Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War

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Black spies infiltrated staff of Confederate president Jefferson Davis fosters.com :: 2009-08-10
When Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy during the Civil War, realised somebody on his staff was leaking information to the Union, the last person he thought of was the nanny, Mary Elizabeth Bowser. He thought she was only an illiterate slave. "Wrong Jeff, she was a school teacher from Philadelphia," said Hari Jones, curator of the African American Civil War Memorial Museum in Washington, adding that: "African American spies in the Civil War were critical to the Union effort." Called the Lincoln's Loyal Legal League, a network of African American spies used their own form of communication to weaken the Confederate effort and pass on information to the Northern states. [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

Female Confederate spy Isabelle Boyd - Cleopatra of the Secession examiner.com :: 2009-06-04
Isabelle Boyd - one of the most infamous of Confederate spies, who provided information to General "Stonewall" Jackson - today lies buried among the very "Yankees" she plotted so hard against. She became known as "Le Belle Rebelle" by French war correspondents and the "Cleopatra of the Secession" by the North and is now sometimes referred to as the "Wisconsin's Southern Belle." Isabelle's town was occupied by the Union in 1861. One day a band of drunken Union soldiers broke into her home looking for souvenirs. They found nothing and one soldier intent on raising the Union flag pushed her mother. Belle drew her pistol and shot the man dead - She was just 17. [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

National Cryptologic Museum is filled with secrets of the past voanews.com :: 2008-09-29
The little National Cryptologic Museum is on the Fort George G. Meade military base near Washington, D.C. It records the story of cryptology and the persons who have worked in this unusual field. The museum shows many pieces of equipment that were once used to make information secret. One unusual example is a bed covering called a quilt. In the early American history, black people from Africa were used as slaves in the confederate states. Slaves stitched quilts with designs that revealed slaves how to escape to freedom in the northern states. [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

Civil War trial of the 17yo confederate spy David O. Dodd re-enacted nwanews :: 2008-01-14
On Jan. 5, 1864, David O. Dodd told a 5-member Union Army military court that he had little notion of the "great drama" of the Civil War being waged around him, much less a hand in it. But, having been captured by Union soldiers on a road outside Little Rock with an encoded message, the 17-year-old was being tried as a spy for the Confederacy and hanged. Before Dodd’s hanging, a Union general Frederick Steele, asked Dodd to disclose the source of the letter. Dodd replied: "General Steele, I don’t blame you for what I am about to suffer. ... I will not betray a friend to save my own life; and my only regret is I have but one life to give to my country." [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

Confederate States Army scout Dewitt Jobe died horrible death murfreesboropost :: 2007-10-09
Sam Davis, "the boy hero of the Confederacy," was a member of Coleman’s Scouts, a unit that worked behind Union lines collecting information and disrupting Union operations in Middle Tennessee. Davis was executed after refusing to divulge the source of the information he was carrying. His last words: "If I had a thousand lives to live, I would give them all, rather than betray a friend or my country." Less glamorous is the story of another Coleman Scout, Dewitt Smith Jobe and his cousins Dee Smith and Thomas Benton Smith (a “boy” general with the 20th Tennessee). Each met a horrible end at the hands of Federal troops. [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

Lecture to focus on slave turned spy - Abraham Galloway havenews :: 2007-09-21
Southerners fought for the Confederacy, northerners fought for the Union, Abraham Galloway fought for the slaves. The North Carolina slave-turned Union spy played the role of double agent and often felt neither side fighting the Civil War was protecting the interests of blacks. "Very quickly, he starts to feel like he’s fighting a war against both sides. Galloway was fighting the Union in some ways as hard as the South. Galloway is a good story - he sort of breaks all the molds," said Dr. David Cecelski. [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

Discovery suggests York's rebel helper - Civil War mystery ydr :: 2007-01-22
One of York County's whodunits now appears to have an ending. Who was that young girl who handed a bouquet of flowers to the Confederate general as his rebel brigade marched through York in June 1863? This story has been told and retold since Gen. John B. Gordon recounted the tale of the anonymous floral gift in his 1904 autobiography. Military historians writing about the famed Confederate general often tell the tale. Now they have a name to attach to the story: 12yo Margaret Small. It wasn't the flowers that made the moment important: The bouquet hid a note showing Union troop defensive positions. [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

