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.
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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.
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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
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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?
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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 [email protected]
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
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