TextEdit, Untitled Files, Got deleted

Question

I was opeing a file from a different drive and TextEdit gave me some kind of conflict issue. I failed to read it closely but when I canceled the dialog one of my "Untitled " files went missing from my Mac Pro.
Just where are these files stored and how can I recover this missing file?
Since the "new" method allows for sloppy file management, yes I am guilty of not "saving" the file, where are these files stored?
Time Machine is operational, but not knowing where the files are stored, well, where would I look?
iCloud is active, but there is no easy way to figure out how to recover a file from there, which I find really a serious flaw.
Just need some direction, where to look please.

Answer 1

From 1984 thru OS 10.6.8 you could not quit a Mac application - either by File Menu  > Quit, Cmd-Q or by pure accident (I meant to hit a different key combination, really...) and not get warned there were unsaved documents. And you would be lead thru each one to save or cancel. It matered not whether it was Simple Text, Teach Text or Text Edit, or some non-Apple program.
-- That all changed in 10.7.
And I did not turn on save documents and data in the cloud, it got turned on by default (unless I did that back when and don't remember doing so). I have been using the iCloud since it became iCloud, morphed from Mobile Me morphed from Dot Mac.
My OP was simply a query as to just where this document went as all the rest of the non-critical unsaved windows were still there and all I did was to cancel some dialog inquiry, not realizing what the OS would do to that cancel.
All this information will help those truly not Mac proficient.
I suspect that these unsaved documents, without Save Documents and Data in the Cloud turned on would have either not been messed with (since I had changed information in that window and not on the other computer originally) or would have disappeared the first time I entered trivial info into a window in Text Edit and not saved it.
And yes - please rest assured, there are 5 ways to quit a program - by File > Quit, Cmd-Q key press, by unexpected power loss (before you have saved if you had intended to do so), inadvertant shut down AND by simple lousy typing - you meant Cmd-Tab, Cmd-W, Cmd-A, or something else, but not Cmd-Q.