Church Committee Reports at American Buddha Online Library

Site Map

CHURCH COMMITTEE REPORTS

PART ONE
THE SMALL BEGINNINGS (177'6-1914)
'Warfare in Europe during the age of New World discoveries was
a captive of formalism, an extreme of etiquette and familiarity with
the foe tempered by a static condition with regard to weapons technology.
On the Continent, this situation probably was radically
altered by the increased use of gunpower and the horse. In the Americas,
it was challenged by a competing strategy-familiarity with and
utilization of natural surroundin~sin defeating the enemy. This was
the technique of the Indian. DevoId of military identification symbols,
adept in tracking and skillful observation without detection, and
given to making attacks by surprise from the vantage of protective
cover, the natives of the Americas constituted a unique and mysterious
combatant to those daring to venture into the new land.
Colonists struggling to found permanent settlements along
the Atlantic seaboard ("past the vast ocean, and a sea of
troubles before," as William Bradford put it) encountered
in the Indian what to them was a new kind of foe-a foe
with a remarkable technique of patient subterfuge and cunning
device, evolved in surroundings quite different from
those of the Old World. By virtue of his training in the
Indian mode of war, every brave was also in effect a spy.
Through inborn capacity for the finesse of prowling and
scouting, he was, in his own environment, so skillful as to
make white men seem comparative bunglers. So declared
Col. Richard I. Dodge, writing in 1882, while still there was
a frontier, regarding the warriors of the western plains and
mountains. So said the young Washington, who through
frontier service became versed in the ways of eastern redskins.
1
By the time colonial rivalries began to flare in the New World, an
awareness and appreciation of Indian allies, both as warriors and as
sources of intelligence information, was fairly well established. In
the area of the St. Lawrence River valley, the French quickly established
(1609-1627) trade relations and missionary ties with the fierce
Iroquois tribes of the region. Occasional reversals were experienced
in the course of these diplomatic efforts with the Indians, the most
devastating occurring when the Iroquois, supplied with arms by the
Dutch, began a decade (1642-1653) of intermittent attacks upon the
Hurons with whom the French also had trade and political alliances.
While a treaty ended these hostilities, eventually the Iroquois allied
themselves with the British. Open conflict between the French and the
1 George S. Bryan. The Spy In America. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company.
1943, p. 15.
(7)
8
Iroquois erupted in 1684, reaching as far west as the Mississippi and
embroiling the territory surrounding Lakes Erie and OntarIo. An
ineffectual campaign by the French in 1687 prompted the Iroquois
to retaliate the following year in bloody raids throughout the St.
Lawrence valley. In August of 1689, the Iroquois slaughtered 200
inhabitants of Lachine (now a suburb of Montreal in Ontario province)
and took another 90 as prisoners.
On the eve of the intercolonial wars (King William's War, 16891697;
Queen Anne's War, 1702-1713; King George's War, 1740-1748;
French and Indian War or Seven Years' War, 1754-1763), the French
counted Indian alliances, extending from the Abenakis in Maine to
the Algonquin in Wisconsin and north toward Hudson Bay, and a
number of coureurs du boiY, familiar with forests and trails in the
area of conflict, among their intelligence resources. The English were
assisted by the powerful Iroquois alliance. That the French were
resourceful in their use of Indian spies and scouts is evidenced by the
circumstances surrounding the disastrous expedition to Fort Duquesne
led by General Edward Braddock in 1755. Himself disdainful of Indians
and their services as scouts, Braddock and his forces were surprised
by a smaller but better-positioned French unit a few miles
away from Duquesne. The battle was one of confusion and terror
within the British ranks. A great number of officers were killed, adding
to the disorder among the troops. Braddock died three days after
the battle from wounds he received in the fray.2 And to what may
the success of the French for this action be attributed ~
From the "Life and Travels" of Col. James Smith we know
what the French had been doing. Smith (then a youthful
Pennsylvania frontiersman), while at work on a military
road from Fort Loudoun westward, was captured by Indian
allies of the French and taken to Fort Duquesne. There he
fell to talking with a Delaware who had a smattering of
English. "I asked him," Smith wrote, "what news from
Braddock's army. He said the Indian8 spied tlwm every day,
and he showed me by making marks on the ground with a
stick that Braddock's army was advancing in very close
order and that the Indians would surround them, take trees,
and (as he expressed it) 'shoot urn down all one pigeon.' " 3
Of course not everyone within the British military forces was adverse
to the utilization of Indians in their cause. In a routine communique
to Colonel Henry Bouquet, dated July 16, 1758, George
Washington acknowledged the dispatch of certain Indian bands with
the observation that
. . . I must confess, that I think these Scalping Parties of
Indians we send out, will more effectually harass the Enemy
• For Washington's account of the events see his letter of July 18, i 775 to Robert
Dinwiddie in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed. The Writings of George Waskington From
the Original Manuscript SOWlces, 1745-1799 (Vol. 1). Washington, U.S. Govt.
Print. Oft'., 1931. pp. 148--150.
3 Bryan, op. ait., p. 16; see James Smith. A Narrative of the Most Remarkable
Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Colonel James Smith During His
Captivity A.mong the Indians in the Years 1755, '56, '57, a '59 Philadelphia,
J. Grigg, 1831.
9
(by keeping them under continual Alarms) than any Parties
of white People can do; because small parties of ours are not
equal to the undertaking, (not being so dexterous at skulking
as Indians) ; and large ones will be discovered by their spies
early enough to give the Enemy time to repell them by a superior
Force; and at all events, there is a greater probability
of loosing many of our best men, and fatiguing others before
the most essential Services are entered upon and am afraid
not answer the proposed end.4
The influence of the Indian upon intelligence activity is undeniable,
effecting both information gathering and interpretation techniques
as well as troop deployment practices (which were accordingly modified
to confuse intelligence operatives). The intelligence skills of the
Indians were continued and refined by the frontier scouts who guided
wagon trains and cavalry across the plains with the westward migration.
It may be argued that by the time of the "Jessie Scouts" (a name
applied to Federal scouts masquerading in Confederate uniforms)
and their southern counterparts, the Indian tradition of field intelligence,
surprise attack and sabotage had penetrated the Federal
armed services and, in one form or another, has remained operative
within that institution through guerrilla units, marauder groups,
rangers, and special forces.
I. Revolution and Intelligence
With the advent of a revolutionary war against the British, the
American colonists demonstrated a willingness to utilize certain intelligence
techniques familiar from the intrigues of the Continent. As
repressive trade and economic measures began to kindle opposition
to the King's policies in the New World, various secret societies were
formed, aiding the cause of liberty with both intelligence and mischievous
deeds. The most famous of these clandestine organizations,
the Sons of Liberty, was formed in the summer of 1765 to oppose the
Stamp Act. Active through the provincial towns and settlements, they
constituted an underground information network and resorted to violent
actions in their protestations. The Sons were thought to be responsible,
for example, for the burning of the records of the viceadmiralty
court in Boston and the ransacking of the home of the
comptroller of the currency there in August. These and lesser feats
were of sufficient impact that, before the effective date (November 1,
1765) of the Stamp Act, all of the royal stamp agents in the colonies
had resigned.
By the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a
variety of partisans-revolutionaries and loyalists-were providing
intelligence for the cause.5 Also, at this early date, perhaps as a consequence
of prior exposure to spy activities during the intercolonial
hostilities or even as a result of some familiarity with the prevailing
espionage situation, initial policies regarding defense information
• Fitzpatrick, op. cit. (Vol. 2), p. 237.
• Generally, on the activities of British intelligence, operatives, see: Bryan,
op. cit., pp. 18--50; Allen French. General Gage's Informers. Ann Arbor, University
of Michigan Press, 1932; Carl Van Doren. SerYret History Of the American
Revolution. Xew York, Viking Press, 1941; C. H. Van Tyne. The Loyalists in
the American Revolution. New York, Peter Smith, 1929,
10
security appeared.6 Articles of war adopted in 1775 forbid any unauthorized
correspondence with the enemy on the part of the Continental
armed forces. The following year the Continental Congress
enacted an ordinance against spying by civilians in time of war. Executions
for spying were public affairs, designed to further reinforce
the legal prohibitions established by the revolutionaries and in international
law.
Nevertheless, the Crown recruited and maintained an effective and
highly important espionage organization in the colonies.
Had it not been for the clandestine service rendered by loyalists,
the British would hardly have been able to prolong the
struggle for eight years. The Revolution has in that sense to
be viewed as a domestic war in far greater measure than had
been perceived until the twentieth century, when research
threw convincing light on the subject.
