This is the story of the formation of this often luckless command as the II Corps in Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia on June 26, 1862.
A hybrid unit history and leadership and character assessment, putting the XII Corps' actions during the battles of Cedar Mountain and Antietam in proper context by providing significant and substantive treatment to its Confederate opponents. The story of a little-studied yet consequential corps which fills a longstanding historiographical gap.