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Behind the Lines: |
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The Civil War was the bloodiest, most devestating war that has ever been fought
on American soil. It began on April 12, 1861, at 4:30 in the morning. The main
reason that the war was fought was because Southern states believed that they
should have the right to use African-Americans as slaves, and the Northern
States opposed that belief.
Millions of American men and women fought against each other in this war, and
more than half a million died. Yes, that is a fact. The men were usually
soldiers. Women tended to be nurses, aides, or doctors, although some of them
posed as men in order to be able to fight in the war. Some of these men and
women, though, were spies. Instead of fighting with guns and ammunition, these
people fought through secrets and sabotage. These tactics turned out to be
essential. Battle could be won or lost depending on information aquired from
spies.
Back then, spying was hardly the same as it is today, with all of our high-tech
gadgets and well-organised secret agent groups. However, most of the things
that spies do today were done in the nineteenth century just as effectively. On
thing that spies did was send messages, which were usually about the enemy\'s
plans and movements, their troop size, their supplies, and the placement or
strength of their forts. Many used coded messages with words that stood for
different words. Some had different symbols for letters and numbers. Some spies
even used inivisible ink. The spies also had ways of concealing the messages
that they had to deliver. Messages were often hidden in articles of clothing.
People had to write on silk, that was then sewn into clothing, and spies could
also hide information in large metal buttons. Women\'s clothing was ideal for
hiding things in. Sometimes, they would even hide people under their hoop
skirts!
Two other things that spies did often were interceptin gmilitary dispatches and
sending supplies. Supplies were often hidden in the same places that messages
were hidden. It was also common practice for Confederate spies to hide morphine
in the heads of dolls to smuggle it in from the North, as morphine was a
painkiller that was desperately needed in Confederate hospitals.
If a spy was caught, they were usually treated just like common criminals. The
penalty for being a spy was most often death by a public hanging, although many
spies begged to be shot to death, which was considered to be a more honorable
way to go. Young boys that were spies were hanged as well, but there is no
record of a femal spy ever being hanged. Although there was one sentenced once,
she got away.
There are many famous spies that worked for the Confederacy. Among them are
Rose O\'Neal Greenhow, \"Mrs. M,\" William Norris, Thomas Nelson
Conrad, and Colonel Thomas Jordan. William Norris And Thomas Jordan weren\'t
really spies, but they were well involved with the spying community. William
Norris was the chief spymaster of the Confederacy. Thomas Jordan (who often
worked with Rose O\'Neal Greenhow) organised his own spy ring in Washington,
and created his own secret code. \"Mrs. M\" is most known for an
incident in which she wrapped a report around the body of her dog, and then
sewed him a new fur coat which was placed around the report on the dog\'s body.
When she reached her camp, she obtained a knife from an officer, and pretended
to cut her dog open, when she was really just getting the report. Thomas Nelson
Conrad was known for dressing as a minister in order to be able to move freely
among Union troops. Before he was a spy, he was actually an ordained Methodist
minister. Another interesting thing about him is that he used to hold spy
meetings in the Interior Department Building, right under the noses of the
Union. He figured that the Union people would never expect spies to meet in
their own building. He was right.
Rose O\'Neal Greenhow was one of the Confederacy\'s best and most renowned
spies, and she deserves her own paragraph. Rose was a widow, and a mother of
four kids. She was also a powerful figure in Washington at the time, because
she was close friends with former President, James Buchanan. She was also close
friends with many senators, representatives, diplomats, judges, and military
figures. Allan Pinkerton, a man whom I shall talk more about later, described
her as having \"an almost irresistable seductive power.\" 1 Col.
Erasmus Keyes called her \"the most persuasive woman that was ever known
to Washington.\" 2 Although she was a Confederate spy, she lived in the
North. She had a mind for details, which made her the great spy that she was.
