was severe, requiring amputation. He would be out of the war for 10 months, missing Jackson’s fatal wounding at Chancellorsville in May of 1863.
He would return at the head of Jackson’s old Corps and despite an auspicious start to the Gettysburg campaign, fail terribly when most needed at Gettysburg.
Many said he was not the same man without his leg or Jackson’s leadership.