In just under the wire for March, is a new post for the Campaign Minutes blog. This month’s post provides evidence making it clear that General Robert E. Lee crossed his army into Maryland in September 1862 to carry out the official Richmond government policy of bringing Southern border states into the Confederacy.
Please visit the Campaign Minutes page of this site to give it a read and let me know what you think.
This month’s post originally appeared on Emerging Civil War back in January 2022. I am reposting it on my Campaign Minutes page because since the article’s original appearance, I’ve managed to publish two books and several articles that have exposed a lot of new readers to my work. Many of these readers have not seen my earlier writing, so I thought it would be appropriate to put the article on my site for them to read.
Titled “A Whiff of Treason? John Hay, George B. McClellan, and the Incident with Major John J. Key,” the article deals with the most unsavory topic of potential treason in the highest ranks of the Army of the Potomac’s officer corps during and after the Maryland Campaign. In it, I discuss a lesser-known version of the Major John J. Key story that appeared in the New York Times. This version of the story contains details that other commonly referred to versions do not, which is why I decided to write about it.
For the record, I do not believe that George McClellan actively conspired against the Lincoln administration in the wake of the Union army’s victory at Antietam. I do think, however, that many of the Army of the Potomac’s senior officers wanted McClellan to do just that and turn the army against Washington to force Lincoln to agree to peace with the Confederate government in Richmond. In the end, McClellan remained true to the Union cause, and to the president. But for a while after Lincoln announced the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, the political situation remained dicey, and McClellan explored the idea of opposing emancipation publicly. Doing so would have ruined him politically and militarily, and so he declined the opportunity to become America’s version of Julius Caesar. This ensured there would be no “alea iacta est” moment in October 1862.
AR
February 22, 2024
Greetings, readers! The first post for 2024 is up on the Campaign Minutes page. January’s post deals with a subject that most Civil war enthusiasts and authors are familiar with – the Official Records. These documents are the foundation upon which ACW studies are built, and yet they can create some interpretive problems if we’re not careful using them. January’s post discusses a couple such problems relevant to the history of Special Orders No. 191.
As always, thank you for visiting and reading my work. If any of you has a topic or question you’d like me to dig into, please suggest it in the comments. I’ll let you know if it is something I’d like to pursue in a future post.
AR
Jan. 14, 2024
A new post in Campaign Minutes went up today.
It concerns Brig. Gen. John G. Walker and the reliability of his Century Magazine article on the capture of Harpers Ferry as a historical source.
Please subscribe to the blog for updates when new posts appear.
This will be the final post for me in what has been one heck of a year. The Tale Untwisted came out in January, and Calamity at Frederick in October. Publishing one book in a year is taxing enough. Publishing two is downright exhausting. Add to this major articles that also appeared in the Antietam Journal in March and America’s Civil War in November, and I’m beat.
I’m grateful to you, my readers, for the continuing support and interest in my research. May you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year if those are holidays you celebrate. I’ll see you again in 2024.
Today marks the launch of a new feature on my website called Campaign Minutes. Minutes is a blog where I’ll be posting short-article length material. I’ll do my best to post monthly.
The first post is up, and it concerns the discovery site of Lee’s Lost Orders. Just click on the banner heading above.
Please subscribe for updates when new posts appear.
Thank you and let me know what you think.
My new book, Calamity at Frederick: Robert E. Lee, Special Orders No. 191, and Confederate Misfortune on the Road to Antietam just came out with Savas Beatie.
This study takes an in depth look at the context surrounding the creation of Lee’s fateful orders for the capture of Harpers Ferry. The book presents new evidence about the orders and their discovery outside of Frederick, Maryland, on Sept. 13, 1862.
To order a signed and/or uniquely inscribed copy, please send $25 via PayPal to arossino at hotmail dot com. The price includes shipping and handling. Or contact me at the email address above to arrange payment by check.
This interview appeared in the October 2023 SB newsletter. Enjoy!
