diana regiment, and at once transmitted through Colonel Colgrove to general headquarters. This tell-tale slip of paper" revealed to General McClellan that Lee’s army was divided, that Harper’s Ferry was to be invested; in addition, it "gave him the scarcely less important information where the rest of the army, trains, rear guard, cavalry and all were to march and to halt, and where the detached commands were to join the main body."[1] As this important order was addressed to a North Carolina general, D. H. Hill, it should be stated here that it was neither received by him nor lost by him. General Hill’s division was at that time attached to General Jackson’s command, and hence, in accordance with military usage, he received all his orders through General Jackson. This fact seems to have been overlooked by some one at General Lee s headquarters when this order was prepared, and a copy of it was started to General Hill, but never reached him. By whom it was lost will probably never be known. General Hill, in a letter to the editors of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, (Vol. II, p. 570, note), says: "I went into Maryland under Jackson’s command. I was under his command when Lee’s order was issued. It was proper that I should receive that order through Jackson, and not through Lee. I have now be fore me the order received from Jackson. My adjutant-general made affidavit twenty years ago that no order was received at our office from General Lee. But an order from Lee’s office, directed to me, was lost and fell into McClellan’s hands. Did the courier lose it? Did Lee’s own staff officers lose it? I do not know." The copy that reached Hill was in Jackson s own handwriting, So important did that officer consider the order that he did not trust his adjutant to copy it, but made the copy himself. With like care, General Hill preserved the
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- ↑ The Antietam and Fredericksburg, p. 22.
