Terry,

It has nothing to do with identity field.
According to BOL, there can be only one ORDER BY clause per statement at the very end of it

select * from trnhead where shipped=0
union all
select * from ordhead where shipped=0 order by id

>id field is primary key w/1 increment identity on that field as well.
>
>I can do:
>select * from trnhead where shipped=0 order by id
>fine.
>
>but:
>select * from trnhead where shipped=0 order by id
>union all
>select * from ordhead where shipped=0 order by id
>won't work with the order bys in there.
>
>I just took the order bys out since the ordering is okay it seems without, but:
>
>Does anyone know why?