As agents provocateurs, whose function was that of allround
trouble-making; as informers and sly correspondents;
as dispatch-bearers; as military spies, civilian intelligence
agents, and gO-betweens, the Tories labored and dared for the
side to which in the majority of instances they were honestly
attached, upon whose victory they confidently reckoned, and
which had dangled before them the encouragement of final
reward. To British commanders in America, this aid was
indispensable.7
It is not certain as to when the Continental armed forces began
utilizing the services of undercover operatives but, with the leadership
of George Washington, they had a strategist well aware of ways to foil
and enhance the intelligence function.
No other commander of his time knew better than did Washington
the necessity of being constantly informed about the
enemy. If there were a surprise, he chose to spring it, as he did
at Trenton-not to be the victim of it. He employed light
horse, mounted and dismounted, for reconnaissance; he had
"harassing parties" to annoy the enemy and, more important,
to return with prisoners, from whom valuable intelligence
might be obtained. He ordered that the north shore of
Long Island, especially the bays, be constantly watched from
high ground on the opposite shore by lookouts with good spyglasses,
who could note unusual movements of enemy shipping.
s
One of Washington's first actions after taking command of the army
in July, 1715, at Cambridge, was to dispatch an agent to Boston to
establish a secret correspondence network to report on enemy movements
and activities. He preferred intelligence in writing and to safeguard
such communiques a variety of codes and an invisible ink were
utilized at different times. The British had no personnel schooled in
decoding and reasonably complex ciphers withstood various efforts of
• The evolution of information security policy and practice is discussed in
Appendix II.
7 Bryan, Of). cit., p. 18.
• lbiit., p. 51.
11
translation. Washington also established fixed terms of service for
secret agents and specific matters of importance upon which he sought
precise details.9
Among major topics of intelligence, Washington listed arrivals,
troop movements, signs of expeditions by land or water,
shifts of position, localities of posts and how fortified,
strength and distribution of corps, and the state of garrisons.
In addition to such things there were all kinds of minor particulars
whose interest and value would, he felt, be obvious to
a competent agent.10
Washington made regular but guarded use of spies. His caution was
prompted by the precarious division of allegiance which transversed
familial, religious, and regional ties and a variety of lesser human
loyalties. Still, he knew the value of clandestine operatives.
On the basis of results, he said after some four years of war:
"The greatest benefits are to be derived from persons who live
with the other side. It is with such I have endeavored to establish
a correspondence, and on their reports I shall most
rely." These people had a chance to examine freely without
attracting suspicion, and they could report more literally not
only on factual details but also on the enemy's morale,u
The most sophisticated and enduring spy system-in good running
order for five years-maintained by Washington was led by Major
Benjamin Tallmadge and operated in the environs of New York City
and Long Island. A commissioned officer in the Second Light Dragoons
of Connecticut (also known as Sheldon's Dragoons) and the
Yale classmate, and closest personal friend, of the martyred Nathan
Hale, Tallmadge recruited his agents from among his friends.
The organization consisted of Tallmadge, fRobert] Townsend,
Abraham Woodhull, Austin Roe, and Caleb Brewsterall
young men of imagination, daring, and social position.
Their operations were conducted by a method that was both
devious and secure. Townsend lived in New York where he
ran a general store which attracted British customers who
were adroitly pumped for information. Roe was an active
horseman who liked to ride from the heart of New York over
Long Island country roads in all kinds of weather. He carried
the reports to Woodhull. Woodhull then hurried to a point on
the north shore of Long Island to look for a black petticoat
and handkerchiefs on a clothesline. If they were hanging,
it signaled that the boatman Brewster, who sailed his boat
from one side of Long Island Sound to the other, had landed
in a small cove on Long Island. Brewster then took the coded
• Ibid., pp. 52-53.
,. Ibid., p. 53.
11 Ibid, p. 52; generally on the activities of Washington's intelligence operatives,
see: John Bakeless. Turncoat8, Traitor8, and Heroe8. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott
Company, 1959; H. P. Johnston. The Secret Service of the Revolution. Magazine
of American Hi8tory, v. 8, February, 1882: 95-105; Morton Pennypacker.
GeneraZ Washington'8 Spie8. Brooklyn, Long Island Historical Society, 1939.
70-890 0 - 76 - 2
12
messages across to Connecticut to Tallmadge who transmitted
them to General Washington.12
In this venture, as in all of his spy arrangements, Washington had
certain particulars of information which were of priority importance.
It was Washington's request that he be specifically informed
as to:
The health and spirits of the British army and na,vy in the
city;
The number of men allotted to the defense of the city and
its environs (the corps to be specified, and where posted) ;
The guarding of transports (whether by armed vessels or
with chains, booms, etc.) ;
The works crossing York Island at the rear of the city (the
redoubts, and the number of guns in each) ;
The works (if any) between these and Fort Knyphausen
and Washington;
The works (if any) on the Harlem River, near Harlem
town-also on the East River, facing Hell Gate;
The character of the defenses (whether, for example, they
included pits in which stakes had been fixed) ;
Existing supplies of forage, provisions, and wood;
Movements by la,nd or wa,ter.
He also wished intelligence rega,rding vessels and boats on
Long Island Sound. Somebody in the vicinity of Brooklyn
could, he thought, under pretext of marketing obtain daily
admission to the garrison there. Always he stressed the importance
of concrete details, the value of accuracy, the worthlessness
of rumors.13
The employment of spies and informers was an expensive prospect
which Washington managed quite well. His first appeal for an intelligence
fund a,ppears to have been made on August 25, 1978.14
Congress sent 500 guineas, which would, he said, be used
with discretion as it might be required. He added that the
American intelligence service had been far from satisfactory,
either because swift decline in the value of Continental currency
had rendered the terms of service extravagantly high,
or because in some instances any offer whatever of paper
money had been refused. When he accepted his commission,
it was with the distinct proviso that no salary would a,ttach
to it, but that he would keep a record of his expenses. On
July 1, 1783, he drew up in his own handwriting a detailed
statement of these accounts, from which we learn that in
eight years the total expenditure for "secret intelligence"
was £1,982 lOs [the Continental Congress had authorized an
,. Monro MacCloskey. The Americam, Intelligence Oommunity. New York, Richards
Rosen Press, 1967, pp. 33-34; a personal account of the activities and operation
of the Tallmadge organization may be found in Benjamin Tallmadge with
H. P. Johnston, ed. Memoir. New York. Gilliss Press, 1904.
11 Bryan, op, cit., pp. 78-79; see Washington's letter of March 21, 1779, to
Tallmadge in Fitzpatrick, op. cit. (Vol. 14), pp. 276-277.
t4 See Fitzpatrick, op. cit. (Vol. 12), p. 356.
13
amount not to exceed 2000 guineas in gold specie to be drawn
from the Treasury by Washington for secret services]. Here
is sufficient evidence of how frugally he must have dealt out
guineas in those pinching- times.15
In terms of the development of intelligence techniques, the period
of the Revolutionary War witnessed two innovations: the introduction
of special devices-in this case, an invisible ink-and counterintelligence
arrangements.
This particular ink and its re-agent or counterpart (the formulas
for which remain unknown) were invented by Sir
James Jay, John Jay's elder brother, a physician living in
England, where in 1763 he had been knighted. Sir James, by
the account he later gave Thomas Jefferson, believed, from
what he had learned of certain curious experiments, that "a
fluid might possibly be discovered for invisible writing which
would elude the generally known means of detection, and yet
could be rendered visible by a suitable counterpart." When
war in America seemed inevitable, he saw that in forwarding
secret intelligence this method would possess great advantages.
Accordingly he sent from England to his brother John
in New York "considerable quantities" of the liquids he had
hit upon.16
Counterespionage efforts appear to have begun around July of 1776
and soon developed into an effective or~anized effort. However, it fell
to the su'b-national jurisdictions to cultIvate these actions. This course
of initia.tive created certain problems and confusion for Washington's
intelligence program. Typical of these frustrations was a case where
New Jersey authorities had mistakenly jailed three of Washington's
agents working in the New York City area.
"I hope," wrote Washington to the Governor, "you will put
a stop to the prosecution, unless other matters appear agamst
them. You must be well convinced that it is indispensably
necessary to make use of such means to procure intelligence.
The persons employed must bear the suspicion of being
thought inimical; and it is not in their power to assert their
innocence, because that would get abroad and destroy the confidence
which the enemy puts in them."
