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==History==
The Army of the [[Potomac River#History|Potomac]] was created in 1861 but was then only the size of a corps (relative to the size of Union armies later in the war). Its nucleus was called the '''Army of Northeastern Virginia''', under [[Brigadier general (United States)|Brig. Gen.]] [[Irvin McDowell]], and it was the army that fought (and lost) the war's first major battle, the [[First Battle of Bull Run]]. The arrival in [[Washington, D.C.]], of [[Major general (United States)|Maj. Gen.]] [[George B. McClellan]] dramatically changed the makeup of that army. McClellan's original assignment was to command the [[Division of the Potomac]], which included the [[Department of Northeast Virginia]] under McDowell and the [[Department of Washington]] under Brig. Gen. [[Joseph K. Mansfield]].
{{stack|[[File:The Army of the Potomac -- Our Outlying Picket in the Woods.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|''The Army of the Potomac – Our Outlying Picket in the Woods'', 1862]]}}
On July 26, 1861, the [[Department of the Shenandoah]], commanded by Maj. Gen. [[Nathaniel P. Banks]], was merged with McClellan's departments and on that day, McClellan formed the Army of the Potomac, which was composed of all military forces in the former Departments of Northeastern Virginia, Washington, [[Department of Pennsylvania|Pennsylvania]], and the Shenandoah. The men under Banks's command became an infantry division in the Army of the Potomac.<ref>Beatie, p. 480.</ref> The army started with four corps, but these were divided during the [[Peninsula Campaign]] to produce two more. After the [[Second Battle of Bull Run]], the Army of the Potomac absorbed the units that had served under Maj. Gen. [[John Pope (military officer)|John Pope]].
The belief that John Pope commanded the Army of the Potomac in the summer of 1862 after McClellan's unsuccessful Peninsula Campaign is mistaken. On the contrary, Pope's [[Army of Virginia]] was built around different units, although three corps of the Army of the Potomac were sent to northern Virginia and were under Pope's operational control during the [[Northern Virginia Campaign]]. During the time that the Army of Virginia existed, the Army of the Potomac was headquartered on the [[Virginia Peninsula]], and then outside Washington, D.C., with McClellan still in command, although most of his troops had been temporarily re-assigned. After Pope's defeat at [[Second Bull Run]], McClellan was given back his original units, plus most of the units of the Army of Virginia, which were integrated into the Army of the Potomac - although not always successfully.
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