The Role Of Spies In The Civil War

History of Spies in the Civil War Espionage, a term commonly seen in today’s military and sometimes even in the news. It is the act of spying or using a spy or spies, usually by governments, to gather or obtain military or political information. This is an effective way to gather many kinds of intel in secret. I’ve found from some research that I’ve done that it was used in the Civil War. Even some females became spies to help their own respective sides. I’m hoping to shed some light on this subject of spies used in the Civil War, and teach you something you didn’t know before. Firstly I would like to explain how both sides of the war used spies. I feel that is important to point out that neither side of the war had an actual intelligence
This network of spies was created by Allan Pinkerton, who originally had his own detective service in Chicago. Pinkerton had been collecting information for Union General George B. McClellan for the first few months of the war. Later on, President Lincoln summoned McClellan and had him set up his intelligence gathering agency, and he placed Pinkerton in charge of it. Calling himself E.J. Allen, he set up his own counter intelligence network in D.C. and sent undercover agents to imbed themselves in Richmond, the Confederate Capital (History). Sadly, Pinkerton’s reports whilst in the field were far off from the real number of troops in the area so McClellan regularly couldn’t act fast until he was given an exact digit. Pinkerton called his intelligence operation U.S. Secret Service, despite the fact that he only ever worked for McClellan. Later Pinkerton actually lead the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth, the assassinator of Abraham
One of the more famous spies from the Union besides Allan Pinkerton was Timothy Webster. He was originally born in Sussex, England and moved to the United States when he was 4. Growing up in Princeton, N.J., he didn’t become a naturalized U.S. citizen until the age of 8. Later in life, he became a New York Police Officer, and also happened to help out on some cases with Pinkerton’s Detective Agency (Guttman). During this he was also among the President-elect bodyguards for Abraham Lincoln. Once war broke out, however, he entered a world of espionage, with his spymaster, Allan Pinkerton. He used his dual citizenship to his advantage, he conducted many intelligence operations in Maryland, Memphis Tenn., and Richmond, where Brig. General John H. Winder stated him, “a noble fellow, a most valuable man to us (Guttman).” Webster was actually the Civil War’s first double agent (History). He pretended to be a courier on the Secret Line, the Confederacy’s route to deliver vital intel, earning the trust of Judah P. Benjamin, a Confederate Secretary of War. He sent Webster with some documents to take to Baltimore, which immediately Webster delivered to Pinkerton and the U.S. Secret Service (History). Pinkerton had dispatched to men to go check up on Webster, when they were both captured and interrogated. One of the two men, never disclosed as to whom, gave him up (Guttman). Webster was sadly