He later mentioned to the President of Congress the annoyance
occasioned through intermeddling by state officials.
There had been instances, he said, of prosecution in the civil
courts when it had been necessary for headquarters to reveal
the true character of the accused men. "This has served to
deter others from acting in the same capacit:y, and to increase
the dread of detection in our confidential frIends." Once in a
while it happened that a man who undertook to get intelli-
3ll Bryan, op. cit., p. 74; see Washington's letter of September 4, 1778, to the
President of Congress acknowledging receipt of the 500 guineas, in Fitzpatrick,
of). cit. (Vol. 12), pp. 399-400; also see Washington's letter of June 11, 1779,
to Michael Hillegas, Treasurer of the United States, noting the authorization of
upwards of 2000 guineas for secret service, in Ibid. (Vol. 15), p. 263.
1. Bryan, of). cit., p. 75.
14
gence under the subterfuge of trade did seem to devote more
attention to his own profits ~han .he did to intelligence; but it
wasn't best to be too severe wIth himY
The !liost vigorous counterintelligence program was in New York
ii-here,.m May o! 1F6, ~he ~rovincial Congress established a panel on
mtestme enemIes' whIch IS often referred to as the Committee on
Con~pira~ies. Under the a.uthor~tyof this body, John Jay, future Chief
JustIce, dIplomat, and FederalMt Papers author, and Nathaniel Sack~
tt, anot~er leadinK ~gure of the time, directed as many as ten agents
m ferretmg out BrItlsh spys and informers. Among these heroes was
Enoch Crosby who is generally thought (Cooper's protestations to the
contrary) to have been the model for James Fenimore Cooper's character
Harvey Birch in The Spy (published in 1821).18 This network
was superseded by a more ambitious unit, the Commissioners for Detecting
and Defeating Conspiracies, which was created in February,
1778, and lasted until 1781.19 Washington was assisted in his counterespionage
efforts by such state initiatives and by his own agents operating
behind British lines. Also, in this ,regard, it should not be
forgotten that 1Vas~ington's intelligence system extended beyond the
shores of the AmerIcas to England and the Continent. Thus, for example,
when Lord Cornwallis returned to his homeland in the waning
days of 1717 and reported that the conquest of America was impossible,
a secret agent in London passed this information on to Benjamin
Franklin at Passy by January 20, 1778.20 Other bits of intelligence and
counterintelligence made their way across the Atlantic to Washington
throu~h similar routes.
With the congressional ratification of the articles of peace on April
15, 1783, and the subsequent disbanding of the army over the next
few months, Washington's intelligence corps went out of existence.
Of those spies employed by the revolutionaries and the British, only
one is thought to have re-entered such secret aotivities ever again.21
The vast majority of Washington's operatives settled back into normal
'business pursuits and relative obscurity. Only one or two of these indi-
17 Ibiil., p. 54; the letter to Governor Livingston appears in Fitzpatrick, op. cit.
(Vol. 10), p. 329; the letter to the President of Congress appears in Ibiil. (Vol.
15), pp. 42-45.
18 Generally, on counter-intelligence activity during the Revolution, see Bakeless,
op. cit., pp. 125-153; on the career of Enoch Crosby, see H. L. Barnum.
The Spy Unmasked .. or Memoirs of Enoch Crosby. New York. J. J. Harper, 1828.
,. Generally, on the efforts of inquisitorial bodies in New York, see Alexander
Clarence Flick. Loyalism in New York During the American Revolution. New
York, Arno Press and The New York Times, 1969; originally published 1901;
also see Victor H. Paltsits, ed. Minutes of the Commissioners for Detecting and
Defeating Conspiracies in the State Of New York * * * Albany, State of New York,
1909.
.., Bakeless, op. cit., p. 220; also, of general interest is Michael Kammen. A
Rope of Sanil: The Colonial Agents, Briti.•h Politics, and the American Re1J(}lution.
Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1968; a provocative comment upon Franklin's
activities may be found in Cecil B. Currey. Code Number 72-Benjamin
Franklin: Patriot or Spy? Englewood Cliffs, Prl'ntice-Hall, 1972.
lI1This was the British agent John Howe who settled in Canada after the
Revolution and was reactivated during the War of 1812 when he made a tour
of the United States reporting on military preparations and popular mood. His
model report was discovered by American historians long after his mission was
completed.
15
viduals received any special commendation or decoration for their
service and intelligence officers in the armed services received only their
regular promotions, nothing more. The prevailing attitude seems to
have been that the intelligence services rendered by these individuals
were necessary, were gratefully appreciated by Washington and the
Nation, but were not to be glorified or publicly discussed. A fewTallmadge
and Crosby, among others-had their exploits captured
in print, but not always in a format with any visibility. Captain David
Gray, for example, published a pamphlet on his adventures but the
last copy was destroyed in a fire at the State library in Albany in 1911 ;
he had also told his story to the Massachusetts legislature but his
petition there also vanished; however, his pension claim of 1823 did
survive, complete with his personal account of wartime activities, and
remains with the National Archives.22
II. The New Nation
With the conclusion of hostilities with Great Britain, the new nation
turned its attention to preparing, and then ratifying, a written constitution
estahlishing a new Federal Government. The document itself,
as noted previously, contatneaptovisions which appear to be conducive
to the cultivation and development of the intelligence function, but,
with the disbanding of Washington's forces, the nation's leaders would
actually organize intelligence operations in an ad hoc manner and on
an extemporaneous basis durinl{ the course of the next century.23
Of great importance, as well, for the evolution and operationalization
of the Federal intellil{ence function are certain of the guarantees
in the Constitution's Bill of Rights. Among these are prohihitions
against Congress enacting any law abridging the freedom of speech
or of the press, or of the rig'ht of the people to peaceably assemble,
or of the right of the public to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. These
strictures on governmental power could have special significance in
the event an ambitious and zealous intelligence pro~m were attempted
to protect the citizenry from itself (or enemies of the state
imperceptible to the people).
Indeed, shortly after the Federal Government was instituted, circumstances
might well have prompted an enthusillstic intelligence
endeavor. When France, an old ally of the United States, was seized
by the winds of revolution, the French Repuhlic, in 1793. dispatched
an agent, Edward Charles Genet, to Charleston in South Carolina.
Before presenting his diplomatic credentials, Genet commissioned
four privateers and dispatched them to prey upon British shippinl{ as
France had declared war on England. He also sought to recruit an
expedition to conquer Louisiana which was then controlled by Spain,
another declared enemy of France. While the United States sought
to remain neutral in the conflict between France and England. President
Washington was faced with an agent pr01JOcateur of a foreign
power recruiting ships and men to engage in hostilities off the American
coast and possibly marching through American territory to engage
• Generally, on the post-war llfe~tyJel! of former spies and intelllgence operatives.
see Bakeless, op. cit., pp. M9-361S.
• See Introduction, pp. 3-9.
16
Spanish authorities. Washington received Genet with cool formality
and subsequently informed him that his grants of military commissions
on American soil constituted an infringement on the national
sovereignty of the United States. Notice was also given that Genet's
privateers would have to leave American waters and that their prizes
could not be sent to ports of the United States. Although he initially
agreed to comply with these demands, Genet was soon attempting to
arm The Little Sarah, a recently captured prize. When warned against
dispatching the ship, Genet threatened to mobilize opinion against
Washington. Ultimately, the vessel escaped to sea and efforts were
made to have Genet recalled. By this time, however, the Jacobins had
seized power in France and a new minister to the United States had
been dispatched with orders for Genet's arrest. Washington refused
to extradite Genet and he subsequently became an American citizen.
Conditions continued to remain tense with regard to America's relations
with France. In 1797, with the French Directory in power,
harassments and seizures were made on American shipping. The
American ambassador to France, Charles Pinckney, was refused an
opportunity to present his diplomatic credentials. In an attempt to
smooth the situation-the French were basically disturbed 'by the
terms of Jay's Treaty which, in part, granted American ships entry
to the British East Indies and West Indies while placing British trade
with the United States on a most-favored nation basis-President
Adams dispatched a special mission to Paris. Delayed on a pretext
from beginning official negotiations, the American delegation was approached
by three agents of the Foreign Ministry. Described in
diplomatic dispatches as X, Y, and Z, these operatives suggested an
American loan to France and a bribe of $240,000 to settle matters.
