DK - The American Civil War

army strength, which the general’s

overcautious disposition made him only

too ready to believe.

An organized military surveillance

system was not set up until January

1863, when General Joseph Hooker

took command of the Army of the

Potomac. He ordered Colonel George

H. Sharpe to set up a unit, which

became the Bureau of Military

Information. Sharpe’s organization

marked a great step forward in

professionalism and it would further

flourish under Ulysses S. Grant’s

command in 1864.

The Confederacy never achieved

this level of organization. Much of its

“secret war” was conducted abroad,

agents playing an important role in

Europe by procuring arms and ships in

defiance of neutrality laws. In 1864

the Confederacy set up a unit in

Canada to undertake operations across

the border into the North. Supporters

carried out acts of sabotage but fell far

short of their aim of detaching the

northwestern states from the Union.

Records of undercover operations were

destroyed at the end of the war, making

it impossible for historians to glean

facts from fiction.

LINCOLN’S ASSASSINATION

Confederate secret files were burned on the

instructions of Secretary of State Judah P.

Benjamin before the fall of Richmond in 1865

314–15 ❯❯. Speculation about what these

documents may have contained has been

especially intense because of possible links

between Confederate covert operations and

the assassination of President Lincoln

320–21 ❯❯. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, had

met with Confederate secret agents in Canada,

and one theory is that Booth was tasked with a

mission to kidnap the president, but instead

he assassinated him.

POSTWAR HONOR

Individuals were

honored after the war

for spying for the

Union. Despite the

perceived value of

such work, it took

two decades for the

U.S. Army’s Military

Intelligence Division

to be created, and

not until 1903

did the Army

integrate its

intelligence unit

into a general staff.

AFTER

The spying actress

The actress Pauline Cushman allegedly served as a

Union spy, hiding the information she gathered in

her shoes. After the war she gave lectures about her

exploits, wearing the uniform of an honorary major.

ESPIONAGE AND INTELLIGENCE

UNION MEDAL FOR SPYING

Mapmaker’s sketchbook
This annotated sketch of terrain and military movements
was made by Jedediah Hotchkiss, who worked as a
mapmaker for the Confederates. He made the first
detailed maps of the Shenandoah Valley.

to the South by Pinkerton in 1861,

was arrested, tried, and hanged by

the Confederates the following year.

Even scouts on horseback, if caught

out of uniform, could face execution.

Interpreting data

Successful intelligence hinged

on the ability to analyze and

interpret information. As well

as running espionage and

counterespionage rings,

Pinkerton, who remained a

civilian, was hired by General

George B. McClellan as

intelligence chief for the Army

of the Potomac. But his naive

interpretations of data meant

he often gave McClellan gross

overestimates of Confederate

Rebel Rose

Photographed with her youngest daughter at

the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, jailed

Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow was

released in summer 1862. She then traveled

to Europe where she was feted as a celebrity.

“You have sent me the most

valuable information received

from Richmond during the war.”

PRESIDENT LINCOLN SPEAKING OF ELIZABETH VAN LEW

secret rings to send messages, and move
sympathizers, agents, and escaped
prisoners between North and South.
When spies were caught, their gender
often determined their treatment.
Women were usually released after
brief incarceration: Greenhow was held
for nine months, Boyd for two. But
male spies were dealt with more harshly.
Timothy Webster, a Union agent sent