Spies In The Civil War

Spies during the Civil War

There has been a lot of research into the Civil War Era. Between battles, politics, and the brother versus brother mentality of the war, many people fail to realize another aspect of war, spies. Spies have played a critical role throughout all of history, regardless of wartime or not. The intelligence gained through spies helped generals and their armies make more intelligent moves, get into correct positioning, and enabled them to win battles that probably would not have been won without them. Let's take a look into some Union and Confederate spies.

From the Civil War, everyone has heard of General Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and of course Abraham Lincoln, but have you ever heard of Sarah Emma Edmonds? Sarah Emma Edmonds, a Canadian, was a Union spy, who enlisted in the army as Frank Thompson. Before becoming a spy, she served on the battlefield and also in field hospitals. She would soon become a master of disguise within the Union Army. Many of her missions were through Confederate lines in Northern Virginia.

ІEdmonds on several occasions would cut her hair extra short in order to be disguised as a male slave. Soon enough, she was digging trenches with a group of blacks near Williamsburg. Right outside of Williamsburg where Sarah was digging trenches, she was there to count guns and soldiers. Her very next mission was for her to disguise herself as a female peddler, following around the Confederate armies, and selling baked goods to them. Sarah had to end the plan due to a stream in which her baked goods fell. She soon came upon Captain Allen Hall in an abandoned farmhouse. He was very sick, soon to die. Hall gave her his gold watch and a message to deliver to headquarters. Thanks to this luck, she was able to infiltrate Confederate headquarters, and gain valuable information for the Union. This would be one of her last missions, and she soon went back to serving in the field hospital.

Another well known Union spy is Pauline Cushman. Pauline was born in 1833 as Harriet Wood, being the only girl out of eight children. She grew up to do performing arts in New York; this is where she took on the name Pauline Cushman. In 1863, she was performing in The Seven Sisters in Louisville. Here, she became friends with two paroled Confederate Soldiers, and the two soldiers offered her three-hundred dollars to toast Confederate President Jefferson Davis. After being approved to do the toast by the local provost, she was sworn into United States service.

ІAfter the speech, Union soldiers booed her, and Confederate soldiers cheered her on, although many fights eventually broke out. She was kicked out of the Union lines, which was the cover up she needed in order to spy in the South. While in the South, she kept track of Confederate movement in Kentucky and Tennessee. While doing this, she gained many contacts within the rebel soldiers, and soon discovered information such as how the Confederates sent messages in dead chickens, bags of flour, and knife handles, while also composing a list of Confederate spies. However, her luck ran dry one day when she was caught by rebel scouts and brought in for questioning. In her possession was drawing of Confederate fortifications at Shelbyville and Tullahoma, Tennessee. Pauline's capturer, guerilla Chief John Morgan, became friendly with her, and wished for her to become his aide de camp when she is released.

While being questioned, General Braxton Bragg informed Pauline that she would be put to death. Luckily, however, the Confederate camp where she was being held was about to be attacked by Union forces. When rescued, she was honored by being given the honorary title of major. She was too well known to the Confederacy that she could no longer be used as a spy, so she decided to take her stories and go around the country telling them. She finally settled in San Francisco.

Another Union spy that I would like to bring up is Elizabeth Van Lew. І After Elizabeth father's death, her and her mother began to have abolitionist thoughts. Her family was from Richmond, Virginia, and also owned a number of slaves. However, they would not sell the family's slaves, but rather they decided to hire them and let them earn wages. Elizabeth also worked nursing Federal soldiers in 1861 which led to her helping soldiers held prisoner in Libby and other prisons. She helped draw up prison escapes, which she is most recognizable for a prison escape of one-hundred Federal officers in February 1864, and most initial escapees would be hidden within her mansion. These escapees helped her to gain military intelligence, and thus gave this information first to Benjamin Butler, stationed at Fort Monroe, and later on she would be giving this information to Ulysses S. Grant. These messages were exchanged through secret codes and invisible ink. Technically, however, Elizabeth was considered more of a spymaster rather then a spy. The knowledge given to the generals helped with their planning of their operations in and around the Confederate capitol. After her career in the U.S. military, she spoke out for black equality and education.

These are just a few of the many Union spies that conducted missions past enemy lines and risked their lives for the Union Army. Now I would like to get into a few of the Confederate spies lives.

The first Confederate spy I would like to talk about is Belle Boyd. At the age of seventeen, she was a true believer in the cause of the Confederacy. As her name Belle hints at, she was a true southern beauty, and was able to use this to her advantage. She would use her looks to obtain secure information about Union troop movements and also Union battle plans. Such as in 1862, when Union troops occupied Front Royal, Virginia, when Boyd struck up a conversation with a Union general on the street, in which she was able to find out that the Union army was preparing to attack the Confederates again.

ІAnother interesting this about Belle, was that her family owned a hotel in Front Royal where the Union troops were staying at the time. Thanks to this family ownership, she was able to listen in on a top secret Union generals meeting. She was able to find out that Union General Nathan P. Banks and his troops were gathering in a town nearby to prepare for an attack. With this knowledge, she could see from binoculars on a balcony at the hotel the advancement of Confederate General Jackson's forces, which she found to be a very slow movement. She decided to run through the town, past Federal pickets in order to get to Jackson's army to get them the information. With the information given to the Confederate army, Major Harry Douglas, Jackson's aide, had the bugler sound to charge. The Union soldiers fled, trying to set the bridges on fire in order to halt the