When this "offer" was refused and the failure of the negotiations
reached Adams, he informed Congress of the clandestine effort and
submitted the XYZ correspondence to the Legislature for inspection
and public disclosure. The dispute with France was settled by an undeclared
naval war (1798-1800). This incident and the Genet affair
set off a variety of conspiracy theories and fears of foreign intrigue
in America. But, rather than creating any countervailing intelligence
organization, the response of the Federal Government appears to be
that of restrictive law-the Alien and Sedition Acts. These consisted
of four statutes enacted by Co~ress in June and July of 1798 which
changed the residency period for citizenship from five to fourteen
years (1 Stat. 566) ; authorized the President to order all aliens reg-
arded as dangerous to the public peace and safety or suspected of
treasonahle or secret activities out of the country (1 Stat. 570);
authorized the President, during a declared war. to arrest, imprison,
or banish aliens subjeoted to an enemy power (1 Stat. 577) ; and made
it a high misdemeanor, punishable bv fine or imprisonment, for citizenS
or aliens to enter into unlawful combinations to oPpose the
execution of the national law, or to impede a Federal officer from
performing his duties, or to aid or attempt any insurrection. riot. or
unlawful assembly (l Stat. 596).
Under these cirf'umstances the !'lPy-fever raged. Federalist
Noah Webster said that "in case of any fatal disaster to England.
an invasion of America may not be improbable." A
17
Congressional document held that France and her partisans
in America would unite :for "the subversion o:f religion,
morality, law, and Government." Her means, the report said,
"are in wonderful coincidence with her ends; among these and
not the least successful is the direction and employment of the
active and versatile talents of her citizens abroad as emissaries
and spies." Federalist journals babbled of conspiracy, and
hurled insults at Anti-Federalists.
William Cobbett ("Peter Porcupine" of PorC'u,pine's Gazette)
announced that on May 9th, 1798 (ordained as a
national fast day) "desperate villains" would set fire to Philadelphia-
hut nothing happened. When the innocent
Dr. George Logan of that city went abroad, "Porcupine"
smelled a rat. "Take care." he raged; "when your blood runs
down the gutters, don't say you were not forewarned of the
danger." Volney, the historian, whose journeyings had carried
him to America, was branded as a French spy darkly maneuvering
to return Louisiana to France. Genet, who settled
peacefully on Long Island as a naturalized American, was
said to be in correspondence with "the Tyrants." 2.
III. Mission to Florida
Spy-fever remained rampant in America as Napoleon Bonaparte
emerged from the political turmoil in France as a new unifying
force on the Continent. The ambitions of the new French regime soon
became apparent to President Jefferson. The Treaty of Fontainebleau
(1762) ceded the Louisiana Territory to Spain but the secret Treaty
of San Ildefonso (1800) returned the province to France at the behest
of Napoleon who projected the revival of a colonial empire in North
America. The Treaty of Madrid (1801) confirmed the retrocession
and shortly thereafter the matter came to Jefferson's attention, prompting
him to begin efforts for the purchase of New Orleans and West
Florida. The result of these actions was the acquisition of the entire
Louisiana area and a heightened sensitivity to the intrigues of
Bonaparte.
The French were not the only threat to the security and sovereignty
of the infant United States at this time. The phobias about spies and
espionage within America were kindled anew with the disclosure of
the so-called Burr Conspiracy. Shortly after the duel in which
Alexander Hamilton was fatally wounded (July 11, 1804), Aaron
Burr began his efforts at organizing a movement for separating the
western territories of the Mississippi region from the United States.
After being refused financial assistance for his cause by the British,
Burr obtained a small sum from the Spanish and began focusing upon
lands of the Southwest and Mexico for establishing a western empire.
It is still unclear if his intent was treasonable or merely a filibustering
expedition against his benefactors in the Spanish dominions. Nevertheless,
Burr is known to have made a tour of the Mississippi River
valley (May-September, 1805) and to have conferred with General
James Wilkinson, commander of the armed forces in that region. At
the end of August, 1806, he stayed at Blennerhasset's Island on the
... Bryan, op. cit., pp. 100:-107.
18
Ohio River where he recruited some sixty to eighty men and ten
boats. In the meantime, Wilkinson warned .Tefferson of Burr's activities
and the President issued a proclamation on November 27, 1806,
warning citizens against participating in an illegal expedition against
Spanish territory.25 Unaware of this declaration, Burr and his company
began their journey down the Mississippi, passing several American
forts without interference. When they came within thirty miles
of Natchez, Burr learned that Wilkinson had betrayed him and he
fled toward Spanish Florida but was captured and arrested in Alabama.
Indicted for treason, Burr's trial before Chief Justice Marshall
presiding over the U.S. Circuit Court ended in an acquittal. Burr went
into European exile to escape further prosecutions for murder (in
New York and New Jersey in the case of his duel with Hamilton)
and for treason (in Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana.)
In spite of the co~fusion about the exact nature of Burr's expedition
popular sentiments against France and Spain remained fixed. The
Louisiana Purchase of 1803 left the status of Spanish ruled East and
West Florida unsettled. Jefferson supported the view that Louisiana
included the portion of Florida between the Mississippi River to the
west and the Perdido River to the east (the most southern portions of
the current states of Alabama and Mississippi). In 1810 a group of
expansionists led a revolt in the Spanish dominion, captured the
fortifications at Baton Rouge, and proclaimed the independent Republic
of West Florida. On October 27, a month after its liberation,
the Republic was proclaimed a U.S. possession and its military occupation
as part of the Orleans Territory was authorized.26 There were also
designs on West Florida (which Congress ultimately incorporated
[2 Stat. 734] into the Mississippi Territory on May 14, 1812) and
scattered outbursts of opposition to SpanIsh authority within the
Florida peninsula.
Into this situation President Madison dispatched George Matthews
as a political emissary and intelligence agent. Ordered to proceed
"secretly" to Florida, Matthews was to present himself to the Spanish
authorities as an American commissioner authorized to accept such
territory as might be turned over to the United States by Spain.
The Peninsular War was then cauterizing Spain, and the
colonial office in Madrid had neither funds nor power. A new
war between Britain and the United States was forseen in
1811, and President Madison believed that the English would
probably seize Florida as a base of operations. To prevent
this, he appointed Matthews and Colonel John McKee, an
Indian agent. to negotiate with the Spanish governor and
secure if possible a cession of the provinces. They were to
"fix a date for their return, if desired." In case the commissioners
were successful, a provisional government was to
be established; but if unsuccessful, it was understood from
the beginning that forcible possession was to be taken, should
.. See James D. Richardson, compo .A CompiZation 01 the Messages ana Papers
01 the Presidents (Vol. 1). New York, Bureau of National Literature, 1897, pp.
392-393.
.. See Ibid., PP. 465-466.
19
there be any reason to suppose a foreign Power was moving
to capture the Floridas.
McKee seems to have abandoned this enterprise, leaving
Matthews to carryon alone, which was very much to that
gentleman's taste. He was a native of Ireland, had fought in
the Revolutionary War, and had risen to the rank of general.
No celebrated exploit of that struggle is connected with his
name, but he was described as a man of "unsurpassed bravery
and indomitable energy, strong-minded but almost illiterate."
Moving to Georgia in 1785, his indomitable energy won him
election as governor the very next year. In 1794-95 he was
again elected governor of the state, and some time thereafter,
though entitled to be called both Honorable and General, he
did not disdain to work for the War Department as a special
agent on the Florida frontier.21
As an agent provocateur, Matthews took it upon himself to recruit
former Americans residing in Spanish Florida to revolt against their
foreign ruler. When the colonial governor indicated opposition to these
activities, Matthews returned to Georgia where he gathered a private
army of sharpshooting frontiersmen and Indian fighters and once
again ent&ed the Spanish territory on a mission of espionage.
A number of Georgian frontiersmen, preparing for a descent
upon Florida, assembled on the opposite bank of the St.
Mary's River. Uniting with the border settlers on the Spanish
side, they proceeded to organize an independent "Republic of
Florida," with Colonel John McIntosh as president and a
Colonel Ashley as military chief. Ferdandina, on Amelia
Island, had become in 1808 a port of free entry for foreign
vessels. On the excuse of protecting American shipping interests,
General Matthews determined to occupy Ferdandina
and Amelia Island, and to that end sent nine armed vessels
into the harbor. Forces of the "Republic of Florida" he enlisted
in his project, and, commanded by Ashley, they approached
Ferdandina by water and summoned the Spanish
commander, Don Jose Lopez, to surrender. Lopez was forced
to sign articles of capitulation March 17, 1812, possibly a delicate
compliment to the Irishman, Matthews. These articleswhich
added to the political apoplexy of the Spanish minister
in Washington-provided that Ferdandina should remain
a free port, but in case of war between Britain and the
United States, British ships could not enter the harbor after
May 1, 1813.28
In Washington the Spanish minister maintained a vehement protest
of Matthews' activities even though the Ferdandina settlement constituted
something of a compromIse of his diplomatic position. Reluctantly
President Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe
announced that Matthews had "misunderstood" his instructions.
