Manuscript orders written for Major General Benjamin Huger (1805-1877) and Brigadier General Albert Gallatin Blanchard (1810-1891). Headquarters in Virginia, September - October, 1861. Each one page, 4to.

Order 54, written for Huger by Assistant Adjutant General S.S. Anderson from Norfolk, concerns the appointment of Blanchard as brigadier general: "Colonel H.G. Blanchard 1st Regiment Louisiana Volunteers, having been appointed a Brigadier General of the Provisional Army of the Confederate States and reported to these Headquarters in obedience to orders from the War Department, will remain in Command of the 3rd Brigade Volunteers until further orders, General Blanchard will establish his Headquarters at Portsmouth."

Order 81 is signed by Blanchard as Brigadier General at Portsmouth and reads in full: "Lieut. Washington L. Riddick of the Virginia Vols. having been appointed by the President a Captain in the Adjutant General Dept. P.A.C.S. and ordered by the Secretary of Was to report these Headquarters, has been assigned to the duty as Assistant Adjutant General of this Brigade. All reports and communications from the different commands comprising this Brigade must be addressed to the Assistant Adjutant General."

Blanchard, a native of Charlestown, Massachusetts, graduated from West Point in 1829, along with fellow classmate Robert E. Lee. He was brevetted second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Infantry and assigned to various bases in the Western frontier before serving as captain in the Mexican War, helming the "Phoenix Company" of the 2nd Louisiana Infantry. Blanchard had relocated to Louisiana, the hometown of his second wife, and worked as a teacher and for two prominent railroad companies after the war.

At the onset of the Civil War, Blanchard entered the Confederate service as a colonel, in charge of two divisions under Huger, and was promoted to brigadier general on 21 September 1861. Though present at the Battle of the Seven Pines, Blanchard was replaced shortly thereafter because of his advancing age and was instead assigned to various administrative posts, including a seat in the court of inquiry for General Seth Maxwell Barton. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate]  [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]
 

General Orders 54 shows folds, chipped at the top edge and partially inlaid. General Orders 81 appears to be trimmed at the bottom edge and shows folds, with a one-inch tear at the top edge, partially inlaid.