The Lost Order |
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"How do you think Special Orders 191 fell into Union Hands?" |
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From: Jefferson P. Swycaffer
Date: 16 Jun 1998
Time: 15:40:04
Remote Name: 199.72.243.1
Very impressive site and intriguing discussion! If Chilton was playing a double-game, it was a doggone risky thing to do. I can't think of many quicker ways to get shot for a traitor! And recent history shows that traitors *can* achieve high rank and sensitive positions of great trust. I think that the "conspiracy" notion -- that Lee deliberately caused the orders to fall into Union hands -- is just a bit too complex. Lee was capable of strategic complexity, but he just wasn't the sort of commander to go in for such "over the top" deception. (I'm reminded of the WWII story of "The Man Who Never Was," where the Allies arranged for a corpse to be found by the Axis with false D-Day invasion plans. The OSS: yes. Lee? I don't think so.) Civil War battles were hard enough to control... My vote is for the "standard history" to date... but I'm willing to learn more! (By the way, my great-grandfather was named "Jefferson Davis Swycaffer," so you can see where the family sympathies lay at the time!) Jeffer the Neffer