... Richard Wilmer Rowan with Robert G. Deindorfer, Secret Service: TlUrtythree
Oenturies Of Espionage. London, William Kimber, 1969, pp. 241-242.
lIS Ibid., p. 705n.
20
Governor Mitchell of Georgia was appointed to replace him
and directed to assist Estrada [the Spanish colonial governor]
in enforcing order. Because of his unwanted versatility
Matthews was dismissed; but his successor seems to
have been given instructions no less opaque. Mitchell, it is
said, was to obtain safety for the "revolutionists" in Florida,
aid them as much as possible, and withdraw "troops as slowly
as might seem feasible." No better way of pursuing Matthews'
imperial aim could have been contrived; and Mitchell made
so much of his opportunities that the armed force Matthews
had organized and commanded did not retire from Florida
for fourteen months. Then-in May 1813-it moved to join
the army of Andrew Jackson, who was himself presently
ordered to renew the invasion and march upon Pensacola.
Only a Congressional outcry checked this expeditionary
thrust, and Old Hickory turned aside to the timely defense
of New Orleans.29
How far astray had Matthews actually gone in interpreting his instructions?
1Vas he isolated from changing policy developments or the
architect of a self-styled soldier of fortune escapade?
It was known at the time that George Matthews reported
regularly to Washington. While discussing the necessity of
occupying Florida to prevent the British from seizing it as a
base, the American Congress sat in secret session, and many
precautions were taken to keep the matter from becoming
known. Matthews was in no sense. therefore, a filibuster or
private plotter acting from selfish'motives. Instead he typified
the land-hungry American frontiersman of his age, who
regarded himself as an agent-not a bit secret--<>f divine
interposition and looked upon no boundary of the United
States as final until it vanished into a sea, gulf or ocean. Matthews'
conduct, as a government commissioner, was indefensible;
and it is easy to understand why his project, carried on
by his successor, has no forward place in the annals of the
day. A blunt instrument adding one more note of apology to
the sorry record of events surrounding the War of 1812, he
has had to be ignored as he was formerly disowned.so
And with regard to the evolution and advancement of the intelligence
function, the following conclusion seems appropriate.
There was very little secret service of a professional mold
in the three-year War of 1812 and not much effective work
of the Intelligence on either side. This is surprising, for there
were any number of living Americans who had been officers
in the Revolutionary War, and some of them ought to have
remembered General Washington's profitable dependence
upon systematic espionage. And it is all the more surprising
as a fault of the British, for Napoleon was beaten and exiled
.. Ibid" pp. 242-243.
00 Ibid., p. 243; also see David Hunter Miller. Se(Jf"et Statutes Of the United
States: A Memorandum. Washington, U.s' Govt. Print. Off., 1918, pp. 4-6.
21
to Elba, and in 1814 the government in London could afford
to train its heaviest guns upon the weaker American adversary.
3l
IV. Mexican War
Insensitivity to intelligence needs persisted in Washington during
the next three decades. When General Zachary Taylor marched into
the recently annexed Republic of Texas, he had little useful information
about the terrain or natural defenses of the territory. When Texas
was admitted to the union in December, 1845, Taylor advanced to; the
Rio Grande to repel an anticipated Mexican attack. On February 6,
1846, the army received notification that field maneuvers might be
ordered on short notice.
For six months, while at Corpus Christi, although he had
engineers, and although traders were streaming through the
place from beyond the Rio Grande, Taylor did not even know
the way to Matamoros-so wrote Lieut. Col. E. A. Hitchcock,
then commanding the 3rd infantry, whose diary and papers
are now in the Library of Congress. It was not until February
24th that the necessary data were procured, not until March
8th that the army began to move. A light unit for scouting
purposes was an obvious need; and [William L.] Marcy, the
secretary of war, had given Taylor express orders to call for
assistance from the Texans, "by whom legs were valued
chiefly as the means of sticking to a horse." Yet nothing of
the kind was done.
There was no intelligence service. Dense ignorance reigned
at headquarters as to topography or local conditions. Taylor
had been instructed to learn all he could regarding both, and
to keep the War Department informed; but in spite of
Marcy's earnest requests, he appears to have forwarded
nothing whatever and to have had no useful ideas about the
campaign. Napoleon had said that any general who, when
taking the field in a peopled country, neglected intelligence
service, was a general "ignorant of his trade." 32
Contrary to the advice of General Winfield Scott, who was about
to enter the field, Taylor made no effort to recruit disgruntled contrabandutas-
Mexican border-folk skilled in smuggling and otherwise
unhappy with their own government-as spies or informers. He
marched to Monterey without utilizing scouts, without almost any precautions
against surprise attack, and, assuming he would encounter
no serious resistance in seizing the city, without any real information
as to the fortifications or defenses he would encounter.
When General Scott landed at Vera Cruz with his army in March,
1847, Lieut.-Col. Hitchcock, previously serving with Taylor in the
Sl Rowan and Deindorfer, op. cit., p. 244; there is evidence that Andrew Jackson
had a secret agent in Pensacola, Florida, who was instrumental in informing
Jackson of the size and armament of his opposition at the battle of New Orleans
and it is also thought that Jackson had utilized the services of the notorious
pirate Jean Lafitte for intelligence purposes but these were very crude and
elementary endeavors; see Ibid., pp. 244-246.
"Bryan, op. cit., pp.116-117.
22
north, had joined his expedition serving as assistant inspector general.
By his own account, it would appear that it was Hitchcock who recruited
and organized the spy forces which had been urged on Taylor
and subsequently served Scott so well. On June 5, 1847, Hitchcock
noted in his diary that he had taken into service "a very celebrated
captain of robbers" who "knows the band and the whole country."
This was Dominguez whom Hitchcock tested with the delivery of a
communique "and if he performs the service faithfully, I shall further
employ him." 33 Two weeks later Hitchcock recorded his return with
a letter of response-thus was the Mexican Spy Company (or Spy
Company, or "the Forty Thieves"), as it came to be knovm, established,
Dominguez, leader of the Spy Company, had been an honest
weaver, it was said, but on being robbed by a Mexican officer,
took to the road and became a brigand chief. 'When the Americans
reached Puebla he was living there quietly with his
family; but, knowing the insecurity of his position, he accepted
Hitchcock's offer to become a scout. His band consisted
at first of five men but rose to about 100, and probably might
have been increased to 2000. He and men of his even entered
the capital in disguise. 'Vhile he was at the head of the company,
the actual captain was a Virginian named Spooner, who
had been a member of his band; and the two lieutenants were
also foreigners. The men seem to have served and obeyed
orders faithfully, and their leader refused very advantageous
terms offered by Santa Ana.34
Eventually, Hitchcock obtained the release of some of Dominguez's
compatriots from local jails, arranged to pay each recruit $20 a month,
organized the band into companies, and placed them under the direct
orders of General Scott with Dominguez acting as leader of the
forces.35 While the Spy Company was most useful to Scott, its members
were regarded as loathsome and immoral by many of the officers and
men of the army. Dr. Albert G. Brackett, a lieutenant with General
Joseph Lane's forces under Scott's command, has penned the following
first-hand observation:
The contra-guerrillas under Dominguez were a rascally set
of fellows, and I never could look upon them with any degree
of sympathy. Traitors to their own country in the darkest
hour of stern trial, they aided the Americans against their
own countrymen, and covered themselves with lasting infamy.
There is an old saying "we love the treason but despise the
traitor," which did not hold good with us. We loathed the
treason and cursed the traitor. Every man in the company was
a "jail bird," and a worse body of men could not have been
collected together.
saw. A. Croffut, ed. Fifty YeIW8 In Oamp and FieZd: Diary of Major·GeneraZ
Ethan A.llen Hitchcock, U.S.A.., New York and London, G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1909, p. 259.
"Justin H. Smith. The War with Mea:ico (Vol. 2). New York, Macmillan
Company, 1919, p. 862n.
'" Croffut, op. mt., pp. 263-265.
