Who Lost Lee's Lost Order? The mystery
solved.
The following article, less the illustrations which were
researched by Steve Russell, is graciously provided by historian and
author Wilbur D. Jones and is an important piece of historical
investigation. It is protected by copyright and is used with
permission of the author. Please respect this work. Footnotes are
anchored for quick reference. This article was first published in
Civil War Regiments: A Journal of the American Civil War, Volume
5, No. 3, 1997, by Savas Publishing Co.
Who Lost the Lost Order?
Stonewall Jackson, His Courier, and
Special Orders No. 191
by Wilbur D. Jones
|
|
First page of Special Orders No. 191
|
Second page of Special Orders No. 191
|
The Union Army's discovery of a copy of Confederate Gen. Robert E.
Lee's Special Orders No. 191 near Frederick, Maryland, on September
13, 1862, outlining the disposition of his thin and widespread Army
of Northern Virginia, precipitated the Battle of Antietam four days
later. The revelations of the orders, called the "Lost Order" in the
North and the "Lost Dispatch" in the South, prompted Union commander
Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan to pursue Lee's divided army and force
that fateful clash from which the South never fully recovered.
The results of the Union victory at Antietam reaped political
consequences exceeding this bloody battlefield of the Civil War.
President Abraham Lincoln used the military success to sign the
Emancipation Proclamation, injecting slavery as an emotional and
moral war issue. Powerful European nations eventually refused
political recognition of the Confederacy and its military and
economic benefits. Lee withdrew his battered forces back into
Virginia, his first foray into the North a strategic failure.
Antietam thus redirected the course of the war and ultimately led to
the downfall of the Confederacy.
How No. 191 was lost, and who caused it to be lost, has remained
one of the war's enduring mysteries. The copy of No. 191 found
wrapped around three cigars in a clover field two miles south of
Frederick by members of the 27th Indiana Infantry, addressed to Maj.
Gen. D. H. Hill, was either intentionally placed or carelessly
dropped. The act assured the Hoosier regiment a place in history, but
its loser has avoided disgrace.
The act of losing S. 0. 191 has evoked only
passing interest from modern historians. Most have discussed the
finding and what occurred later: when Lee knew about its
disappearance, the battle itself, Lee's disastrous Maryland Campaign
and the repercussions.1 The mystery has been treated
as either beyond solution or too sensitive. This article scrutinizes
a possible circumstance and those suspected of perpetuating it and
concludes, through circumstantial evidence, what man allegedly lost
it and how.
General Lee
|
Colonel Chilton
|
Major Venable
|
Major Taylor
|
Captain Marshall
|
In order to determine just who lost S. 0. 191, we
shall begin with an examination of how Lee's orders to his field
commanders were written, recorded and delivered, and the principals
involved. A key Lee staff officer, Capt. Charles Marshall, described
Lee's correspondence control system: "The staff took Lee's
instructions, wrote them down, entered one copy in the 'confidential
book' or held it to be copied later into the general order book, and
sent another copy by orderly to the commander addressed. Sometimes
the orderly was told to bring back a receipt."2 That
normal procedure failed to operate properly on September 9, 1862, the
date No. 191 was issued. Colonel Robert Hall Chilton, Lee's chief
administrative officer, signed the orders. Lee staff officers
Marshall, Maj. Charles S. Venable and Maj. Walter H. Taylor also knew
the system.
Marshall said Lee's general orders were
frequently transmitted directly to each division
commander.3 Taylor said the custom was to send
confidential orders to the wing and division commanders only, and
that Hill, as a division commander unincorporated with either wing,
received a copy of No. 191 as normal course. Venable said
headquarters sent Hill a copy directly, and that Hill received
another copy in the handwriting of Lt. Gen. Thomas J.
Jackson.4 The question of receipts arose. Chilton
said couriers were told to return the delivery envelopes with written
evidence of delivery. "This order was so important that violation of
this rule would have been noticed, & I think I should certainly
recollect if delivery had been omitted ......"5
Chilton kept no journal (only file copies of correspondence) or
"memoranda in consequence of being constantly otherwise
occupied."6 Lee would say later he could not believe
a courier lost No. 191 "as couriers were always required to bring
receipt to show that written orders were safely and surely
delivered."7
General
Jackson
|
General
Longstreet
|
General
D. H. Hill
|
Once deciding to split his army into two parts--Jackson's wing to
Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's to
Hagerstown, Maryland--Lee wanted to quickly proceed. Chilton felt
pressure to write the original, receive Lee's approval, then write
the other copies and dispatch them to each commander assigned an
objective and route, letting the administrative system catch up. It
never did. He dispatched several couriers, with or without
instructions to bring receipts. Most couriers had not returned when,
as an afterthought, he penciled a copy to Hill. Harried, he pressed
into courier service any available officer he saw in the
headquarters.
Chilton did not write about the order during
the war and answered few inquiries later. In 1874, he responded to
Confederate President Jefferson Davis about the system: "That
omission to deliver in his [the courier's] case so important an order
would have been recollected as entailing the duty to advise its loss,
to guard against its consequences, and to act as required . . . But I
could not of course say positively that I had sent any particular
courier to him [Hill] after such a lapse of time."8
The envelope in which No. 191 was found was blank, but because D. H.
Hill was the addressee, a logical conclusion was that Hill lost it.
If not Hill, then it was his staff. Daniel Harvey became the South's
scapegoat and, despite his vehement denials, historians continued to
speculate on his culpability.
