The LOST ORDER That Led to ANTIETAM!!! | History Traveler 245 Lost Order

[Music] well if you've watched this channel for any amount of time uh you know that you know we really like to go to uh Civil War battle sites we've spent a ton of time at places like Gettysburg uh and also you know Fort Donaldson and Jenkins Ferry and places like that and throughout all of that I've had people who have continually asked me when are you going to Antietam well right now I am standing next to the Potomac River and I am on the Maryland side and for the the next several episodes we're going to be tackling the Battle of Antietam uh we have some people who are going to be jumping in who are way more uh knowledgeable and intelligent than I am but before we get to Antietam we need to to kind of work our way there which is why we are here at White's Ferry good foreign before we get into the Battle of Antietam it might be a good idea to set up some context as to why we are right here at this spot right now so in in the last few days of August of 1862 Robert E Lee and the army of Northern Virginia had pretty much spanked General Pope and the Union Army of Virginia at the second battle of Manassas or as they called in the Confederacy the Second Battle of Bull Run well after that battle Robert E Lee had to make a decision he couldn't stay where he was at they didn't have enough Provisions to take care of the army right there in that area he couldn't go east because he didn't have a strong enough Force to take on Washington D.C he couldn't really didn't really want to go south or go west because that would be giving up ground if they had just won so the decision was made that they were going to take the fight out of Virginia for the first time cross this river right here the Potomac and bring the fight into Union territory in Maryland and hopes of gathering provisions and also maybe recruiting some people in this slave state that had remained loyal to the union [Applause] as I mentioned we're standing on the banks of the historic Potomac River now I've driven over this River several times but this is the first opportunity that I've had to actually get out and get like right up to the banks and as I mentioned you know Lee's army of Northern Virginia was coming up into Maryland this was going to be the first Invasion into the North and they would have crossed not exactly here but in this area around September 4th through the 6th of 1862. so where we are standing right now is at White's Ferry and unfortunately the ferry is closed I was really looking forward to crossing here but where Lee's army of Northern Virginia crossed was actually about two miles Upstream that's all on private property so we can't access it so as I mentioned there would have been about 35 000 troops who crossed here and this this would have been kind of a rough looking bunch they were dirty they hadn't showered a lot of them are without shoes uh you know in some cases they're clothes are just hanging off of them and Crossing this River was going to be an opportunity to actually bathe and and get clean and one Maryland resident recalled that the the veteran troops were quote the dirtiest filthiest uh Pi radical looking Cutthroat men I ever saw yet there was a dash about them that the northern men lacked [Music] uh you can imagine as Confederates were crossing over the Potomac the the band would have struck up a song that was quite popular called Maryland by Maryland so Confederate troops would have been hearing the song as they are coming over uh into Union territory and they also would have crossed uh this old Canal right here this is called the CNO Canal or the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal runs parallel to the Potomac River on the Maryland side and the Confederates were going to be making efforts to uh like damage and and Destroy parts of this canal to disrupt Supply and communication for the union troops foreign [Applause] to the next place I want to kind of point out something that I think people will find interesting if if you want to learn more about the Civil War if you want to go visit some of these more obscure spots one resource that I would certainly recommend is something called Civil War Trails so they've marked all of these you know historically important spots they have information panels there which are very very helpful this one is talking about the 1862 Antietam campaign and then this one is talking about White's Ferry where we are right now and then here you know they show you some of the principal characters involved Lee and McClellan here's an artist depiction of the Confederates crossing the Potomac into Maryland and then they have a map that kind of orients you as to where you are in relation to where all of these different historic events took place so here we are at White's Ferry White's Ford is right here so here's the Potomac River this is where Lee's army would have crossed and then would have made their way North which is the way that we are going to make right now foreign [Music] [Music] okay well I need to amend an earlier statement that I made I said that the location of White's Ford is currently on private property well I fortunately took a look at the Civil War trails app again and turns out that there is a public access so we've driven like 45 minutes to an hour we're on the Virginia side of uh White's Ford now even though it's just a couple miles Upstream the access isn't exactly the easiest um so or the quickest so anyway we've driven around here and and right here you can imagine uh there in early September of 1862 35 to 40 000 men from the army of Northern Virginia all amassed here getting ready to cross the Potomac over in to Union territory in the state of Maryland thank you so here is the actual Crossing site of the army of Northern Virginia at White's Ford so we were just Downstream earlier at White's Ferry and on September 6th around midday well you would have had the the army of Northern Virginia under Jackson that would have crossed right here the next day you would have had the wing under James Long Street that would have crossed followed by Jeb Stewart's Cavalry who had been doing a faint towards Washington DC one interesting thing to note not all of the Confederate soldiers who approached the banks of the Potomac over on the Virginia side crossed over into Maryland there was a decent number of Confederates from the Western counties of like North and South Carolina who basically said that they had signed up to defend the Confederacy not to invade other areas or to invade Union territory and they flat refused to cross so that was a little bit of a problem the rest of them though ended up crossing right here at White's Ford and Lee would kind of be reconsolidating his army up around Frederick which is where we're headed next thank you [Music] foreign [Music] shifted North and right now I'm just south of the city of Frederick in Maryland uh on the Monocacy National Battlefield there was a battle that was fought here in 1864. we're going to revisit that at some future date the reason that we're here now