23
I once rode from the National Bridge to En Cerro with a
squadron of these chaps, and was the only American with
them. I had been carrying an order down from En Cerro to
the Bridge, and was on my return. They rode along singing
ribald songs, discharging their escopettes [a short rifle or
carbine] every few minutes, and behaving in the most unsoldier-
like manner. They had a few women along with them
who seemed to be as thoroughly steeped in vice as the men.
Each man carried a lance and wore a wide red band around
his hat. Mexican treachery is proverbial, and these contraguerrillas
were a complete embodiment of it. On first seeing
them, I thought very much, as one of our Irish soldiers did,
"may the devil flyaway wid'em for a set of ragamuffins." 36
Undoubtedly those in the Spy Company were aware of these resentments
and prejudices and a trace of that feeling can be detected
in this brief passage in a letter from Captain Robert Anderson, Third
Artillery, to his mother.
We have in our pay a Company of Mexicans who are called
the Forty Thieves; they are, I expect some of the gentlemen
robbers Thompson mentions. They were asked, the other day,
if they would not be afraid of being murdered by their countrymen
for acting with us, after we left the Country, and their
Captain's answer was: "That is our business, we will take care
of ourselves." They are very useful in getting information,
etc., and are used individually or collectively, as their services
are required. The Captai'n says he can increase his band to
1500 or 2000, if a greater number be wanted than he now has.37
Indeed, what was the fate of the Spy Company as an American victory
became apparenH
As danger diminished so did the need for the irregulars'
services. Promises of payment remained promises only. Apparently
President Polk had an appropriation he could utilize
for such things, and it would seem that he drew on it. But
either the commitments were made by irresponsible people, or
the political and military machines simply were not set up to
administer such unorthodox operations despite the officialsounding
name of Spy Company. Some officers of high personal
integrity paid out of their own pockets. When they did,
it was their own decision, and their own loss, as far as the
government was concerned.
With the signing of peace, even these amenities stopped.
The once sought-after irregulars were bandied about, even
ordered from camps. Doubtless the qualities which had been
found useful to the army now posed threats or at least em-
.. Albert G. Brackett. General Lane's Brigade in Central Me~o. New York,
J. C. Derby, 1854, pp. 186-187.
""Eba Anderson Lawton, ed. An Artiuerll Officer in the Mea;ican War, 18.+6-7:
Letters of Robert Anderson. New York and London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1911,
p. 266; abbreviated words appearing in the original have been reproduced in
full in the above quotation.
24
barrassment, and their possessors were classed as undesirable.
Some were ordered to get out of the country. Others still in
the United States were advised that the best that could be
done for them was an offer of transportation to the border
and freedom to cross into Mexico, the one area on the face of
the globe where they could not live, at least not for long.3s
In his diary entry of June 5, 1848, Hitchcock records he was to
discharge the Spy Company "with their own consent, by paying them
$20 per man at Vera Cruz-except the chief, Domingues, who will go
to New Orleans." Those electing to remain in service "expect to go to
Compeachy on an expedition proposed by General Lane 'on his own
hook ...." 39 As it does not appear that the Compeachy mission was
realized, the remnants of the Spy Company probably were dispersed
into the countryside, without any further American payments, to pursue
their old craft as bandits.
Another account regarding the fate of the Spy Company says simply
that its members "were offered $20 apiece and a trip to Texas.4o Thus,
it remains uncertain as to how many in the Mexican Spy Company
received final compensation for their services and, beyond this, how
many were left to fend for themselves in their homeland or were
removed to the United States. While the Spy Company is generally
thought to have provided useful intelligence .for General Scott, its
unique nature and the experience of United States armed forces in the
~lexican hostilities prompt agreement with the conclusion that:
The War with Mexico gave many American officers a certain
practical training for Civil War marches and battlefields. But
from its extempore secret service little of positive value could
have been derivedY
V. Oivil WaT
In 1860, following the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency,
the South Carolina legislature, by a unanimous vote, called
for a state convention. It assembled at Columbia and passed without
dissent an ordinance declaring that "the Union now subsisting between
South Carolina and the other States, under the name of the
'United States of America,' is hereby dissolved." Seceding on December
20, 1860, South Carolina was followed by Mississippi (January 19,
1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), and Texas (February 1, 1861).
The seceding states called for a convention. Meeting in Montgomery,
Alabama, it framed a constitution resembling the U.S. ConstItution,
and on February 8, 1861, set up a provisional government. Thus was
the Confederacy born.
President-elect Lincoln was unable to halt the cataclysm of a dissolving
Union and open warfare among the states. By the time of his
as A.llison Ind. .A Short History of Espi(mage. New York, David McKay Company,
1963, p. 79.
.. Croffut, Of). cit., p .330.
40 Smith, of). cit., p. 476n.
<1 Bryan, Of). ott., p. 118; of passing interest is the diffiCUlty President Polk had
in protecting his secret diplomatic efforts and the lack of any intelligence organization
to assist on this security problem; see Anna Kasten Nelson, Secret A.gents
and Security Leaks: President Polk and the Mexican War. Joornalism QU/JrlerZ,//,
v,~52, Spring, 1975: 9-14, 98.
25
inaugural (March 4, 1861), the Confederate Provisional Government
had been established (February 8, 1861), Jefferson Davis had been
elected (February 9, 1861) and inaugurated as President of the Confederacy
(February 18, 1861), an army had been assembled by the
secessionist states, and Federal forts and arsenals within the South had
been seized, beginning with the Charleston weapons installation
(December 30, 1860).
Confronted with a civil war, the Federal Government lacked any
centralized intelligence organization and, in desperation, scrambled to
establish a piecemeal makeshift secret service. Efforts in this regard became
imperative when it was soon realized that the territory surrounding
Washington-Virginia, eastern Maryland and southern Delaware--
was a hotbed of treason, Confederate agents, and poisonous
conspiracies against the Union.
War, Navy, and State departments at first acted independently.
Seward of the State Department took the lead, sending
detectives into Canada and the South. The War Department
was then administered not by the tireless and incorruptible
Stanton but by that cynical party boss Simon Cameron, to
whom has been attributed the definition of an honest politician
as "one that, when he's bought, stays bought." (Lincoln
dispensed with Cameron in January 1862, and removed him as
far as possible from the scene by appointing him minister to
Russia.)
Police chiefs of Northern cities-for example, "Uncle
John" Kennedy, superintendent of the metropolitan police of
New York- had been called in to assist, not only by trailing
and arresting suspects but by lending trained operatives. General
[Winfield] Scott appears to have consulted and worked
with Seward rather than with Cameron, his own superior.
After a while the military jails at Fort Warren (Boston),
Fort McHenry (Baltimore), and Fort Lafayette (New
York) were crowded to the limit; so in February 1862 Lincoln
ordered the release on parole of all political and state
prisoners except spies or those otherwise inimical to public
safety. Thenceforth the principal arrests of all suspects of
that character were by military power!2
VI. Pinkerton
Among the more famous private detectives recruited by the Federal
Government was Allan Pinkerton who served as an intelligence organizer
and coordinator from April, 1861, until the fall of the following
year. His activities in and around Washinw;on were under the direction
of the Secretary of War and Colonel Andrew Porter, provost
marshall responsible for the capital's security while under martial
law. Pinkerton's field operations were in the service of General George
.. Bryan, OfJ. cit., pp. 121-122; generally. on the questions of arrest and incarceration
authority, see James G. Randall. (JonstitutionaZ Problems Under Lincom.
Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1951, pp. 118-186; also see Clinton Rossiter.
(JonstitutionaZ Dictatorship: (Jrisis Government in Modern Democracies. Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1948, pp. 228-240.
