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Mistakes That Helped Shape U.S. into What it Is Today

Khalid Elhassan October 16, 2019 34 min

37. The Lost Orders Save the Union

The fortuitously-found Special Orders No. 191 were rocketed up the chain of command, until they reached General George B. McClellan, the Union commander. McClellan was pleasantly surprised to discover that Lee’s army was spread out, and that the Union had a golden opportunity to defeat the rebels’ scattered units one by one, before they had a chance to concentrate. Unfortunately, McClellan was not that good at seizing golden opportunities.

Lee concentrated his army, just in time to fight a major battle at Antietam Creek on September 17^th, 1862. The result was the bloodiest day in American history, with a combined tally of over 22,000 dead, wounded, and missing. McClellan had a chance to finish off Lee’s army, but failed to do. Nonetheless, the horrific casualties ended Lee’s Maryland Campaign, and forced him to withdraw to Virginia. The Confederates never came as close again to winning the war as they did that September of 1862.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.