is is this particular site in 1862 was known as the best farm and after Robert E Lee got his army across the Potomac River the army of Northern Virginia kind of reorganized and encamped right here on on what at the time was a huge Farm over 700 Acres so the best farm was going to see a lot of activity during the Civil War both the Union and Confederate armies were going to pass through here several times so if we look off there in the distance we can see a Stone Barn this wooden structure here in front of us is a corn crib that to the best of my understanding was not here during the Civil War it was added in the 1870s and then we have the main house here now the the best patent always lived in this area this was originally a plantation that was owned by a French family that had moved here in the 1790s as a matter of fact if if we look out beyond that structure there on that Hillside where you can see that corn growing right now that was originally the location of a slave Village that held like upwards of 90 enslaved individuals this this French family and I think I'm pronouncing their name right the Vincent dairy family they were French Planters who had fled the slave revolt in Haiti in 1793 had moved here to Frederick County Maryland and we're kind of re-establishing this Caribbean style slave plantation and there were reports that they were exceptionally cruel to their slaves well they ended up selling the property I think in the late 1820s and in 1862 it would have been the best family one other quick thing now don't quote me on this because I could be wrong I mentioned that I didn't think the Corn Crib was here during the Civil War I'm also thinking that the portable toilet is also something that is not original to the battlefield but I could be wrong I've moved over a little bit to a different area of the best farm and the the spot that I'm standing in right now well obviously is set up as a cornfield presently but in September of 1862 the 6th through the ninth this would have been the approximate area where Robert E Lee would have had his headquarters set up now Robert E Lee knew that McClellan was was coming up from the south and he also found out right here in this area that in Harpers Ferry and in Martinsburg the union Garrison's from there hat and fled like he expected them to so he was going to draft a a very bold proposal that was going to be written out in something called special order number 191 that was essentially going to split his army up in into smaller factions to deal with these garrisons and really try and take them out while McClellan was moving up and he was going to be depending on McClellan to do what McClellan did best which was to move cautiously and move slower than molasses all right as you can see we are next to a road so we might have a little bit of road noise for this one but I wanted to show this Wayside marker that points us to the approximate area where General Lee had his headquarters for the army of Northern Virginia from September 6 to the 9th of 1862 and as you can see here on the sign says here was written the famous lost order number 191 and the proclamation to the people of Maryland so it's right in here where Robert E Lee had one of his adjuncts the guy by the name of Robert Chilton drafted several copies of special order one nine one uh what special order 191 did I mentioned that there was still a Garrison at Harpers Ferry it was going to split Lee's army up into several smaller pieces one was going to be led by General Stonewall Jackson he was going to be taking a giant loop around to the western part of Harpers Ferry and attack it from the West uh Lafayette mcclaws I've also heard his name pronounced Lafayette mcclaus he was going to be coming in from the north on Harpers Ferry in a place called Maryland Heights another smaller contingent or small Breakaway led by uh General oh wow that's a loud truck there led by General John Walker he was going to take a division and attack Harper's Ferry from the East and then Lee was going to accompany Long Street taking another part of this broken up Army over South Mountain so several copies of special order 191 were written up to be distributed but one copy was not going to make it to its intended destination [Music] we've moved North from the monoxy National Battlefield and we're on the the southern edge of Frederick right now well in 1862 this area would have been all Farmland but as you might expect there's been some urban sprawl since then this road right here ahead of us this is Grove Road and in 1862 this would have been uh pretty much no more than an Old Farm Lane there's a there's a quarry that's up ahead of us now so obviously we can't go in there and uh one copy of special order number 191 would have made its way up here to this area and was intended for another one of the generals of the army of Northern Virginia by the name of D.H Hill but that copy would never make it to Hill as a matter of fact it was going to stay right here in this area [Music] so after the issuing of special order number 191 Lee and the army of Northern Virginia move out of here now during this whole time McClellan really has no idea what is going on with Lee and his army so he's cautiously moving up and around the 12th or 13th of September they started making their way up into this very area and there were a couple of guys by the name of Bloss and Mitchell who were in company F of the 27th Indiana and they were hanging out somewhere here in in this General vicinity whenever Mitchell noticed this piece of paper off in in the wheat picked it up and noticed that there were three cigars wrapped inside now they were probably excited about the cigars they opened up the paper and start reading it and they see names like Jackson and Long Street and Jeb Stewart names that would have been very familiar to them and they realized that they had something very important and it was what is now known as The Lost order well this makes it up the way to the chain of command all the way to McClellan and this is paraphrasing but he says you know with this I will have something that if I can't beat Bobby Lee I would be willing to go home and this was going to completely change the the whole tenor of the Antietam campaign foreign we've got a lot more coming from Antietam we're going to be going to to South Mountain and then to the battlefield itself we have some people who are going to be joining us along the way that I think that you will recognize and uh be pretty excited about I know that I am anyway but uh for now we're going to make our way down the road to the next place foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 85,328

Keywords: history, history underground, history traveler, civil war, civil war history, civil war documentary, battle of antietam, antietam, battle of sharpsburg, antietam documentary, robert e lee, general lee, george mcclellan, army of northern virginia, maryland, potomac river, army of the potomac, lost order, lost order 191

Id: KpRRUjB41Ps

Length: 18min 39sec (1119 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 16 2022