| 5 Questions with Author Alex Rossino |
| This month, our Five Things column features author Alex Rossino of Calamity at Frederick. This book will be released soon. Here, Alex shares five facts he discovered while working on this book. Take it away, Alex… 1. Robert E. Lee assumed his army could operate in Maryland until winter. Writing in his official campaign report that at the outset of the Maryland Campaign he believed his army was “strong enough to detain the enemy upon the northern frontier until the approach of winter should render his advance into Virginia difficult, if not impracticable,” General Lee revealed that he had crossed the Potomac thinking it would take Washington weeks if not months to field another effective fighting force against him. Lee based his assumption in part on the fact that he had just witnessed the defeated Union Army of Virginia flee the field in disarray after the Battle of Second Manassas. In addition, however, news about the arrival of 60,000 new recruits in D.C. also influenced Lee’s opinion because he thought it would take time to train these men for active service. George B. McClellan’s efficiency as an organizer, and the confidence he inspired in his men as a commander, quickly surprised Lee when the newly reconstituted Army of the Potomac began moving toward Frederick City on Sept. 8. These developments shattered Lee’s expectations underlying the campaign within a matter of only a few days. 2. Planning for the operation against Harpers Ferry began on Sept. 8, not on Sept. 9. News arrived on the morning of Sept. 8 that the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry had not evacuated north to Pennsylvania as General Lee expected it would. Lee admitted in writing that his belief in Harpers Ferry’s evacuation was based on a rumor circulating at the time. On that same morning, Lee also learned that McClellan’s army was moving toward him. These two developments forced the general to develop a plan with Stonewall Jackson for capturing the Harpers Ferry garrison before turning to face the pursuing Army of the Potomac. Following the conference with Jackson, and with James Longstreet, who stumbled onto the meeting by accident, Lee took another twenty-four hours to develop the final instructions that became Special Orders No. 191. 3. Lee never distributed Special Orders No. 191 as a ten paragraph document. When General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia in April 1865, Federal forces captured the headquarters “order book” also known as the “letter book.” This book contained a master record of all orders, dispatches, and circulars issued to the army during the war, including a full, ten paragraph version of Special Orders No. 191. Written in the handwriting of Capt. Arthur Mason, an aide on Lee’s staff, the ten-paragraph document is the version of the orders that later appeared in series 1, volume 19, part 2 of the Official Records. The appearance of this document in the OR has long led scholars to assume that Special Orders No. 191 must have contained ten paragraphs. This, however, was not the case. Lee dictated an eight-paragraph draft labeled Special Orders No. 190 to his aide Charles Marshall on the morning of Sept. 9. Special Orders No. 190 contained paragraphs three through ten. A second draft labeled Special Orders No. 191 dictated by Lee contained paragraphs one and two. We know this because an endorsed, official copy of the two paragraph Special Orders No. 191 addressed to General Samuel Cooper in Richmond is held by the U.S. National Archives. The draft Special Orders No. 190 is not official because it does not bear an official countersignature and it is not addressed to anyone; yet it is this draft that served as the template for distribution. We know this because the two extant copies of the orders – the headquarters version addressed to D. H. Hill and the copy made by Jackson for Hill – both contain paragraphs three through ten and the content of those copies matches the content in Special Orders No. 190. Why General Lee chose to do things in this manner is a mystery. It is also a mystery why Lee had the eight paragraph Special Orders No. 190 distributed as Special Orders No. 191. We also do not know why the two orders were later combined under the number 191 instead of being put into the headquarters order book as separate documents. 4. Robert H. Chilton probably did not write the lost copy of Special Orders No. 191. The appearance of Chilton’s name at the bottom of the lost copy of Lee’s orders, and its alleged confirmation as Chilton’s authentic signature by Lt. Samuel Pittmann of Union General Alpheus Williams’s staff has long led scholars to conclude that Chilton wrote the lost copy of the orders. Months of detailed handwriting analysis, however, leads to the conclusion that Chilton neither signed nor wrote the lost copy. It appears instead that General Lee’s military secretary, Col. Armistead L. Long, wrote it. Why he would have written out a copy of the orders is a mystery, although I present a hypothesis in Calamity at Frederick why he might have done so. In any case, it appears that Chilton did nothing to merit the criticism he has faced since the orders were lost. 5. General Lee (or Robert Chilton) employed Maj. Walter H. Taylor’s older brother, Maj. Richard C. Taylor, as the copyist of the distributed Special Orders No. 191. Temporarily attached to Lee’s headquarters staff at the beginning of the Maryland Campaign, Maj. Richard C. Taylor acted as an aide-de-camp for Lee until the army left Frederick on Sept. 10. At that point, the elder Taylor returned to Virginia on the trail of his younger brother. |
We’re making changes. Check out the new bibliography page for a complete list of Alex’s writings. Many of the articles are now available in pdf format.
Greetings, Dear Readers.
Is it October already!?
The summer ended up flying by thanks to a series of projects I have underway. These include a detailed analysis of the handwriting in Lee’s Lost Orders, completing the book-length version of The Tale Untwisted, and also a new, condensed version of the original Savas Beatie essay kindly requested for North and South magazine by editor-in-chief, Keith Poulter.
All of these projects have been either wrapped up or are in the final stages of being completed. The essay in North and South, for example, is one of the former. I received the magazine issue today and, as is my habit, am posting the essay with co-author and mapmaker extraordinaire, Gene Thorp, to ensure wider readership. The download link is below. If you have any comments or questions I’d love to hear from you so leave them below as well.
As for the book-length version. Everything is completed for that as well and if the manuscript hasn’t already been sent to the printer it should be going there soon. I’ll keep everyone posted on its status when I hear something about it.
Lastly, there is the handwriting analysis. I’ve been working on this for months and while I’m not an closer to identifying who lost Lee’s Special Orders No. 191, I can state with confidence that the author of the lost copy was not Col. Robert H. Chilton. Knowing this opens a wider range of possibilities for who might have dropped the orders where they were found. I’m currently working through these and will have some provocative hypotheses to share so stay tuned.
Onward and Upward!
AR
Here is my article on Lee’s strategy during the 1862 Maryland Campaign that appeared in the June 2022 issue of North & South magazine. N&S recently went to an all digital format due to supply chain difficulties, so I’m not certain as many people as hoped will have a chance to read the issue. I am therefore making the article available here for those who come by to visit and want to download a copy.
There are a couple of minor errors in the article that I never had the chance to correct before it went to print. N&S will be noting these corrections in its next issue.
Corrections:
– The date of Lee’s comments to Edward C. Gordon is February 1868, not April 1868. The erroneous date appears twice.
– The proper date in caption of the image on p. 27 should be September 12-13, 1862, not September 27. This latter date is for the issue of Harper’s Weekly the image appeared in, not the date of it’s sketching.
Enjoy!
AR
Lee’s Beaver Creek Plan, North & South, June 2022, Series II, Vol. 3, No. 1
Alex Rossino Online 