Posted on 12/12/2019 9:50:10 AM PST by Perseverando
The Confederate Army was unstoppable - within weeks of winning the Civil War.
General Robert E. Lee had won the Second Battle of Bull Run and was marching 55,000 Confederate troops into Maryland on September 3, 1862.
The Confederate Army was welcomed into Maryland as anti-Union protests had been filling Baltimore's streets.
On September 13, 1862, President Lincoln met with Rev. William Patterson, Rev. John Dempster and other Methodist, Baptist and Congregational leaders.
The ministers presented Lincoln with a petition urging him to emancipate the slaves.
Lincoln told them:
"I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice ...
I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He will reveal it directly to me;
for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter ...
These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation."
The same day, September 13, 1862, Union Private Barton W. Mitchell was drinking coffee and inadvertently noticed three cigars on the ground wrapped with a piece of paper.
The paper was a copy of Lee's Special Orders No. 191 addressed to Confederate General D.H. Hill revealing his plan to divide the Confederate Army.
With this information in Union hands, the South's anticipated victory was cut short.
Union General George McClellan was now able to intercept and ambush several Confederate brigades just 70 miles from Washington, DC.
This erupted into the Battle of Antietam,
(Excerpt) Read more at myemail.constantcontact.com ...
hero? for finding a note?
Wrong! It was Cat!
Actually, Brian Williams knew about this and was there when Lee lost it. I swear!
but he doesn’t like punching those buttons on the time machine!
More Divine Intervention to save this country from itself and others. That has happened so many times that it seems obvious that this country is a tool that the Lord plans to keep around and use to His benefit and ours as well.
I’ve walked the Antietam battlefield and was just flabbergasted that McClellan could have managed to lose the battle. The troops fought hard, but with just a little more hustle on the federals side, they could have rolled the rebels.
The hustle of the confederate side was exemplified by A.P. Hill’s division hoofing it from Harper’s Ferry and then launching right into the attack to save the right flank at the end of the day.
Mcclellan had the killer instinct of a morning dove. Grant would have never let Lee get away.
The story of finding it by happenstance has always seemed a little fishy. The kind of thing people report when the actual means of acquisition is too sensitive to report.
But...sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
and it was written on Bush’s IBM Selectric typewriter. Dan Rather got a photograph of the incident.
In 1977 the Park Service advertised for volunteers to duplicate AP Hill’s march. They figured out the route he had taken from Harper’s Ferry, through Shepardstown, and across the river to Sharpsburg as closely as possible using existing roads. I answered the call and was given a six-foot 2x4 to carry instead of a rifle. We marched out of Harper’s Ferry quickly and kept a forced pace to get there in the same time the AP Hill had. By the time we got even close to Sharpsburg, I felt that my hips were floating, disconnected from my legs or spine. By the time we finished, I felt no pain because I had no feeling below my hips, but was still able to walk around as much as I liked. The Park Service had promised us a certificate memorializing our accomplishment, but at some point while we were marching it was decided that since we were imitating Confederates, they could not do that. Although, we did get a hardy handshake and a van ride back to where we started.
My first thought was "spy."
The story is bullsh*t on the face of it. An officer would make an immediate hue and cry if he discovered an order had been lost, and would likely never have lost it in the first place.
I think the Confederates had a spy in their midst that had access to the order.
This should have been the decisive moment of the War and would have been but for McClellan’s incompetent leadership.
bkmk
His elbows hit them while he was combing his hair.
ahh!
and in proportional font, too!
Your experience was perfectly historical. Only about a third of A.P. Hill’s men arrived in time to take part in the crucial flank attack. The rest were straggling back for miles.
The Dunker Church survived the battle and was repaired and reused for some time thereafter. Eventually the congregation moved and the building fell into disrepair, helped along by souvenir hunters. It collapsed in 1921. A house was later built on the original foundation. This became a gas station and eventually a souvenir shop. The site was finally purchased by a private conservancy group and donated to the NPS. The church that you see today is a reconstruction done for the centennial in 1962. There was plenty of documentary evidence for the original structure so the reconstruction is quite exact.
Second Manassas is also being pieced back together, and Perryville is darn near complete, with a big piece of the puzzle on the center of the Union line just being acquired last year. Most of the current preservation is being done by private organizations. There are Friends groups for many of the larger battlefields and quite a network of local and regional groups. The American Battlefield Trust (battlefields.org) is the big national group. If you are looking for a giving venue this Christmas season, check it out.
“This should have been the decisive moment of the War”
It was. Based on McClellan’s narrow victory, Lincoln decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Once that happened, both the British and French Governments decided against any direct intervention on behalf of the Confederacy. That pretty much sealed the fate of Confederacy.
But, militarily what should have been a decisive Union victory was a draw, with Lee withdrawing his army intact. Lee would have to be defeated on his second invasion of the North at Gettysburg.
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