Special Orders #191, the Lost Orders

A month or so ago, I posted this: 

Planned Weekend Trip – Day 1

It was a day trip, for me, to be in Frederick, Maryland to hear more about Special Orders #191. I went and had a great time. I learned a lot, not only about what happened to the Lost Orders, but why it was important to the Civil War.

The National Park Service, just posted a YouTube Video about Special Order #191

Special Orders 191

 

There was a lecture on the topic, and a panel discussion by three Civil War Historians. In attendance were descendants of the two gentlemen who discovered these orders.

I won’t go into the details, but what is important to me, and why I spend the day driving, was that the Monocacy National Battlefield has, within it’s borders a Worthington House.

I got to see the actual paper that these orders were written on, as seen in the video and are on display at the battlefield, but to be WHERE they were found. Or at least the area. That was close enough for me.

 

What I learned from that visit, was not so much about the orders themselves, but more about what I learned from the Inferential Genealogy study that I did “in Second Life”. You may recall I mentioned two people, at the Battle of Gettysburg, who fought against each other and that their Grandfathers fought with George Washington. Brother against Brother took on a new, real, meaning for me.

Author Dennis E. Frye, “September Suspense, Lincoln’s Union in Peril” was the presenter and was on the panel, described Frederick, Maryland during the time of the Civil War. What surprised me, was that Frederick was “Union” friendly. Knowing that Baltimore was 50 miles (plus or minus) away, but was a “split town”, as was Maryland, split between the North and South. The study I did was on Confederate’s during the Civil War. Why were towns, so close together in my mind, so far apart at the time of the Civil War.

I had a chance to ask Mr. Frye about this. What he explained to me, was that the settlers of Frederick were Welsh and had come down to this part of Maryland from the port of Philadelphia and not the port of Baltimore. Knowing the Philadelphia area, and a bit of it’s history, that all made sense to me. Having just driven from northern New Jersey to Frederick that morning, it made total sense.

The lecture was fantastic. He told the STORY of Special Orders #191, “including citations”. Of course a Historian would have citations, but the reading of the articles he quoted helped put the “story” into a real place. His book has 23 pages of End Notes, and 6 pages of Bibliographical information.

The Panel included two other Civil War historians. The moderator took questions from the audience and asked the panel, in turn, to answer the questions. That is when the discussion became interesting, as each historian, had their own interpretation of the data from their studies.