26
B. McClellan during his command of the Ohio forces and the Army
of the Potomac.43
Pinkerton's involvement in intelligence activity in the Union cause
actually occurred before the Great Emancipator arrived at the White
House. Early in 1861, Samuel H. Felton, president of the Philadelphia,
Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, secured Pinkerton's services to
investigate threats of damage to the line "by roughs and secessionists
of Maryland." 44 The detective dispatched undercover agents to infiltrate
gangs and secret societies thought to be making the intimidations
and soon learned of a plot to assassmate President-elect Lincoln.45 In
league with members of the Baltimore police force, the conspirators
planned to kill the Chief Executive when he traveled by open carriage
from the Northern Central Railroad station to the Washington depot,
a half mile away.46 Informing the President-elect's entourage of this
scheme, Pinkerton set about devising an alternative travel plan for
the Lincoln party. After finally meeting with the President-elect in
Philadelphia, agreement was reached that a special train would
secretly carry Lmcoln through Baltimore the night before the official
caravan was to arrive in that cityY Thus eluding the assassins, the
Chief Executive made his way safely to Washington. For his part in
these activities, Pinkerton not only had an effective spy force, but
"fixed" the telegraph to render communication of the ploy impossible,
48 detained two journalists by force of arms from immediately
reporting the plan,49 and assumed responsibility for the security of
the tracks which the special train traveled.50
Next, in late April, Pinkerton was prevailed upon to provide a
secure courier service to 1Vashingion. "Several gentlemen of prominence
in Chicago, intimate friends of President Lincoln, and men of
influence and intelligence in the State, desired to communicate with
the President upon questions connected with the existing condition of
affairs, and applied to me for the purpose of having letters and dispatches
conveyed directly to Washington by the hands of a trusty
messenger." 51 For this mission, Pinkerton selected Timothy Webster
who was destined to become one of the Union's most successful, but
martyred, spies. When he arrived at the White House with the communiques,
Lincoln thanked him for safely conveying the messages
and for his role in apprehending a Confederate spy along the way.
Return dispatches were prepared by the President, one of which summoned
Pinkerton to the capital.52 A few days later, Pinkerton was in
Washington.
43 Allan Pinkerton. The Spy Of the Rebellion. New York, G. W. Carleton and
Company, 1883, p. xxvii.
.. Ibid., p. 46.
.. See Ibid., pp. 51H>4.
... Ibid., p. 68.
'7 See Ibid., pp. 83-87; by this time Lincoln had also received word of the plot
from William Seward's son who had been given the information by General Winfield
Scott; see James D. Horan. The Pinkertons: The Detective Dynasty that
Made History. New York, Crown PUblishers, 1967, p. 56.
.. Pinkerton, op. cit., pp. 89-90.
.. Ibid., pp. 99-100.
GO Ibid., p. 96.
.. Ibid., p. 110.
•• Ibid., p. 130.
27
Arriving at the capital I found a condition of affairs at once
peculiar and embarrassing, and the city contained a strange
admixture of humanity, both patriotic and dangerous. Here
were gathered the rulers of the nation and those who were
seeking its destruction. The streets were filled with soldiers,
armed and eager for the fray; officers and orderlies were seen
galloping from place to place; the tramp of armed men was
heard on every side, and strains of martial music filled the air.
Here, too, lurked the secret enemy, who was conveying beyond
the lines the coveted information of every movement made or
contemplated. Men who formerly occupied places of dignity,
power and trust were now regarded as objects of suspicion,
whose loyalty was impeached and whose actions it was necessary
to watch. Aristocratic ladies, who had previously opened
the doors of their luxurious residences to those in high office
and who had hospitably entertained the dignitaries of the
land, were now believed to be in sympathy with the attempt
to overthrow the country, and engaged in clandestine correspondence
with Southern leaders. The criminal classes poured
in from all quarters, and almost every avenue of society was
penetrated by these lawless and unscrupulous hordes. An
adequate idea can be formed of the transformation which had
been effected within a few short weeks in this city of national
government.53
Observant of the conditions which might prompt the enlistment or
his intelligence services, Pinkerton shortly met with Lincoln and some
of the members of the Cabinet who informed him "that the object in
sending for me was that the authorities had for some time entertained
the idea of organizing a secret-service department of the government,
with the view of ascertaining the social, political and patriotic status
of the numerous suspected persons in and around the city." 54 No plans
on this matter had been drawn up. Pinkerton was asked for his ideas,
which he gave, and then departed with the understanding that further
communications on the subject would be forthcoming. Not only did
such discussions fail to materialize, but, it was quite apparent to Pinkerton
"that in the confusion and excitement which were necessarily incident
to the novel and perplexing condition of affairs then ex'isting,
that anything approaching to a systematized organization or operation
would be for a time impossible." 55 The nation needed armed forces:
too many competing demands for men, money, and the attention of
Federal officials for this task mitigated against plans for a secret service.
A few days after his meeting with Lincoln, Pinkerton unsuccessfully
attempted to obtain additional details regarding the intelligence
plan, left his address with the President's secretary, and returned to
Philadelphia.
In the meantime, Major General George B. McClellan, an old friend
of Pinkerton's who had just been named commander of the Ohio vol-
.. Ibid., pp. 137-138.
.. Ibid., p. 139.
m Ibid.
70-890 0 - 76 - 3
28
unteers, wrote asking for a secret meeting in Cincinnati.56 Pinkerton
hastened to the rendezvous, informed McClellan of what had transpired
in Washington and of the conditions he found there. The General
was also interested in establishing a secret service and wanted
his friend to organize and direct it. An agreement was struck.
Our business was settled. It arranged that I should assume
full management and control of this new branch of the service,
and that I should at once enter upon the discharge of
the multifarious duties attending so responsible a position.
The General then informed me he would write to General
[Winfield] Scott for permission to organize this department
under his own personal supervision; and he also agreed to
submit the project to Governor [William] Dennison, of Ohio,
with a request to that gentlemen to solicit the co-operation
of the Governors of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin,
in sustaining the organization.51
Pinkerton set up offices in Cincinnati and brought a group of his
detectives to the city for the intelligence mission. It would appear that
he utilized only his own trained agents for this enterprise.
The general informed me that he would like observations
made within the rebel lines, and I resolved to at once send
some scouts into the disaffected region lying south of us, for
the purpose of obtaining information concerning the numbers,
equipments, movements and intentions of the enemy,
as well as to ascertain the general feeling of the Southern
people in regard to the war. I fully realized the delicacy of
this business, and the necessity of conducting it with the
greatest care, caution and secrecy. None but good, true, reliable
men could be detailed for such service, and knowing
this, I made my selections accordingly....58
Agents were dispatched singly and in pairs over carefully selected
and differing routes. Among the first to depart was Timothy Webster
who traveled to Louisville and Memphis with stops at Bowling Green
and Clarkesville.59 Webster was also the first of Pinkerton's operatives
to come into contact with the Confederacy's counter-intelligence
corps or safety committees.6o Two other famous Pinkerton agents were
Pryce Lewis and John Scully.61
In organizing and controlling this secret service, I endeavored
to conceal my own individual identity so far as my friends
and the public were concerned. The new field of usefulness
into which I had ventured was designed to be a secret one
in every respect, and for obvious reasons I was induced to
lay aside the name of Allan Pinkerton-a name so well known
that it had grown to be a sort of synonym for detective. I
Ii6 See Ibid., pp. 140-141.
67 Ibid., pp. 153-154.
158 Ibid., p. 155.
.. See Ibid., p. 157tI; Webster's activities are discussed throughout Pinkerton's
book; also see Bryan, op. vit., pp. 123-130, 167-170.
.. See Pinkerton, op. cit., pp. 160-165, 174-175, 180-181.
m See Ibid., pp. 501-529.
29
accordingly adopted the less suggestive one E. J. Allen; a
nom de guerre which I retained during the entire period of
my connection with the war. This precautionary measure was
first proposed by the General himself, and in assenting to it
I carried out his views as well as my own. This ruse to conceal
my identity was a successful one. My true name was
known only to General McClellan, and those of my force who
were in my employ before the breaking out of the rebellion,
and by them it was sacredly kept.52
When McClellan was given command of the Army of the Potomac
in November, 1861, Pinkerton moved On to 'Washington with him.
Among the first things the General did, after being assigned
to the command of the troops around that city, was to organize
a secret service force, under my management and control.
I was to have such strength of forces as I might require;
my headquarters were for the time located in Washington.
It was arranged that whenever the army moved I was to go
forward with the General, so that I might always be in close
communication with him. My corps was to be continually
occupied in procuring, from all possible sources, information
regarding the strength, positions and movements of the enemy.
All spies, "contrabands," deserters, refugees and prisoners
of war, coming into our lines from the front, were to
be carefully examined by me, and their statements taken in
writing.53
It was also at this time that Pinkerton took on added responsibilities
for security within the capital city. This aspect of intelligence
operations was described by Pinkerton in a letter to General
McClellan shortly after the Washington command was secured.
In operating with my detective force, I shall endeavor to
test all suspected persons in various ways. I shall seek access
to their houses, clubs, and places of resort, managing that
among the members of my force shall be ostensible representatives
of every grade of society, from the highest to the
most menial. Some shall have the entree to the gilded salon
of the suspected aristocratic traitors, and be their honored
guests, while others will act in the capacity of valets, or domestics
of various kinds, and try the efficacy of such relations
with the household to gain evidence. Other suspected
ones will be tracked by the "shadow" detective, who will follow
their every foot-step, and note their every action.
