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Some of History’s Most Unexpected Plot Twists

Khalid Elhassan February 22, 2021 35 min

Basset Hound - American Foxhound — George Washington riding after his hounds during a hunt. Journal of the American Revolution

27. The Unexpected Find That Changed the Course of the US Civil War

During the US Civil War, the fall of 1862 might have been the lowest point for the federal government and for the Union’s cause. The year had started promisingly enough with a campaign that sought to capture Richmond, but a series of mistakes turned that into a fiasco. Then the Confederates under Robert E. Lee dealt the federals a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Second Bull Run, and early in September, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia invaded Maryland.

Lee’s 1862 Maryland Campaign. American Battlefield Trust

Things were looking bleak, with Britain and France about to recognize the Confederates’ independence, when the Union caught an unexpected break. On September 13^th, as the Army of the Potomac hurried to catch up with Lee, Union Army Corporal Barton Mitchell arrived at a campsite recently vacated by the enemy and found an envelope with three cigars wrapped in some papers. The papers turned out to be Special Orders No. 191, in which Lee had spelled out his army’s movements.

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.