Special Order 191: Three Cigars, McClellan's Delay and Antietam

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In September 1862 Robert E. Lee crossed into Maryland after the Seven Days and Second Bull Run, but his army had fallen from about 90,000 to 45,000 through disease, desertion and shoeless marching on stone turnpikes. He hoped Maryland's farms would feed his men, that a win on Northern soil would sway the November midterms, and that Britain and France might recognize the Confederacy. Abraham Lincoln restored George B. McClellan despite a cabinet petition, calling it curing the bite with the hair of the dog. Lee then split his army, sending Stonewall Jackson to take Harpers Ferry. On September 13 near Frederick, Corporal Barton Mitchell found three cigars wrapped in a copy of Special Order 191, Lee's plan for the campaign.

McClellan said that if he could not whip Bobby Lee with that paper he would go home, then waited 18 hours. Jackson captured more than 12,000 Union troops at Harpers Ferry after Colonel Dixon Miles left the heights undefended, and Confederates held the South Mountain passes on September 14. At Antietam on September 17, fighting moved from the Cornfield to the sunken road known as Bloody Lane to Burnside's bridge, and A.P. Hill's division arrived after a 17-mile march to save Lee. More than 22,000 men were killed, wounded or missing. McClellan used only four of six corps, did not pursue, and was removed in November. Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22.

• Starving soldiers ate green apples and unripe corn, which spread dysentery through the ranks.
• Thousands of Confederates refused to cross the Potomac, saying they had enlisted to defend their home states, not invade.
• Some new Union recruits carried defective muskets without the training to know they would not fire.
• McClellan had about 87,000 men on the field against Lee's 38,000.
• Mathew Brady's exhibition in New York showed the public photographs of the dead at Antietam.