This line of reasoning stemmed from the
organization of Lee's army when the order was issued. Hill brought
his division directly from Richmond to join Lee in early September.
Hill was one of the first commanders to enter Maryland and
immediately reported to Jackson, who until Lee arrived was ranking
commander of all Confederate forces there. En route, Hill's Division
had been an independent force. The army was not formally organized
into corps, but each unit fell under either Jackson's or Longstreet's
command. Jackson recognized Hill's arrival and began issuing his
subordinate orders in the usual fashion.9 Both
generals agreed that Hill would come under the command of Jackson.
No. 191 defined Hill's new role. As the rear guard, he was
independent again. Chilton thus correctly issued a copy directly to
Hill, but he failed to determine if Jackson had ordered Hill, or so
intended. Chilton wrongly assumed that Jackson would recognize Hill's
independent role and that Lee would subsequently send the appropriate
order to Hill. Although Lee was confident it was sent directly to
Hill, the copy never reached him and became the "Lost Order." Lee
also supposed Jackson sent a copy to Hill, so Hill would thus know he
was no longer under Jackson.10 Lee's comments were
wishful hindsight: Chilton had acted on his own.
Jackson knew Hill had a separate assignment, but
because he regarded Hill as still reporting to him when Lee issued
the order, he felt obligated to inform Hill. In his own handwriting
Jackson penned a copy for Hill, minus the first two Paragraphs, and
dispatched it to him that afternoon via his trusted courier, Capt.
Henrv Kyd Douglas. Major J. W. Ratchford, Hill's top aide, received
the copy from Douglas and gave it to Hill.11 Hill
insisted the Jackson link was proper: "I went into Maryland under
Jackson's command. I was under his command when Lee's order was
issued. It was proper that I should receive that order through
Jackson and not through Lee."12 Having received all
other orders from Jackson, it was "utterly incomprehensible that all
orders should come through officials channel except this one, the
most important of all."13 Hill never expected a
direct order from Lee. He did not file Jackson's copy with his office
papers, but sewed it into the lining of his coat and later sent it
home.
In June 1863, Hill first heard of the Lost Order
and his association with it. McClellan disclosed the discovery during
his testimony before the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of
the War. Hill heard about it again in September, and wrote his wife
to save the copy he had sent home earlier.14
After the war, there was a strong bias in the
Southern mind against Hill. In 1868 he repudiated his loudest early
antagonist, the wartime editor of the Richmond Examiner. "The harsh
epithets which he applies to me are unworthy of the dignity of the
historian, and prove a prejudiced state of mind. Second, if I
petulantly threw down the order [as was claimed], I deserve not
merely to be cashiered, but to be shot to death with musketry.
General Lee, who ought to have known the facts . . . never brought me
to trial for it." He cited his later nomination for promotion by
Davis and corps command at Chickamauga as evidence of his
innocence.15 Lee said "he did not know that General
Hill had himself lost the dispatch and in consequence he had no
grounds upon which to act, but that General Stuart and other officers
in the army were very indignant about the
matter."16
Hill devoted years clearing his name but never
crusaded to find the guilty. In 1867, Ratchford affirmed that "no
order came to the division from General Lee."17 In
the end, historians, rather than comrades, indicted Hill or his
staff, but because of Hill's avid self defense, the lack of proof,
and Ratchford's honorable service, contemporaries tactfully accepted
Hill's word: it was someone else's carelessness, and the truth would
not be known. Yet accusations still focused on the North Carolinian
Hill and away from "The Virginians" (Lee, Jackson, Chilton, Taylor,
et al.).
As Confederate veterans spoke out, they laid
blame for many failures, including the Maryland invasion. In 1885,
Hill wrote Longstreet, "[t]he Virginians in order to glorify Lee
assume that he should have conquered a peace, but for my carelessness
.... The vanity of the Virginians has made them glorify their own
prowess and deify Lee. They made me the scapegoat for Maryland and
you for [Gettysburg] Pennsylvania ... in an effort to prove Lee's
infallibility."18
Other historians charged Hill had left the copy
on a table in Frederick, or that it was found on a street where Hill
and his staff had been. "There are many still living who know that I
occupied a tent, not a house, outside of Frederick," the fiery Hill
responded.19 Hill asked Chilton whether a courier
could have dropped another general's copy in Hill's camp. Chilton
wrote that "I should have supposed so important an order as
constituting an important part of the history of the war would have
been preserved amongst your papers if ever
received."20 Then Chilton hid behind a "very
defective memory," thinking the orders had been issued in Leesburg,
Virginia.21
In 1868, Capt. Joseph G. Morrison, a Jackson
staff member (and brother-in-law of both Jackson and Hill), verified
Jackson's handwriting was on the copy Hill saved, which Morrison
already had written on that Copy.22 Hill speculated
the loser was a traitor in the ranks--but by staff position, not
name. Some Union generals thought the order was found in the camp of
Maj. Gen. A. P. Hill, as if inferring the wrong Hill was blamed. D.