In fact, when she turned in reports about the amount of supplies that an army
had, she could even remember to report of there was a shortage of blankets in
the camp. Rose also had many good war-ish ideas, which she often suggested to
her war-ish superiors. They say that it\'s because of Rose that the Confederacy
won the infamous Battle of Bull Run. \"I employed every capacity with
which God endowed me,\" 3 is something that she has said about herself.
This was true, even up to the last minute. The moment she was arrested, she
swallowed the message that she had been just about to deliver. She continued to
spy under the guards\' noses while she was in prison. And, when she was in
jail, people would pay ten dollars just to look at her.
The Union also had many good and famous spies. Three of the very best were
Allan Pinkerton, Sarah Edmonds, and Lafayette C. Baker. Sarah Edmonds has an
especially interesting story. She was a white girl, but she enlisted in the
Union disguised as a white man. She called herself Franklin Thompson. When
Sarah spied for the Union, she dressed up as if she was a black girl slave, so
it was very easy for her to blend in behind the Confederate lines. Lafayette C.
Baker was one of the first spies ever in the Union. He was assigned to the
Secret Service by Gen. Walbridge. Lafayette\'s phoney name was Samuel Munson. He
was caught within the Confederate lines, and accused of spying, so he go
arrested. Even while he was supposed to be in prison, he bribed the guards into
letting him walk around teh area, which gave him lots of information about
prison security, among other things. Eventually, he was released for a lack of
evidence.
Allan Pinkerton is the Union guy that gets to have his own paragraph. Before
the Civil War had even started, he ran the Pinkerton Detective Agency. During
the war, he was hired to track down and arrest the aforementioned Rose O\'Neal
Greenhow. He found her out by going to her house one day, and concealing some
of his men around it. They waited there until nightfall, when Rose returned
with a Union soldier. Allan took off his shoes, and stood on the shoulders of
two of his men, so that he would be able to see into the window. In an account
of this incident, Allan said: \"As the visitor entered the parlor and
seated himself -- awaiting the appearance of the lady of the house -- I
immediately recognised him as an officer of the regular army . . . I noticed
that there was a troubled, restless look on his face; he appeared ill at ease
and shifted nervously upon his chair, as though impatient for the entrance of
his hostess. In a few moments Mrs. Greenhow entered and cordially greeted her
visitor . . . he took from an inner pocket of his coat a map . . . a plan of
the fortifications in and around Washington, and which also designated a
contemplated plan of attack.\" 4 After the man left Rose\'s house, Allan
followed him, to question him, but instead the man had Allan arrested. Allan
spent the night in jail, but got out on bail the next morning, in time to have
Rose thrown in jail. If not for Allan Pinkerton, the Confederacy wouldn\'t have
lost its most valuable spy, and the Union might not have won the Civil War.
Two of the major secret agent unions that existed during the Civil War were The
Secret Sevice Bureau, which was the official name of the Confederate\'s
espionage bureau, and the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the Union\'s main
detective agency, founded Allan Pinkerton. After the Confederacy lost the Civil
War, The Secret Service Bureau diminshed, and it\'s not around anymore.
However, the Pinkerton Detective Agency thrived. It\'s still around today, and
it\'s doing very well.
Throughout time spies have gone unpraised. Their efforts are considered
\"dirty\" warfare, and the names of spies are hardly ever publicly
released. For example, the names of the spies of the Civil War were made
unavailable to the public well into the 1930\'s. The government seemed to have
something against documents having to do with disloyalty, treason,
courtmartials, and espionage. Many people didn\'t want the names released
because they felt that it might give a bad reputation to the spy\'s family
name, or something. These days, though, the names of these brave individuals
who risked their lives and their dignity in underground projects have been made
public, and they have been given the recognition that they deserve.
Bibliography:
Colman, Penny. Spies! Women in the Civil War. Cincinnati, OH: Betterway Books,
1996
Lang, J. Stephen. The Complete Book of Confederate Trivia. Shippensburg, PA:
Beidel Printing House, Inc., 1996
Stern, Philip Van Doren. Secret Missions of the Civil War. Avenel, NJ: Random
House Publishing, 1990