When Taylor’s and Duryee’s accounts are merged with the reports and dispatches in the Official Records and with the facts of Harter and Montgomery’s reports, a completely different picture of Pope’s actions arises. The only workable chronology for the day’s events is that Harter provided the first intelligence of Lee’s army at an unknown time on the morning of August 18. Concurrently or soon after, news of the 2nd Maryland’s raid reached Reno’s headquarters at about 8 a.m., followed by Montgomery’s report on the evening of the 18th and the arrival of the captured order sometime between the afternoon of the 18th and August 22, which is when Pope reported to General Halleck that he had the captured letter.

For too long Thomas Harter’s and Richard Montgomery’s bravery in infiltrating the Confederate army and the story of the 2nd Maryland’s raid on Clark’s Mountain have been lost in the mists of history. Rather than a triumph of luck or the fortunes of war, it was instead a systematic use of intelligence-gathering through spies, signal corps operatives, cavalry and infantry reconnaissance that saved Pope at Clark’s Mountain. It was not blind luck, but skillful professionalism–an overriding factor in the entire outcome of the war.

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John Lamb of Collegedale, Tenn., is a first-time contributor to America’s Civil War. For further reading, he recommends: The Secret War for the Union, by Edwin C. Fishel; or Return to Bull Run, by John J. Hennessy.[ Top | Cover Page ]

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