H. accused no one and, partly in deference to A. P. who was later
killed, never mentioned this.23
Hill rebuffed the statement by 27th Indiana
Colonel Silas Colgrove in an 1886 Century Magazine article
that the order was found in Hill's own campsite.24
By 1885, Hill believed he had "exposed the unfairness of attributing
to me the loss of a paper, solely on the ground that it was directed
to me." He almost had the answer. "The explanation of the mystery may
be that a copy was prepared by General Lee's adjutant for me but
never forwarded," Hill speculated.25
The matter was unresolved in Hill's lifetime,
and it bothered his family into the 1930s. Hill and Jackson had
married sisters Isabella and Mary Anna Morrison of North Carolina,
but the brothers-in-law were not close. The Hill side was jealous
over the one-sided adulation given Jackson and the scant attention
paid to their general. For instance, the Hills were rankled by an
incident during the 1862 Seven Days battles, when D. H. was accused
of losing a Jackson order. Hill recovered it before Union eyes saw
it, however, and Jackson himself resolved the situation before it got
out of hand.26
About January 1864, Mrs. Hill told her uncle,
William A. Graham, that she had the copy of the order "in our dear
Brother Jackson's own handwriting and filed away with his [D. H.'s]
most important papers."27 In 1931, Hill's daughter
Eugenia wrote cousin Charles [believed Graham] who had located Hill's
copy of the Jackson order:
Hurrah for you for finding the
"Lost Dispatch." Mr. A. [Thomas Jackson Arnold, her husband]
recognized it when I read your letter to him, & then I got my
father's account published in The Land We Love & verified it
verbatim. I knew of course it was in his war papers .... As there has
been so much controversy over it, for both of our fathers' sake we
should clear it up as much as possible in our
time.28
Eugenia suggested Charles write an article for
Confederate Veteran magazine "& tell your part of it." Most
importantly, she asked if he ever saw her husband's article in the
August 1922 issue based on an 1897 address by Confederate Maj. Gen.
Thomas Lafayette Rosser on the Lost Dispatch, "which I heard &
wrote him of it the next day."29 The Confederate
Veteran article, written by Thomas Jackson Arnold but ignored by
historians, follows:
General Rosser
The Lost Dispatch--A War Mystery
As is well known, General Hill received his own copy of the order,
written in General Jackson's own handwriting, placed it in his files,
and which is this day among his official papers. Why should there
have been a duplicate of this order addressed to General Hill? A
solution is here given, which would seem to clear up the mystery.
General Thomas L. Rosser, in an address delivered by him at
Raleigh, N. C., on May 10, 1897, in referring to this lost dispatch,
stated that the man who lost the dispatch had suffered enough
humiliation from it for him (Rosser) not to mention his name. That it
was one of Jackson's staff, who was a smoker; that when it was handed
to him to deliver, he said, "O, we have that order," and so,
carelessly, wrapped it around his cigars, placed it in his pocket,
and lost it in that shape; and that he (Rosser) hoped this man would
tell all his connection with it before he died. As the only member of
Jackson's staff now living [1922] was not connected with his staff
until after this event occurred, it is very evident that the staff
officer referred to by General Rosser did not disclose the fact in
his lifetime, and as General Rosser is not now living, the name of
the staff officer may never be known....
It is quite evident that the staff officer who wrote the second
copy of the order was not present when General Jackson copied it and
handed it to the official for delivery to General Hill. It is
likewise evident that General Jackson was not present when the staff
officer wrote the second copy and handed it to the official for
delivery, and received the reply as quoted by General Rosser, "O, we
have that order," and wrapped his cigars in the useless copy, placing
the package in his pocket, and later lost it .... Imagine the chagrin
of the staff officer upon learning the result of his carelessness;
and what of the prospective interview between himself and General
Jackson should the fact of his carelessness become known to the
latter?
Evidently it never did, for the careless
official's connection with headquarters would have ceased at that
moment. Such gross carelessness would not have been excused. The
facts were undoubtedly suppressed by those who were cognizant of
them, and hence the mystery was never revealed. The quotation from
General Rosser was written down the day following his address, and I
have had this written statement in my possession ever
since.30
A Jackson staff officer? If true, Rosser's
assertions not only finally absolved Hill, but profoundly jeopardized
the judgment, performance and credibility of the venerable Jackson
team.31 Historians have not speculated on any link
between the Lost Order and Lee or Jackson. Here they, and Chilton,
are not impervious to second guessing or criticism, and Jackson is
held accountable for a grave lapse of judgment within his inner
circle.
What about the "accuser"? Rosser, two weeks shy of graduating in
1861from the U. S. Military Academy, resigned to join the Confederacy
where he compiled a meritorious service record. Later he was a
dynamic, popular speaker on the war and Americanism, who skillfully
avoided defending the "Lost Cause" or imposing love of Union. In the
1890s, he was one of the most prominent living veterans.
Why did Southerners attack only D. H. Hill? Why was the mistake
not handled in the army's judicial system? Why did it eventually just
wash away? Who actually lost the Special Orders 191, and how?
First, neither Hill nor his staff lost something they never
received. Guilt cannot be ascribed simply because Hill was the
addressee. Involvement by a traitor or spy is a plot for parlor room
fantasy or fiction writers, because of where the order was found and
how long it had been there. The perpetrator was a Confederate
soldier, because no one else could have touched that paper. Who are
the suspect perpetrators?
R. H. Chilton
1. First, Chilton: a mistake in perhaps his biggest service to Lee
was something he wished to forget. He knew who took the copy for
Hill--because he gave it to him--and thereby who lost it. Because he
did not demand proper accounting, he is an accomplice of that man.
Charles S. Venable
|
Walter H. Taylor
|
Charles Marshall
|
2. Venable, Taylor, Marshall: none were couriers except in
emergencies. For one, Taylor was away meeting with President Davis.
Lee's enlisted couriers: using enlisted men for such a major
confidential delivery was unlikely. Because delivery was close to
headquarters and contact with Federals was not unexpected, escorts
were not needed.
Alexander S. Pendleton
3. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Swift Pendleton, Jackson's Chief
of Staff: he had left home for the front on September 9th after an
illness and arrived the 13th.
4. Major Elisha F. Paxton, acting in Pendleton's absence: brand
new, his job was to "mind the store" at Jackson's headquarters.
James P. Smith
|
James G. Morrison
|
5. Lieutenant James Power Smith, Jackson's Aide-de-Camp: he was
newly commissioned, had just joined the staff and had not earned his
confidence. Morrison, Aide-de-Camp: trusted by Jackson, he could have
been the courier, but no evidence indicates that it was him.
William Allan
|
Hunter H. McGuire
|
Jedediah Hotchkiss
|
6. The principal non-line officers, Lt. Col.
William Allan, Surgeon Hunter Holmes McGuire, Capt. J. K. Boswell,
and Capt. Jedediah Hotchkiss: using them as couriers was unlikely for
such a defivery.32
Of any other possible suspects, Henry Kyd Douglas comes closest to
fitting the circumstantial evidence: he was in a position to act for
Jackson; Jackson let him operate independently; he was Jackson's
trusted courier; he smoked cigars; and his subsequent behavior raises
a level of suspicion. Douglas lived until 1903, and could have been
the Jackson staff member Rosser had referred to in 1897. Other
potential couriers, except Smith, had died by 1897. Smith was still
alive in 1922.
Henry Kyd Douglas
A detailed analysis of the evidence sheds
further light on the alleged culprit. First, Douglas was in a
position to act for Jackson. Had Pendleton been present the incident
might not have happened. Douglas claimed postwar that he was the
acting aide-de-camp in Maryland, a position of stature closer to
Jackson than assistant inspector general.33 Could
the freewheeling Douglas have filled the vacuum during Pendleton's
absence?
Second, Jackson had warmed to Douglas as a
soldier despite the young Marylander's flair and egocentrism.
Somewhere Jackson failed to counsel him, and the so-called "young
Adonis" might have become Jackson's Achilles heel. Yet a Confederate
general commenting on the Maryland Campaign said Douglas occupied
"peculiarly confidential relations to him [Jackson]" and "probably
knew as much of General Jackson's intentions as any man
living."34 Did Jackson let Douglas get too close
and give him too much leash? If so, the young officer's self
importance now casts a dark shadow over the judgment of both. If
Douglas saw Chilton's copy for Hill, did informality override
Douglas' normal meticulousness, moving him to abort Lee's
correspondence system? At this momentous occasion, why would Douglas
let down his fellow Virginians?
Third, Douglas was a valued courier for Jackson
and other generals. In the Shenandoah Valley, Jackson sent him on a
successful overnight round-trip mission.35 At
Second Manassas he carried Jackson's request to Longstreet for a
division.36 At Chancellorsville, Jackson directed
him to remain at the front with Gen. Fitz Lee to bring any urgent
message to Jackson.37 At Gettysburg, Maj. Gen.
Edward Johnson sent Douglas to tell the corps commander he could take
Culp's Hill.38
Fourth, Douglas was an admitted cigar smoker
and even received cigars from a friend while imprisoned at Johnson's
Island, Ohio, after his capture at Gettysburg. 39
Taken alone, this circumstantial evidence is not enough to convict
Kyd Douglas. Collectively, the pieces of evidence fit together and
allow us to solve the puzzle.
Some exact events on September 9, 1862 and
thereafter are known, others unknown. By September 6, Lee's army of
about 40,000 had camped south of Frederick from the Monocacy River
and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track, west to the Buckeystown Road.
Lee, Longstreet and Jackson established headquarters near each other
around Best's Grove on the Truit farm.40
The whereabouts of D. H. Hill's camp is unknown.
There is speculation that it was near the Markell house on
Buckeystown Road, on the Thomas farm south of the Monocacy River near
the Georgetown turnpike, or in the area where the Lost Order actually
was found-in a triangle between the turnpike, the Frederick railroad
spur and the main line, and the river.41 On whose
campground it was discovered is irrelevant. After nearly five days,
the soldiers had created a cesspool of trash and filth, a deterrent
to scavengers seeking valuables who mostly left the site undisturbed.
From this point, a plausible scenario can be constructed describing
how the perpetrator easily could have lost the orders.
September 9th--Early afternoon. After his
meeting with Longstreet and Jackson, Lee directed Chilton to write
the orders. Lee approved them and Chilton dispatched officer couriers
to Jackson, Longstreet, Maj. Gen. Jeb Stuart, Maj. Gen. Lafayette
McLaws, Maj. Gen. John G. Walker, and Taylor.42
Douglas receipted for Jackson's copy, read it and delivered it.
Mid-Aftemoon. Jackson wrote a modified copy
for Hill which Douglas carried to Ratchford without requesting a
receipt. On his return Douglas likely stopped by Lee's headquarters.
Chilton had since written the modified copy for Hill but it was
undelivered. He needed a courier and spotted Douglas, or some other
officer, and asked him to take it to Hill. The courier just pressed
into service said, "O, we have that order," but took it
anyway.43 Chilton did not ask him to sign its
envelope as a receipt and considered the chore finished.
The courier took three cigars from a pocket, stuck them in the
envelope containing the order to keep them dry from perspiration, and
tied it with string. He placed the envelope inside his coat and kept
it on. But before returning to his own camp, he forgot the message he
was carrying.
Late aftemoon. Having provided the plan, Lee then notified his
commanders of the march times for the 10th. Chilton dispatched
couriers with verbal orders to Jackson and the other principals.
Jackson in turn likely sent Douglas to inform his subordinate
commanders verbally.
Early Evening. By late in the day, Douglas would have been beside
himself. Tired and dirty, surely he hastened through his courier
duties as darkness closed around the vast encampment. Shortly he
could relax and contemplate tomorrow's move and the women of
Boonsboro, where he who soldiered with the famous Jackson was known
and appreciated.
Douglas would deliver Lee's marching orders to each of Jackson's
generals except Hill. Douglas knew Hill already had the plan but not
the departure hour. But there was no hurry; Hill was departing last.
Still, this message meant Douglas disdainfully would have to see the
crotchety man again that afternoon.
Spot where Lost Order was found
Alone, with no enemy about and while looking
for Hill, Douglas easily could have ridden along the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad spur from Frederick down to the Monocacy River. He had
been in the saddle all day (except for his curiosity stop at Lee's
headquarters, where Chilton engaged him) performing the duty of
trusted courier for Stonewall. Such duty was an important assignment
that he relished for the attention it generated. But nature sought
attention, too, and he possibly dismounted near a small grove in a
clover field to respond. It meant tying his horse, flinging his coat
over the saddle, and doing his business. Probably stretching
longingly and thinking of Boonsboro, he could not wait to get going
in eight hours. Focusing only on the approaching night, he would have
mounted his horse and ridden off to return to camp. He would tell
Hill first thing the next day. Might he have failed to notice a bulky
envelope lying on the ground under the animal's
hoofs?44
Later. A courier, searching his coat pocket for a cigar, by then
would have realized the envelope was missing. But how? when? where?
In Douglas' case, he was in so many places. Surely some comrade had
found it and turned it in, maybe to Hill, for his was the only name
in it, he probably thought. By reveille on the 10th, as thousands
broke camp to march to their destinations, no one in authority had
noted the missing envelope and its extremely sensitive contents. On
the other hand, who would have claimed an innocuous piece of paper
amongst all the waste? The Confederate camp proceeded as if all was
normal.
History offers three versions of when Lee discovered that
McClellan had the order in his possession. One is that a civilian
Southern sympathizer who was in McClellan's tent when the order was
read got through to Stuart, and Stuart informed Lee the night of the
13th. Other versions are that Lee did not know until McClellan
testified before Congress in 1863, or when he read McClellan's
postwar report. (After the war, Lee waffled on "when.") Using
Stuart's plausible information, plus intelligence reports the
Federals were moving westward from Frederick, Lee began drawing his
diverse units toward the most convenient defensive position: the
Antietam Creek.
Preoccupied with his campaign's precariousness, Lee did not
investigate Stuart's account. Only after retreating into Virginia did
he likely tell Jackson, if at all. And then all they knew was the
paper in question had to be No. 191. But whose copy was it?
Did Jackson, mindful of Douglas' role, discuss it with his
captain? If so, Douglas, obviously fearful for his career, would
verify only that he had delivered Jackson's handwritten copy to Hill.
History does not indicate Chilton knew the second Hill copy of No.
191 was missing, and the courier certainly did not confess. Whatever
Lee knew, he did nothing about it.
Ten days after Antietam, Douglas wrote, "When I
think how callous I have become & how insensible to nearly all
the finer feelings of human nature & how I see the horrors of
mortality all around me day by day without a single feeling of
emotion, I cannot but shudder at the thought & wonder to what an
illimitable depth of dependency it is possible for a soldier to
descend."45 He obviously was aghast over the
carnage left on the battlefield, but was he also touched by
uncertainty, even guilt, over his error? The Confederate army was
long gone, and the Frederick clover field would divulge no clues.
By October, the battle's consequences had stymied the Southern
cause. The eastern army was weakened, and the western army had been
pushed out of Kentucky. In early 1863, a New York newspaper had
mentioned a dispatch found before the battle, but the potential
humiliation kept that issue submerged in the South. The Confederacy
needed no military scandals, and Lee desired no public retribution.
Once Lee's entourage found out about the Lost Orders, exactly what
might Douglas eventually have told Jackson about the Chilton copy for
Hill? It had to be the one McClellan saw. If Jackson believed Douglas
had lost it, he would not bring charges because no proof of a crime
existed. If he disciplined Douglas, he would have only Douglas' self
incrimination. A tribunal would be no cover. The Richmond and
Charleston papers would find out and embarrass the army. Morale would
suffer. He and Lee would be subject to severe political risk.
This much we do know. Within weeks after
Antietam, Jackson decided to send Douglas back to his regiment, the
2nd Virginia Infantry. Was it a routine transfer--or retribution?
After all, he was detailed to the staff and could be terminated at
any time. By the end of October Douglas was back with the 2nd
Virginia.46
Their mutual affection soured. During the Winter of 1862-63,
Jackson disapproved Douglas' furlough request. Douglas wrote his
close friend, Helen McComb ("Tippie") Boteler:
Man (or rather soldier) proposes,
Maj. Genl. Jackson disposes, testo .... If ever Genl. Jackson & I
change places, I will send him to do duty in the summer time in
Mississippi....by forbidding him to visit his wife (which after all
might not be much of a punishment), and if that don't satisfy, I
shall issue a peremptory military order that he take the yellow
fever, which he will understand martial discipline enough to obey. .
. Tbe words may be somewhat emphatic, but they are decidedly
expressive of the truth. 47
Aware of how his words could haunt him--the
Virginia Botelers knew Jackson well--Douglas took a chance. But
Jackson died in May 1863, prior to the McClellan testimony and likely
without saying a word about the Lost Dispatch. Lee probably never
knew of the courier's implication. Chilton died in 1879 knowing the
trail went cold after the fateful courier took the copy. Had it been
passed to Hill? Chilton never cared to speculate. Did the Richmond
rumor mill on the Lost Dispatch have any bearing on the April 11,
1863, refusal of the Confederate Senate to confirm Chilton to the
rank of brigadier general?48
After the war, Douglas' activities and
personality contained further traces of suspicion. By joining those
who exulted the memory of Jackson, he buried any hint of their
wartime estrangement. If he were culpable, he distanced himself from
any hint and sought instead visibility, success and importance.
Finally, might he have told Rosser? Hotchkiss, a wartime associate,
said, "A fellow Marylander made an amusing remark about Douglas. He
asked me if I knew General Douglas on whose staff General Stonewall
Jackson served."49
Douglas had joined the 2nd Virginia in May 1861 and rose to
lieutenant. He was detailed to Jackson's brigade staff in November
1861, becoming the assistant inspector general, a post of limited
responsibility. Ingratiating himself to Jackson, he rose as Jackson
rose. Ultimately promoted to colonel before Lee's surrender, he
briefly commanded the brigade once led by generals Jubal A. Early and
A. P. Hill. In the late 19th Century, he spent most of his life in
Hagerstown. "Colonel" was his business and social rank of choice
until a brief appointment in 1892 as Maryland Adjutant General with
major general rank. He died December 18, 1903 and is buried in his
birthplace, Shepherdstown, West Virginia. His war diaries were edited
into the popular 1940 book, I Rode with Stonewall.
Douglas overplayed the "Stonewall card," agitating
comrades of the 1862 staff including Hotchkiss and McGuire, to whom
Douglas was an enigma. Contemporaries did not dislike Douglas but
questioned, even discredited, his playing loose with facts. McGuire
even wrote Hotchkiss disputing some of Douglas' accounts and advised
Jackson biographer G. F. R. Henderson "to cut out all of Douglas'
statement that does not agree with the one I have
given."50 Hotchkiss wrote Henderson, "Pardon me for
again warning you about quoting from Douglas. He shoots with a long
bow and generally misses the mark...." He cited Douglas' "dramatic
yarn" about A. P. Hill seeking release from arrest in Maryland. "I
called Douglas' attention to this and he stoutly contended as usual
that he knew what he was talking about."51
Some questioned whether Douglas was officially
part of Jackson's staff, or Early's in 1864, as claimed. Early was
unaware he was on his own staff: "From what I have heard about Kyd
Douglas he is one of those men who is disposed to claim a great deal
for himself."52
Douglas' inflated self esteem made him
invincible in his own mind, and he dared initiate comment on the Lost
Order: Jackson had entrusted him with the information early on
September 10 while deceptively inquiring in Frederick for maps and
roads to Pennsylvania. "I did not know then of Lee's order," Douglas
said. Jackson then asked Douglas about his home Washington County
roads and Potomac River fords. Finally, Douglas wrote that [o]n [the
13thl General McClellan came into possession, by carelessness or
accident, of General Lee's order of the 9th…"53 The
order was lost, he surmised, "by an accident never yet
explained."54
Douglas participated heavily in veterans' activities, including
those of Union veterans. He led the effort which re-interred
Confederate Antietam dead to Hagerstown in 1877, and even invited
McClellan to speak to Hagerstown's Grand Army of the Republic post.
Douglas succeeded at law but was unsuccessful in other meaningful
ventures, such as love, where two visible love affairs ended
tragically, including one with Tippie Boteler. Politics was another
failure for him. As his local popularity waned, he lost elections for
both the Maryland Senate and U.S. Congress.
Douglas has been little studied. He certainly was
an enigma. His comrade, Major Taylor, writing about whether the order
was lost through the interposition of providence against the
Confederate cause, or by outright carelessness, may have had the
courier in mind when he wrote, "This contention will never be settled
until the line is established that marks where Divine Sovereignty
ends and human free-agency begins."55 If the
culprit was not Douglas, Jackson's quintessential free agent, then
who remains in contention?56
Who Found the Lost Order? Find Out
here
For comments or suggestions, please contact me at srussell@crosswalkmail.com
Return
to Main Page
Notes
1. Exceptions are authors Stephen W. Sears
and James V. Murfin in their extensive studies of Antietam, and Hal
Bridges, biographer of Major General D. H. Hill, to whom the Lost
Order was addressed. Their discussions of the Lost Order are hardly
exhaustive and hesitate to finger the guilty. In his book 'Giants in the Cornfield:
the 27th Indiana Infantry'
(Shippensburg, Pa., 1997), Wilbur D. Jones, Jr., reveals
precise, new details about the finding of the Lost Order and its
subsequent routing to McClellan. See also Jones' excerpt on this site
about finding Lee's
Lost Order. Return to article.
2. Charles Marshall to D. H. Hill, November
11, 1867. Daniel Harvey Hill Papers, Virginia State Archives.
