General Robert E. Lee's Special Order

1862

              There is no text for this item.

Rating
Title	General Robert E. Lee's Special Order
Date	1862
Creator	Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1807-1870.
Subject	United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865 Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1807-1870--Correspondence United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Campaigns Confederate States of America. Army Jackson, Stonewall, 1824-1863 United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Sources
Index Terms	Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1807-1870; Hill, D.H.; Jackson, Stonewall, 1824-1863
Place	Frederick (Frederick County, Md.)
Description	In early September of 1862, following the Confederate victory at Second Manassas, the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee moved into Maryland at Frederick. There General Lee wrote out his plans in great detail. On September 9 Lee issued Special Order 191 giving strategic information on the division of units at the beginning of his Maryland campaign. A copy was sent to General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, who in his own hand made a copy that he sent to General D. H. Hill. Hill kept the order with his papers, which were later deposited in the North Carolina State Archives by his family. When the Union Army moved into Frederick, an Indiana private found three cigars wrapped in another copy of Special Order 191, also addressed to General Hill. Controversy and mystery surround the story of how the orders came to be there. However, the dispatch was passed through the Union chain of command and gave General George B. McClellan advance notice of Lee's army's movements. Subsequently, Lee was defeated and driven back by McClellan's army at Sharpsburg (Antietam), Maryland, September 17, 1862. Later, stories of the "Lost Dispatch" appeared in newspapers, and D. H. Hill was largely blamed. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Hill carried on an extensive correspondence to discover the circumstances surrounding the misplaced order. Finally, in 1885, Hill conceded that "an order from Lee directed to me was lost, I do not now doubt" but he denied that he had received it. To this day, students of the Civil War, argue the questions of who lost the Special Order 191, how it happened, and what were the long-term implications.
Time Period	(1860-1876) Civil War and Reconstruction
Format	Documents
Call Number	V.C. 6
Collection	Vault Collection. State Archives of North Carolina
Physical Characteristics	8X10; 2 pages
Language	English
Copyright	May be protected by copyright law (Title 17 US Code). Obtain proper release forms prior to reproducing this material.
Digital Format	image/jpeg
Digital Collection	Treasures
Audience	All

Find results with:

Searching collections:

Home SpecialOrder191-Pg1

General Robert E. Lee's Special Order

Object Description

Description

General Robert E. Lee's Special Order

General Robert E. Lee's Special Order

	All
	Pages Enter page numbers or page ranges separated by commas. For example: 1,3,5-12