American Civil War spies

American Civil War spies were people who collected information for the Union or Confederate forces during the US Civil War. This information often gave one side an advantage by revealing troop movements or conveying details about military strengths and weaknesses. While women were barred from fighting in the war, several female spies were highly influential during the conflict.

Spying was a crime, and those who were caught could be imprisoned or sentenced to death by hanging. Because of the secrecy surrounding their actions, the number of people executed for spying is unknown. In modern usage, a spy is someone who conducts espionage, while a scout is someone who conducts reconnaissance, or trained observation. During the Civil War, the terms spy and scout were interchangeable, so it is even more difficult to determine who was involved in what activities.

Background

The issue of slavery divided the United States from the start. The Founding Fathers debated whether slavery should be outlawed. The question of whether states should continue to hold the power to decide the issue or if the federal government had the power to outlaw slavery in the territories that were not yet states, raged for decades. Abraham Lincoln had run on a platform to ban slavery in all US territories, a promise that did not include states where slavery was still legal. When Lincoln was declared the winner of the presidential election held on November 6, 1860, the South Carolina legislature unanimously voted to secede from the Union. Other states in the South quickly followed. Seven slave states formed the Confederate States of America and declared this new nation would not follow the dictates of the federal government. Lincoln, and most of the North, refused to acknowledge the Confederate nation. When the Confederate Army claimed Fort Sumter and fired on it, Lincoln was forced to send the militia out to subdue the secessionists. Four additional slave states soon joined the Confederacy, and battle lines were drawn from Virgina to Missouri.

Many spies who operated during the Civil War were never identified and are only known by code names. Others who were accused of being spies may have been innocent. Because they relied on secrecy, much about them remains unknown.

The Confederacy’s Signal Corps had a Secret Service Bureau that worked in the North, running espionage and counter-espionage operations. The Union operated a Bureau of Military Information, although spies generally worked for high-ranking individuals. Both sides used codes, surveillance, and other time-tested techniques. New developments allowed spies to employ wire-tapping of telegraph lines and conduct reconnaissance via hot air balloons.

One of the first deployments of spies during the Civil War era was to protect the recently elected President Lincoln from assassination on his way to his inauguration. Colonel Charles Pomeroy Stone hired private detectives to infiltrate a volunteer unit, the National Rifles, suspected of plotting to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on his journey. Lincoln left Springfield, Illinois, on February 11, 1861, for his March 4 inauguration in Washington, DC. Stone succeeded in protecting the future president just months before the start of the Civil War. He also purged the volunteer unit of secessionists. During Lincoln’s rail journey to Washington, the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad hired Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, to investigate rumors of planned sabotage of the rail line at Baltimore. While undercover, Pinkerton discovered another assassination plot against Lincoln, and deployed detectives to spy on the secessionists. After the Civil War began on April 12, 1861, Pinkerton offered his services to President Lincoln as a spy and secret courier.

Overview

While many were never identified, historical accounts of some spies survived. Union spies included Lafayette C. Baker, Charles C. Carpenter, George Curtis, Philip Henson, Hattie Lawton, Pryce Lewis, Harriet Tubman, Timothy Webster, and Henry Young. Spies for the Confederacy included John Yates Beall, Belle Boyd, James Dunwoody Bullock, Rose O’Neal Greenhow, Jean Guzman, Henry Thomas Harrison, William Norris, and Richard Thomas.

Spy recruitment during the war apparently began in Virginia, which seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861, but did not join the Confederacy until the following month. Governer John Letcher regarded Virginia as independent and formed an army during this gap. He also recruited spies in Washington, DC, where he had an extensive network of contacts from his time as a member of Congress. He recruited widow and socialite Rose O’Neal Greenhow through mutual friend Thomas Jordan, a US Army officer stationed in Washington. Greenhow counted among her admirers several senators and military officers. Jordan, who operated under the name Thomas John Rayford, created a cipher for her to send coded messages through an extensive Secret Line, as the system was called. Her friend Betty Duvall, who was a link in this chain, dressed as a farmer’s wife to avoid notice. She hid messages from Greenhow in her carefully arranged long hair. When Pinkerton arrested Greenhow, he found letters and documents linking her to several politicians. She was charged with spying and held on house arrest but was sent to prison when she continued to try to send messages. She later wrote her memoirs.

In the North, spy systems reported to individuals, rather than to the military hierarchy. Even Lincoln employed a spy, who reported to the president directly and was paid by him. The agent was William A. Lloyd, a publisher of railway and steamer guides, who asked Lincoln for a pass through Confederate lines for business purposes. Lloyd mailed reports to the family of one of his employees, who delivered the letters to the White House.

Some successful spies for the North worked for Pinkerton. Timothy Webster was born in Britain and worked in New York City as a police officer. Pinkerton sent him to Richmond, Virginia, to collect information. Webster, a charming man who put others at ease, had no trouble becoming fast friends with military officers in the South. He was even recruited by the Confederate secretary of war to act as a courier, which allowed him to pass along even more information to Pinkerton. He was later executed by the Confederacy.

Lafayette C. Baker was a spy for Lieutenant General Winfield Scott of the US Army. In the guise of a photographer, he collected information about Confederate troops, and even while imprisoned managed to send this information to Scott. Baker later became chief of the National Detective Police. His most famous case was that of Belle Boyd, a Confederate spy. When she was arrested, Baker allegedly threatened her with life in prison. Neither side was known to have executed a female spy, and she was released and sent to Richmond.

Abolitionist Harriet Tubman was one of the so-called Black Dispatches, African Americans including former slaves who provided information to the Union. She recruited nine former slaves as agents. Several were skilled riverboat pilots who knew the waterways well and helped find remotely detonated mines the Confederate forces placed in the water to destroy Union patrols. Tubman led a night raid of three hundred black troops on the Combahee River in South Carolina. They destroyed a Confederate supply store, burned warehouses, and freed more than 750 slaves.

Bibliography

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Central Intelligence Agency. Intelligence in the Civil War. www.cia.gov/library/publications/intelligence-history/civil-war/Intel‗in‗the‗CW1.pdf. Accessed 1 Apr. 2020.

History.com Editors. “Spying in the Civil War.” History Channel, 8 Feb. 2019, www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/civil-war-spies. Accessed 1 Apr. 2020.

James, Michael S. “U.S. Spy History Is Older than the Nation Itself.” ABC News, 24 Apr. 2008, abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1213034&page=1. Accessed 1 Apr. 2020.

“Leaders.” Smithsonian Institution, www.civilwar.si.edu/leaders‗greenhow.html. Accessed 1 Apr. 2020.

“Seized Correspondence of Rose O’Neal Greenhow.” National Archives, 22 July 2019, www.archives.gov/research/military/civil-war/greenhow. Accessed 1 Apr. 2020.

Little, Becky. “Harriet The Spy: How Harriet Tubman Helped the Union Army.” National Geographic, 21 Apr. 2016, www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/04/160421-harriet-tubman-20-dollar-bill-union-spy-history/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2020.

“Spies.” National Park Service, 23 Apr. 2015, www.nps.gov/civilwar/spies.htm. Accessed 1 Apr. 2020.