This Day in Civil War History September 13th, 1862 The Union Discovers "Lost Order"

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-union-discovers-lost-order ^

[mainepatsfan]

Sep 13, 1862:

The Union Discovers "Lost Order"

Union soldiers find a copy of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's orders detailing the Confederates' plan for the Antietam campaign near Frederick, Maryland. But Union General George B. McClellan was slow to act, and the advantage the intelligence provided was lost.

On the morning of September 13, the 27th Indiana rested in a meadow outside of Frederick, Maryland, which had served as the site of a Confederate camp a few days before. Sergeant John Bloss and Corporal Barton W. Mitchell found a piece of paper wrapped around three cigars. The paper was addressed to Confederate General D.H. Hill. Its title read, "Special Order No. 191, Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia." Realizing that they had discovered a copy of the Confederate operation plan, Barton and Mitchell quickly passed it up the chain of command. By chance, the division adjutant general, Samuel Pittman, recognized the handwriting on the orders as that of a colleague from the prewar army, Robert Chilton, who was the adjutant general to Robert E. Lee.

Pittman took the order to McClellan. The Union commander had spent the previous week mystified by Lee's operations, but now the Confederate plan was clear. He reportedly gloated, "Here is a paper with which if I cannot whip Bobbie Lee, I will be willing to go home." McClellan now knew that Lee's forces were split into five parts and scattered over a 30-mile stretch, with the Potomac River in between. At least eight miles separated each piece of Lee's army, and McClellan was just a dozen miles from the nearest Confederate unit at South Mountain.

[mainepatsfan]

The great tragedy of this event was the fact that the soldiers from Indiana didn't even get to keep the cigars!!

[nikos1121]

Similarity of Mclelland and our current commander in chief. Both cowardly blow hards....

[bushpilot1]

This Day in the War of Northern Aggression History September 13th, 1862 The Union Discovers “Lost Order”

Fixed the title.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

McClellan was the prototype for later generations of soft war Democrats, but to give him his due, he did stabilize the situation after 2nd Bull Run and he did well enough at Antietam to enable Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, so he does earn some gratitude from Americans.

[major-pelham]

I see much similar between Mac and the lefty’s. Just as I see much similar between Bush 43 and Grant/Sherman. The only way to win is make them worry about what you are going to do, not worry at all about what they are going to do. No rest, no mercy, no quarter, anywhere, anytime. Just ask Al Qaeda who’d they rather fight against.

[nikos1121]

Very little in my mind.

[MplsSteve]

What I wondered most about is this...

Given that McClellan believed that Lee’s army was larger than his and also (IIRC) that McClellan believed the Lost Order was a forgery, why didn’t he at least take the time to have his cavalry check into whether the info in the Lost Order was accurate?

He didn’t.

And that in itself strikes me as negligence and incompetence. McClellan could have literally ran the Army of Northern Virginia into the Potomac if he had acted correctly.

The Civil War would still have dragged on but not for as long as it did.

[Reo]

Thanks for the reminder, mainepatsfan. Samuel Pittman was my great-grandfather. Some years ago when cleaning out my parents' home we found a shoe box with his name on it stuffed with papers that my mother had carefully saved. I spent some 6 months sorting and transcribing them. My siblings and I then donated the entire collection to the Chapin Library at Williams College in Williamstown, MA, where they are now available for review. The account in today's article is off on one point. Pittman and Chilton had not served together prior to the war. Rather, Pittman had been a bank clerk in Detroit while Chilton had been paymaster for the federal garrison there, so Pittman had become very familiar with Chilton's signature on checks. Pittman's commander, Br. Gen. Alpheus Williams, probably did know Chilton in Detroit prior to the war. In a talk he gave on the Lost Order incident in 1903, Pittman speculated very briefly on the possibilty of espionage involvement. He also did the same in correspondence with Gen E. A. Carmen writing in the 1890's "Could the Union cause have had, after all, a friend at Lee's or Hill's head quarters to thus favor the Union side as by accident?" Makes for interesting speculation.

[Gordon Pym]

The great tragedy of this event was the fact that the soldiers from Indiana didn't even get to keep the cigars!!

Yeah, The brass ordered them destroyed by fire

[Colonel Kangaroo]

On second thought, the more I think of Little Mac’s attitude to the destruction of Pope, the more I think you might be correct and that I might have been too generous to our would-be Napoleon.

[mac_truck]

is that a confession? ;^)

[rockrr]

If you think that’s negligence and incompetence, let’s reconvene on 9/18 and recall McClellan’s allowing Lee’s retreat from Antietam...

[Non-Sequitur]

This Day in the War of Northern Aggression Southern Rebellion History September 13th, 1862 The Union Discovers “Lost Order”

Fixed your fix.

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
	Antiquity Journal  & archive  Archaeologica  Archaeology  Archaeology Channel  BAR  Bronze Age Forum  Discover  Dogpile  Eurekalert  Google  LiveScience  Mirabilis.ca  Nat Geographic  PhysOrg  Science Daily  Science News  Texas AM  Yahoo  Excerpt, or Link only?	Thanks mainepatsfan. But Union General George B. McClellan was slow to act Being slow to act was his home-run swing. What a POS that guy was. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
· History topic · history keyword · archaeology keyword · paleontology keyword · · Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword ·