Did Lee "Plant" Special Order 191 to Trap McClellan at Antietam?
Did Lee or anyone else ever later confirm that the written battle plans were "mislaid?"
shareI don't think so, Lee was just lucky that McClellan was an utterly useless commander...
share"McClellan was overcome with glee at learning planned Confederate troop movements and reportedly exclaimed, "Now I know what to do!" He confided to Brigadier General John Gibbon, "Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Order_191
"He [McClellan] was concerned about a possible trap (posited by Major General Henry W. Halleck.)"
Maybe McClellan doesn't deserve the bad rap he gets for this. Lee had been kicking ass the whole way.
Has anyone done wargames to see what would have happened if McClellan had rushed to where he thought would be a good place to attack Lee? It's probably irrelevant, once Lee learned the Order had gone missing he likely immediately changed his battle plan.
It wasn't just this incident, McClellan had a history of being indecisive and overly cautious because he always believed he was outnumbered by the enemy(which he decidedly wasn't ...)
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