The Confederate Secret Service: An Analysis of the Intelligence Community of the Confederate States of America 1861-1865

By Harold Mills Jr.

This booklet is a report on and an analysis of the Confederate Secret Service. Any errors or misinterpretations of referenced sources are strictly those of the author. The author is an experienced intelligence officer, but he also harbors the caution of a typical intelligence analyst and knows that there is always more to know. My interest in this topic stems from both my intelligence career and from research of family history/genealogy which begun in 1983. The genealogy reveals that ancestors served in nearly every conflict starting with the American Revolution. That family military tradition continues in the current generation with two sons who are serving as officers of US Marines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781643008516

Book preview

Confederate Soldier’s Prayer

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve,

I was made weak that I might learn to obey.

I asked God for health, that I might do greater things,

I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy,

I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men,

I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,

I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing I asked for—but everything I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.

I am among men, most richly blessed.

(This was found on the body of a valiant Southern soldier, 1861–1865; source: www.historyaddict.com/CSprayer.html)

Overview

This booklet is a report on and an analysis of the Confederate Secret Service. Any errors or misinterpretations of referenced sources are strictly those of the author. The author is an experienced intelligence officer, but he also harbors the caution of a typical intelligence analyst and knows that there is always more to know.

My interest in this topic stems from both my intelligence career and from research of family history/genealogy begun in 1983. The genealogy reveals that ancestors served in nearly every conflict starting with the American Revolution. That family military tradition continues in the current generation with two sons who are serving as officers of US Marines.

The research that led to this book and its predecessor presentation began in 2014. It was stimulated in part by a CIA publication Intelligence in the Civil War (25) which is mostly about Union activities. I wanted to know more about Confederate intelligence. I asked myself four research questions which I sought to answer:

What was the organization of the Confederate Secret Service?

Who were the key officials?

How was the intelligence collected sources and methods?

How did the Confederate Secret Service support the Confederate war effort?

The answers to the above questions result in the six chapters of this book:

Organization of the Secret Service

Key Officials

Agents or Spy Stories

Clandestine Operations

The Lincoln Kidnap Plot

Observations and Conclusions

There are serious cautions and limitations to undertaking any research of Confederate government activities. In April 1865, many of the official papers and records were burned before the evacuation of Richmond (2). The best sources of our knowledge today are due to relatively recent scholarly research including:

Virginia Governor records and archives in Richmond (2, 3)

The Picket Papers, a collection found in the Library of Congress in 1990 (3)

Chicago partial state department account book found in 1968 (30)

James Otis Hall Research Library, Surratt Society in Clinton, Maryland, where Hall left seven drawer filing cabinets of research material and BGen William A. Tidwell left four. (2, 3, 12, 20 and 32)

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (2)

The Venerable Papers in the Southern Historical Collection in the library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (2)

Introduction

Washington, D.C. was an ideal site for Confederate espionage. It was only sixty miles south of the Mason–Dixon line and was adjacent to the slave-holding states of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. D.C. was full of Southern sympathizers in Congress and the federal bureaucracy. The Confederates