Return
3. Ibid. Return
4. A. L. Long, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee
(New York, 1886), p. 213; Walter H. Taylor in Confederate Veteran
30, September 1922, p. 345. Return
5. Robert Hall Chilton to D. H. MU, June
22, 1867. Daniel Harvey Hill Papers, North Carolina State Archives.
Return
6. Chilton to Hill, January 11, 1868. Hill
Papers, Virginia State Archives. Return
7. Robert E. Lee quoted in E. C. Gordon to
William Allan, November 18, 1886. Copy in draft of Lee's
Lieutenants. Douglas Southall Freeman Papers, Box 148,
Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress. Return
8. Chilton quoted In Stephen W. Sears,
Landscape Turned Red (New York, 1983), p. 349.
Return
9. D. H. Hill writing about the Lost
Dispatch in The Land We Love 4, February 1868 (Charlotte, N.C., 1
868), p. 274. Return
10. Lee quoted in Gordon to Allan.
Return
11. Hill's copy of No. 191 is in the North
Carolina State Archives. The Lost Order copy found by the 27th
Indiana and presented to McClellan is in the George B. McClellan
Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress.
Return
12. Hill in The Land We Love 4,
November-April 1867-68 (Charlotte, N.C., 1868), 275; Battles and
Leaders of the Civil War 2, pp. 570. 579.
Return
13. The Land We Love 4, February 1868,
274; Hill to James Longstreet, February 11, 1885. James Longstreet
Papers, Perkins Library, Duke University. Return
14. The Land We Love 4, February 1868, p.
275. Return
15. Other Southerners had trouble with
editor Edward A. Pollard's reporting. See G. Wilson McPhail to Hill,
February 17, 1868, and Henry A. Wise to Hill, October 3, 1869. Hill
Papers, North Carolina State Archives; The Land We Love 4, February
1868, pp. 273-74. Return
16. Lee quoted in Gordon to Allan.
Return
17. The Land We Love 4, February 1868.
275; also D. H. Hill to J. William Jones, Southern Historical Societv
Papers 13, January-December 1885. pp. 420-21.
Return
18. Hill to Longstreet, February 11, 1885;
see also Hill to Longstreet, May 21, 1885, and June 5, 1885, Perkins
Library. Return
19. Hill in Southern Historical Society
Papers 13, January-December 1885, p. 421. Return
20. Chilton to Hill, July 21, 1867. Hill
Papers, North Carolina State Archives. Return
21. Ibid.. June 22, 1867.
Return
22. Affidavit of Joseph G. Morrison, March
17, 1868. Hill Papers, North Carolina State Archives.
Return
23. Randolph B. Marcy to S. W. Crawford,
May 5. 1868, and Crawford to Hill, August 22, 1868, Hill Papers,
Virginia State Archives. Return
24. Hal Bridges. Lee's Maverick General
(New York, 1961). p. 97. Return
25. "The Lost Dispatch" essay, author
[believed to be Hill] and date unknown, Hill Papers, North Carolina
State Archives. Return
26. Mary Anna Jackson, Memoirs of
Stonewall Jackson. (Reprint: Dayton, O., 1976), 304. Jackson married
Mary Anna Morrison of Lincoln County, N.C., in 1857. She died in
1915. Hill married her sister, Isabella Morrison. Jackson's only
sister, Laura Jackson, married Jonathon Arnold of Beverly, W.Va., in
1844. She died in 1911. Their son, Thomas Jackson Arnold of Elkins,
W.Va., married Hill's daughter, Mary Eugenia Hill, in 1876. He died
in 1933. She was born in Lexington, Va., but raised in Charlotte,
N.C. She died in 1934. Sources: Nancy Ann Jackson (fourth cousin
descendant of Jackson), Clarksburg, W.Va., unpublished (with Linda
Brake Myers) Jackson Family genealogy, 1995 (used with permission);
A. S. Bosworth, A History of Randolph County, West Virginia.
(Reprint: Parsons, W.Va., 1975. A surviving Arnold descendant in
Elkins, a great granddaughter of both Jackson and Hill, Becky Arnold
Vilseck, lives in a retirement home there. The author talked with her
on April 22, 1995, but she offered no information.
Return
27. Eugenia Morrison Hill to William A.
Graham, January (believed 1864]. Hill Papers, North Carolina State
Archives. Graham was brother of Mary Graham, mother of Isabella and
Mary Anna Morrison. Return
28. Eugenia Hill Arnold to Cousin Charles
[believed Graham], October 10, 1931. Daniel Harvey Hill Collection,
Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
Return
29. Ibid. Return
30. Thomas Jackson Arnold in Confederate
Veteran 30, August 1922, p. 317. Arnold, the son of Jackson's sister
Laura, wrote about history. Other works included the book Early Life
and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (New York, 1916), and the
monograph Beverly [West Virginia] in the Sixties, reprinted by the
Randolph County [W.Va.] Historical Society in 1969.
Return
31. The author verified the Rosser speech
by reading the news report in the next day's Raleigh paper.
Return
32. Jackson's staff in the Maryland
Campaign also included: Maj. George H Bier, C.S. Navy, chief of
ordnance; Col. S. Crutchfield, chief of artillery; Col. William L.
Jackson, vice aide de camp; Capt. R. E. Welbourne, chief staff
officer. The staff might have included: Lt. Col. William S. H.