Pauline Cushman: Dramatic espionage career of Yankee spy dailytidings :: 2006-08-25
In March 1863 in Louisville... To create a disturbance, paroled rebel officers offered actress Pauline Cushman $300 if she would drink a toast to Jeff Davis and the Confederacy while on stage. She hid the $300 in her shoe and reported the offer to federal authorities. Colonel Truesdale recruited Cushman as a Yankee spy. He told her to go ahead with the toast - She would be a heroine in the south. Her career in espionage lasted less than a year. She was used as a courier, contacting loyal groups in the south, and collecting information on Confederate plans. In early l864 she was captured by scouts from General Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry. [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

Cuban woman as confederacy soldier in the Civil War boston :: 2006-08-23
Loreta Janeta Velazquez sounded like a mythical figure: a Cuban-born woman raised in New Orleans, where she masqueraded as a male soldier and fought in the Civil War. With a fake mustache and a soldier's uniform, the Latina enlisted in the Confederate Army as Lieutenant Harry T. Buford. Velazquez didn't just fight as a soldier in the historic battles of Bull Run and Shiloh, but posed as a spy after she was wounded. Velazquez chronicled her adventures as a soldier in a 600-page memoir called "The Woman in Battle: The Civil War Narrative of Loreta Janeta Velazquez, Cuban Woman and Confederate Soldier." It features rare images of her as both a woman and a man. [Women during Civil War]

Breaking The Confederate Code (137 Years Too Late) rz1 :: 2006-06-06
Dr. Kent D. Boklan: In the spring of 1999, I received a catalogue for a sale of Fine Books and Manuscripts, lot 79 was: "A letter of intelligence, partially written in confederate code. The first 11 lines of this document are in undeciphered code, but the last paragraph provides pertinent information regarding the Union army and its movements." I visited Sotheby's and expressed my desire to break the code. I realized that accurately transcribing the very deliberate penmanship of the cipher clerk was going to be a challenge. Not only had a few letters faded but there was a very unusual looking character that resembled a spermatozoon. [Technology and Development - American Civil War]

Civil war cross dressers - Female combatants and spies pridesource :: 2006-05-26
Of the thousands of brave women who served as nurses (including Florence Nightingale), some 400 "others" - Northerners, Southerners, free, slave, and citizen - also served as combatants or spies. Two well-known cross dressers received high honors for valor: Dr. Mary Walker, and Flint's neglected hero(ine), Sarah Emma Edmonds, aka Frank Thompson. Dr. Walker, a surgeon, lived in drag most of her long life, and spent four months undetected in a Confederate prison. She received a Medal of Honor from President Andrew Johnson. [Women during Civil War]

Civil War women are hailed as heroines timesunion :: 2006-05-12
Military museum exhibit traces their military and home front roles during nation's great conflict. Women served as nurses, activists, educators, spies and even impersonated men to fight as soldiers during the Civil War, according to a new exhibit at the State Military Museum. "Lost Ladies" details two dozen women who contributed significantly to the nation's Civil War effort but are rarely mentioned in classrooms. It also features several mid-19th century dress styles, interpretive panels, pictures, stationery, jewelry, hand fans, purses and other female belongings of the time. [Women during Civil War]

Black American Contributions to Union Intelligence cia :: 2006-01-25
"Black Dispatches" was a common term used among Union military men for intelligence on Confederate forces provided by Negroes. This source of information represented the single most prolific and productive category of intelligence obtained and acted on by Union forces throughout the Civil War. Black Dispatches resulted from frontline tactical debriefings of slaves--either runaways or those having just come under Union control. Black Americans also contributed, however, to tactical and strategic Union intelligence through behind-the-lines missions and agent-in-place operations. [Black - Coloured troops - American Civil War]

American Civil War in the News is a edited review of American Civil War related news and articles, providing collection of hand-picked 1861-1865 era history.