“To Major-General D. H. Hill, Commanding Division.”
Unbelieving, dumfounded, Dad went back to the point where he had left off and read to the end.
To-day all the world knows the contents of “Special Order No. 191”—that order, a copy of which was sent by Lee to every division commander. The document telling of Lee’s plan to detach a part of his main army and, under Stonewall Jackson, to send it to capture the unprepared garrison and arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, while Lee himself should strive to hide from McClellan the fact that the Confederate host was sadly depleted by the sending of this detachment; and thus to prevent the Union armies from attacking him until Jackson’s force should return.
Like most of Lee’s plans it was brilliant and simple. It had every prospect of success.
And its success would probably have meant the wrecking of the Union cause through the invasion’s achievement.
Yet General D. H. Hill somehow let drop from a pocket his copy of the order, and that copy really was picked up through sheer chance.
Dad read to the end; then hurriedly reread.
Then he turned to Jimmie; his firm mouth twitching grotesquely.
“This—this has got to get to General McClellan—now—now!” he babbled. “It means—Lord of Battles!—it means everything to us! Everything! It must go to him as fast as a horse can be flogged into running. And—my horse is dead beat; and so, I guess, is yours! Oh, what’s to be done?”
He strode nervously across to where the runaway still cropped grass, half-way down the slope of the farther hillock.