It is this paragraph that historian Edwin C. Fishel, in his work The Secret War for the Union, describes as “the clearest example Civil War history ever produces of a general’s use of a cover story to protect a piece of espionage.” According to Fishel, Pope himself admitted the deception in a postwar letter to Harter in which Pope said the former spy had been the first person to give him the vital information concerning Lee’s plan.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in America's Civil War magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

While Pope’s report was printed in the Official Records, both the records of Harter’s service and Pope’s letter to him remained unpublished and unexamined, as did the accounts of the 2nd Maryland’s raid. The absence of those accounts made the prominence of the captured order understandable. However, relying on the story of the captured order is troublesome, since it gives a false picture of Pope’s conduct in the Second Manassas campaign. It makes it seem as if he was blissfully going along when a sudden stroke of luck provided him with the information he needed to save his army. That could not be farther from the truth. While Pope may not have been aware of the precise location of the Confederate army until the morning of August 18, the fact that they were nearby probably did not surprise him too much. He had long suspected that the Confederates would seek to attack him on the left of his line, and he had been receiving reports, as he himself stated, since August 12 that Lee was being reinforced and was moving to confront him from that direction. Both Pope and his superiors in Washington rightly felt that with McClellan’s withdrawal from the Virginia peninsula, Lee would be reinforced and move against Pope’s left.

Pope’s order to Reno of August 17, which sparked the mission of the 2nd Maryland and the scout of the 1st Michigan and 5th New York, mentioned that exact scenario and was designed to try to avoid it if at all possible. Far from being ignorant of potential danger, Pope used every means at his disposal to keep watch on his vulnerable left flank: a cavalry scout, an infantry scout, spies and lookouts on Thoroughfare Mountain. While the lookouts failed to see the advancing Confederate army, the other three produced valuable intelligence.

A quick survey of current titles on the campaign and Battle of Second Manassas reveals how widespread the story of the captured order is, but this has not always been the case. Several historians came close to blowing Pope’s cover story before Fishel. One was Douglas Southall Freeman in his Pulitzer Prize­winning biography of Lee. He mentioned all three possible sources of intelligence, giving prominence to the captured order, then mentioning the 2nd Maryland’s raid: “To his [Lee's] disappointment over his inability to strike Pope in his exposed position…there was added on the 18th a fear that the enemy had discovered his presence despite his efforts to conceal the army. He learned that at daylight the Federals had raided a signal station that Jackson had established on…Clark’s Mountain….There was no way of telling what the enemy had seen before he had been driven back, or what records he had found.” Freeman also mentioned in passing the report of Thomas Harter, citing McDowell’s official report as his source.

Another historian, Charles F. Walcott, mentioned the 2nd Maryland’s report in his History of the 21st Massachusetts: “A strong cavalry expedition…which captured an important dispatch from General Lee to General Stuart, and a gallant reconnaissance by our 2nd Maryland regiment on the night of the 17th, disclosed not only General Lee’s determination to make short and decisive work with General Pope and his army, but also that a rebel force amply sufficient to crush us, masked by the hills across the river, was rapidly moving into position for an advance.”

Those two mentions of the 2nd Maryland’s raid are among the few accounts by historians that differ from the story of the captured order. Two additional accounts by members of the 2nd Maryland Infantry provide essential information about the timing of the arrival of the captured order and help establish approximate times for the report of the 2nd Maryland.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to