Who wrote Lee’s lost orders? Scholars have long asserted that Col. Robert H. Chilton played a pivotal role in drafting and distributing Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Special Orders No. 191 near Frederick, Maryland, on September 9, 1862. One copy, addressed to Maj. Gen. Daniel Harvey Hill and outlining the Confederate plan to attack the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry, fell into the hands of Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan on September 13. This intelligence prompted McClellan to swiftly strike Lee’s army at South Mountain. But is this supported by the evidence? Alexander Rossino’s groundbreaking Who Wrote the Lost Copy of Robert E. Lee’s Special Orders No. 191? A Handwriting Analysis Companion to Calamity at Frederick: Robert E. Lee, Special Orders No. 191, and Confederate Misfortune on the Road to Antietam does something no other historian or student of the war has ever attempted: an analysis of the actual handwriting against known examples of all the officers who could have prepared the orders. Rossino convincingly challenges the assumption that Chilton penned the lost copy and presents compelling evidence to support his claim. He also identifies the culprit. For the first time, readers can examine this evidence firsthand for themselves and determine who caused one of the greatest military intelligence failures of the American Civil War.