Baylor, inspector general; Surgeon H. Black; Charles James Faulkner,
assistant adjutant general; Lt. S. S. Harris, assistant inspector
general; E. F. Ritton, assistant adjutant general. List of Staff
Officers, Confederate States Army, 1861-1865 (Washington. 1891).
Return
33. Battles and Leaders 2, p. 622.
Return
34. Bradley T. Johnson in Battles and
Leaders 2. pp. 615-16. Return
35. John Bowers, Stonewall Jackson:
Portrait of a Soldier (New York, 1989), pp. 185-88.
Return
36. Douglas' marginal notation in copy of
William A. Owen, In Camp and Battle with the Battalion Washington
Artillery of New Orleans (Boston, 1885), p. 119. Douglas' personal
library, Antietam National Battlefield. Return
37. Douglas' marginal notation in G.R.R.
Henderson, Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (London,
1998), p. 538. Douglas personal library. Return
38. Battles and Leaders 3, p. 322.
Return
39. Douglas to Helen McComb "Miss Tippie"
Boteler, November 16, 1861. Henry Kyd Douglas Collection, Perkins
Library, Duke University; Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall (Chapel
Hill, N.C., 1940), pp. 265, 376-77. Return
40. Numerous sources cite or describe this
area, including: Ezra A. Carmen draft undated memoir, Box 1, Ezra
Ayers Carmen Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress; J.
Thomas Scharf, History of Western Maryland I (Philadelphia, 1882), p.
229; Douglas draft undated memoir, chapters 15-17, Paper 15, Antietam
National Battlefield Library; Diary of Jedediah Hotchkiss, Jedediah
Hotchkiss Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress; and The
Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate
Armies (Washington, 1891-95), Plates XCIV and LXXXIII; The Truit farm
was leased to the Best family. Return
41. William G. Willman, Frederick County
(Md.) Historical Society, to the author, January 24, 1988, and April
27, 989; Thomas J. Moore to Hill, June 3, 1885. Hill Papers, Virginia
State Archives. The "clover field" area, on the later Battle of
Monocacy ground, is still under cultivation, nearly in pristine
condition, and can be seen to the east alongside Maryland Highway
355. Return
42. Chilton wrote seven "originals": for
Jackson, Longstreet, McLaws, Stuart, Walker, Taylor and his files.
His and Jackson's "modified" copies to Hill omitted paragraphs I and
II. Return
43. This copy became the "Lost Order."
Return
44. Douglas was a procrastinator, and once
said, "Procrastination is the thief of time. And I ofttimes think
that quotation must have been expressly intended for me." Douglas G.
Bast, Western Maryland expert on Douglas, in a February 7, 1983,
lecture at the Washington County Free Library, Hagerstown, Maryland.
See note 56 for a discussion of Bast's source.
Return
45. Douglas to Helen McComb "Tippie"
Boteler, September 27, 1862. Douglas Collection, Perkins Library.
Return
46. List of Staff Officers also, Moses
Gibson to Hunter McGuire, March 1, 1897. Hotchkiss Papers, Reel 32.
Gibson joined lackson's staff on detail on August 8, 1862, and served
with that corps until the 1865 surrender. serving as chief clerk in
the medical and inspector general offices. The transfer must have
been sudden. Pendleton, the senior staff aide, did not mention
it--perhaps was unaware--in his newsy letter to wife Nancy, October
20, 1862, in which he mentioned Douglas frequently regarding their
shared tent arrangements. A.S. Pendleton to Nancy Pendleton. October
20, 1862, William N. Pendleton Papers, Southern Historical
Collection, University of North Carolina. Return
47. Douglas to Boteler, [ca. Christmas
1862]. Douglas Collection, Perkins Library.
Return
48. The Comte de Paris, History of the
Civil War in America 2, Henry Coppee, ed. (Philadelphia, 1907).
Chilton reverted to the inferior rank of lieutenant colonel and
served another year in the field. Return
49. Jedediah Hotchkiss to W. F. Mason
McCarty, October 1. 1896. Hotchkiss Papers, Reel 32, Library of
Congress. Return
50. Hunter Holmes McGuire to Jedediah
Hotchkiss, January 22, 1897, Jedediah Hotchkiss Papers, Alderman
Library, University of Virginia. Return
51. Jedediah Hotchkiss to G. F. R.
Henderson, January 27, 1897, Hotchkiss Papers, Library of Congress.
Return
52. Jubal A. Early quoted in Hotchkiss to
McCarty. Return
53. I Rode with Stonewall, 151; Battles
and Leaders 2, pp. 622, 624. Return
54. I Rode with Stonewall, p. 159.
Return
55. Walter H. Taylor, General Lee: His
Campaigns in Virginia, 1861-1865. (Reprint: Dayton, O., 1975), p.
125. Return
56. True, the final word may never be
known, but Douglas G. Bast of Boonsboro, the man considered to be
Western Maryland's expert on Douglas, may hold the only "smoking
gun." He possesses numerous Douglas diaries under lock and key,
allows no one to read them, and in 1991 refused to discuss their
contents with the author.
Besides these diaries, Douglas manuscripts are hard to locate. Not
all manuscript guides are reliable (i.e., manuscripts are not at the
Universities of North Carolina and Virginia). Duke University holds
some, the Antietam National Battlefield holds his personal library,
and about 20 post-war letters mostly on routine business are
scattered. Return
Who Found the Lost Order? Find Out
here
For comments or suggestions, please contact Steve Russell
Return to
Main Page