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The War That Lasted 38 Minutes and Other Fascinating Warfare History

Khalid Elhassan November 18, 2021 35 min

Destroyed Ottoman equipment and carriages after the 1918 Battle of Megiddo. Imperial War Museums

A copy of Special Orders 191, displayed at Crampton’s Gap. Wikimedia

12. A Chance Find That Changed the US Civil War

In the long and tortuous course of the US Civil War, the fall of 1862 might have been the lowest point for the federal government and 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 in August, and early in September, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia invaded Maryland.

Things looked 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’s forces, Union Army Corporal Barton Mitchell arrived at a campsite that had been recently vacated by the enemy. As he rummaged around, he 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.