“Special Order No. 191. Headquarters of the Army of Northern Virginia, September 9, 1862. “The army will resume its march to-morrow, taking the Hagerstown road. General Jackson’s command will form the advance and, after passing Middletown, with such portion as he may select--” “Aw, shucks!” yawned the boy. “Just a lot of military bosh. I kind of had a hope it might turn out to be something interesting.” Dad, who had been loosening the girth of his foundered horse, turned sharply. Accustomed as he was to his grandson’s love for enacting all sorts of rôles and declaiming laughably impossible orations, he had listened with real pride to this latest effusion. Deeming that the boy was improvising, he had wondered at the concise and professional wording of the supposedly imaginary dispatch. But at Jimmie’s exclamation of disgust over the uninteresting nature of the document, he began to wonder if, after all, something of interest, even of importance, might not be sprawled on that much mishandled sheet of paper. It was over this ground that part of the Confederate army had passed but a few hours earlier. Perhaps-- He took the paper from the boy, spread out its crumbled surface once more, verified at a glance what Jimmie had read aloud, then went on with the reading: --“take the route toward Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient point, and by Friday night take possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and capture such of the enemy as may be at Martinsburg and intercept such as may attempt to escape from Harper’s Ferry. “General Longstreet’s command will--” Dad’s staring eyes shifted at this point to the bottom of the page; past much more closely written matter, in search of the signature. He found it. “(By command of General Robert E. Lee.) R. H. Chilton, Assistant Adjutant-General.” On the line below was written: “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.