A TASTE OF
THE OLDLINER MAGAZINE

ISSUE THREE

Fascinating Articles About the American Civil War

"Whoever lost R E Lee's 'lost order', a delighted George McClellan found it"

Few Commanders have ever been handed a more Important piece of information

Special Order No 191
Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia September 9th 1862

General D H Hill's division will form the rear guard of the Army, pursuing the road taken by the main body.  The reserve artillery, ordnance, and supply trains, etc., will precede General Hill.
General Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the command of Generals Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws, and with the main body of the cavalry, will cover the route of the Army and bring up all stragglers that may have been left behind.
The commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body of the Army at Boonsboro or Hagerstown.
Each regiment an the march will habitually carry its axes in the regimental ordnance wagons, for use of the men at their encampments, to procure wood, etc.

By Command of General R E Lee,
R H Chilton, Assistant
Adjutant General
 

Major General D H Hill Commanding Division.

Armed with such foreknowledge of his opponent's intended strategy, even the normally over cautious KcClellan was moved to exclaim  "Now I know what to do".  And to an anxiously waiting President Lincoln, the Union Army commander exulted "I have all the plans of the Rebels, and will catch them in their own trap if my men are equal to the emergency.  Will send you trophies".

The cause of McClelland's understandable, and uncharacteristic, confidence -his possession of Lee's order detailing the entire Maryland Campaign - was one of the most curious occurrences of the War.  Even the usually unflappable Lee was still arguing with sub-ordinates over the loss of his orders, three years after the War.  On 9 September 1862, five days after the Army of Northern Virginia had crossed the Potomac into Maryland on its first northern invasion, Lee dictated the order to his adjutant General, Colonel Robert H Chilton.  The order in effect, divided his army into. four parts, each of which was to be separated from the others while the Union garrison at Harper's Ferry, was attacked from three different directions.  Copies of the order were to be sent to Lee's seven ranking sub-ordinates, Corps Commanders Jackson and Longstreet and their divisional Commanders.  In delivery of the sensitive information, however, something went grievously wrong.  Jackson  and Longstreet received their copies as did (presumably) four of the five division leaders.  Longstreet even went as far as memorizing the order, tearing it into pieces then swallowing the contents.
Major General D H Hill testified after the War that he received a copy of the order through Jackson - proper military procedure, since Jackson was his lmmediate superior.  But he insisted by legal affidavit, that neither he nor his staff received a copy through the adjutant general's office.  In the absence of other historical proof, it would seen that Hill's copy of Chilton's hand-written order was most probably lost by one of Chiltan's couriers, who may then have been afraid to tell his superiors.  Since Hill had already received another copy of the order from Jackson, such a loss understandably would have been overlooked in the haste and tension of the moment.
Whatever the case, two members of the 27th Indiana Regiment, Corporal Bartan W Mitchell and Sergeant John M Bloss found the order in some tall grass in a meadow on the outskirts of Frederick.  Wrapped inside it were three cigars.  A casual reading of the scrap of paper found it to be a sensational find indeed.  It was headed "Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia, Special Order No 191" and signed "By Command of General R E Lee, R H Chilton, Assist Adj Gen".
The alert non-coms took the order to their company commander who in turn passed it on to Regimental Headquarters.  From there it was kicked up to XII Corps headquarters where Colonel Samuel E Pittman, a regular army comrade of Chiltons before the War, recognized the handwriting as authentic.  It was rushed to McClellan with a cover note informing him that "it is a document of interest and is also genuine".
After the war, Hill was accused of losing the order himself, occasioning his efforts at self defence through the courts.  When Hill went public with the dispute in 1868, Lee sent him a letter downplaying the importance of the loss, since, Lee said, cavalry commander J E B Stuart "had learned from a citizen of Maryland that McClellan was in possession of the order directing the movement of our troops'.
This may have been hindsight on Lee's behalf - his subsequent actions following Stuart's report do not seem to have been guided by such an absolute knowledge of McClellan's discovery.  But the notorious Lost Order, whatever its genesis had indeed affected the course of Lee's Maryland campaign, and the very outcome of the War itself.

TRIVIA QUIZ
(answers at the bottom of the page)

TRIVIA ANSWERS

Check out the oldliner magazine