Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

by James M. McPherson

on September 13 their non-gambling commander hit the all-time military jackpot. In a field near Frederick two Union soldiers found a copy of Lee’s orders, wrapped around three cigars lost by a careless southern officer, detailing the objectives for the four separate parts of his army. This fantastic luck revealed to McClellan that each part of the enemy army was several miles from any of the others and that the two largest units were twenty or twenty-five miles apart with the Potomac between them. With his whole force McClellan could push through the South Mountain passes and gobble up the pieces of Lee’s army before they could reunite. McClellan recognized his opportunity; to one of his generals he exulted, “Here is a paper with which if I cannot whip ‘Bobbie Lee,’ I will be willing to go home.”40