Banks’s Grand Review

Banks’s Grand Review. Ruffles, Flourishes, Drills and Heat. , In July and August, 1862, the Union Army of Virginia’s 2nd Corps under Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks camped in and around Little Washington. Col. Charles E.F. Collis’s Zouaves, noted for their French-style red and blue uniforms, served as Banks’s bodyguard. The army’s commander, Gen. John Pope, remained near Washington, D.C., until the end of July but communicated with Banks by U.S. Military Telegraph. Army construction crews strung lines from Warrenton to Little Washington and on to Sperryville. , Banks’s corps conducted lengthy daily drills in the fields directly southeast of here, often in oppressive heat. On July 28, Banks held one of several massive ‘Grand Reviews” of his troops. Banks, whose command Confederate Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson had thrashed during Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley campaign in May and June, wrote to his wife that this was the first time he had ever given drilling orders to so many men. Banks held another massive review a few days later, in honor of the Army of Virginia’s commander, Gen. John Pope. On August 9, Banks’s men bore the brunt of fighting at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, about 25 miles south of here in Culpeper County. ,

“Yesterday we had a splendid review of my troops. After the review I drilled them all myself in the evolutions of the line. It was the first time I had ever [done so], and to some 10,000 men, I was astonished I felt I had been doing it all my life and I think the officers were surprised. They all said it could not be done by one man, and I suppose had not seen it. I was delighted but didn’t say a word to anyone about it.” , Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, letter to his wife, July 29, 1862.