I also propose to employ a division of my force for the discovery
of any secret traitorous organization which may be
in existence; and if any such society is discovered, I will have
my operatives become members of the same, with a view to
ascertaining the means employed in transmitting messages
through the lines, and also for the purpose of learning, if
possible, the plans of the rebels. All strangers arriving in
.. Ibid., p. 156.
.. Ibid., p. 245.
30
the city, whose associations or acts may lay them open to
suspicion, will be subjected to a strict surveillance.64
In addition to these security and surveillance activities, Pinkerton's
operatives cooperated with the Loyal League, a group of southern
blacks who "had banded themselves together to further the cause
of freedom, to succor the escaping slave, and to furnish information
to loyal commanders of the movements of the rebels, as far as they
could be ascertained." 65 Another intelligence source cultivated by
Pinkerton was the double agent. As the master detective himself concluded:
In war, as in a game of chess, if you know the moves of your
adversary in advance, it is then an easy matter to shape your
own plans, and make your moves accordingly, and, of course
always to your own decided advantage. So in this case, I concluded
that if the information intended for the rebels could
first be had by us, after that, they were welcome to all the
benefit they might derive from them.66
For all of his efforts, doubts persist as to the capabilities and accomplishments
of Pinkerton. To the extent his intelligence activities were
successful, did they derive from careful planning- and evaluation or
luck? Shortly after the fall of Fort Sumter, Pmkerton offered the
services of sixteen to eighteen of his agents to serve the Union.61 By
the time final arrangements were being made for a spy force to assist
McClellan's Ohio volunteers, ten agents had been put into the field.s8
At the height of his career in the capital, it is uncertain as to the
number of personnel Pinkerton had In his employ.69 'For the most
part, he hired and utilized his own detectives. "He held the not implausible
notion that a good private detective can, automatically,
become an expert secret agent in time of war; and nowhere, either m
the performance of his duties or in subsequent records dictated by
him, is there to be discovered any conception of the essentially military
character of the work he sought to direct." 10
The reasons for Pinkerton's deficiency in correctly evaluating
the military information he received were his blind hero
worship of McClellan, the investigative methods he had introduced
in the field that had made his agency so remarkable
in civilian life, and his intense abolitionist fervor.
In Chicago, when he was on a case, Pinkerton's method was
to assemble an infinite number of small details, which when
put together gave a clue to the mystery. Pinkerton's opera-
.. Ibid., pp. 247-248.
.. Ibid., pp. 355--357.
.. Ibid., pp. 429-430.
07 James D. Horan and Howard Swiggett. The Pinkerton Story. New York,
Putnam's Sons, 1951, p. 92.
os Richard Wilmer Rowan. The Pinkertons: A Detective Dynasty. Boston,
Little, Brown and Company, 1931, p. 92.
.. Pinkerton was sufficiently secretive about the number and names of those
in his employ that he apparently was in constant dispute with the Assistant
Secretary of War who had to approve his bills for service; see Horan and
Swiggett, opt. cit., p. 120.
70 Rowan, op. vit., 145.
31
tives traditionally sent in reports every day, no matter how
~ifficult it was to do so. In Chicago these reports were filed
~ a systematic fashion. This very system, which Pinkerton
mtroduced on the battlefields, defeated him: It failed because
the man making the final report was an amateur at war. Then
there was Pinkerton's antislavery attitude. For years he had
been helping slaves who came to him with the most touching
stories. In the field, Pinkerton, in his sympathy, was uncritical
of the excited, uneducated slaves who stood before him
in his tent, twisting a ragged hat, shuffling their feet in the
excitement of knowing that at last they were incapable of
giving realistic information about what was happening on
a grand scale behind Confederate lines, it is evident that
Pinkerton believed everything they told him.71
Ultimately, Pinkerton's inabilities as an interpreter of intelligence
information for military purposes contributed to his downfall as head
of the Washington spy corps. Early in 1862, Lincoln set February 22nd
for the launching of a general Union offensive. McClellan, who had
already exhibited a tendency to hesitate in engaging the enemy, did
not start operations in the offensive until March when he began moving
on Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign. Advancing over the territory
between the James and York Rivers, he was gIven an estimate
of enemy troop strength of 200,000 men. In fact, the Confederate
forces numbered 86,000 to McClellan's 100,000. Nevertheless, the effect
of this inflated estimate was sufficient to make the Union commander
even more hesitant to engage the enemy than he had been in the past.
After a series of skirmishes, troops under General Robert E. Lee and
General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson launched a counterattack
on the McClellan forces in the Seven Days' Battles, resulting in a retreat
of the larger Union army to the James River and a check on
the advance toward Richmond. Two months later, in September, McClellan
surprised Lee at Antietam but, failing to use his reserves,
fought the rebels to a bloody draw. Angered at Lee's escape, by McClellan's
procrastination, and alarmed by a daring cavalry raid by
General James E. B. "Jeb" Stuart around the Union forces and into
Pennsylvania, Lincoln finally replaced McClellan as commander of
the Army of the Potomac on November 7,1862.12 Thereupon, Pinkerton
resigned his position as head of the secret service.
The detective, as it was to turn out, did not really do much
more than effect a change of front, for he was active on behalf
of the government as long as the States were in conflict. There
were innumerable damage claims being pressed in Washington-
the deeper into the South the Union armies penetrated,
the mOre they multiplied-and these the Pinkerton agents
investigated, with a high average of success in controlling
the schemes of imposters and swindlers. For the particular
purpose of looking after cotton claims, in the spring of '64,
Allan Pinkerton was transferred to the Department of the
Mississippi, General Canby commanding. And now his other
1LHoran. op. cit., pp.116--117.
,. See Ibid., pp. 115-137; Horan and Swiggett, op. cit., llP. 107-122.
32
son Robert was deemed mature enough to join his brother
in the secret service. Meanwhile, the military espionage departm~
nt which Allan had initiated continued to expand,
operatmg under the fairly successful direction of various officers-
in the East the most noteworthy being- Colonel, afterward
Brigadier General Lafayette C. Baker, an inventive
man, one of the few American spymasters in any war who
seems to compare with the brilliant if throughly unscrupulous
practitioners of Europe. In the West Grenville M. Dodge,
who also attained a general's rank, capably controlled a hundred
spies, but he was to become far more celebrated subsequently
as the indomitable builder of the Union Pacific
Railroad.73
Vll. Seward
When the Lincoln Administration suddenly found itself faced with
open hostilities and accompanying espionage and spy intrigues in
1861, one of the first officials to react to the situation was Secretary
of State Seward. His organization combined both the police function-
pursuing individuals with a view to their incarceration and
prosecution-and the intelligence function-gathering information regarding
the loyalty and political views of citizens without any particular
regard for possible violations of the law. In combining the
two tasks, of course, their distinction often became lost. One commentator
notes:
The Government's first efforts to control the civilian population
were conducted by the Secretary of State for reasons both
personal and official. William H. Seward, the "Premier" of the
Cabinet, had an unquenchable zeal for dabbling in everyone
else's business. In addition, since the establishment of the
Federal Government the office of the Secretary of State had
been somewhat of a catchall for duties no other executive
agency was designed to handle. With the war, and the new
problem of subversion on the home front, Seward soon began
to busy himself about arrests of political prisoners, their incarceration,
and then the next step of setting up secret agents
to ferret them out.74
There are no informative records as to how or why the initial arrests
of political prisoners and the creation of a secret service fell to Secretary
Seward. It is entirely likely that he requested these duties. The
more important consideration, however, concerns the extent to which
he responsibly carried out these obligations. Accordin~ to one of the
Secretary's biographers:
Arrests were made for anyone of many reasons: where men
were suspected of having given, or intending to give, aid or
comfort to the enemy in any substantial way,-as by helping
in the organization of troops, by supplying arms or provisions,
or selling the bonds of the states in secession; by public or
private communications that opposed United States enlist-
.. Rowan, ap. cit., pp.186-187.
74 George Fort Milton. Abraham Lincoln and the Fifth Oalumn. New York, The
Vanguard Press, 1942, p.48.
33
ments or encouraged those of the Confederacy; by expressing
sympathy with the South or attacking the administration;
by belonging to organizations designed to obstruct the progress
of the war-in fact for almost any act that indicated a
desire to see the government fail in its effort to conquer
disunion.75
But the question was not simply one of fact. A number of due process
considerations were raised by the manner and nature of the arrest
and detention of political offenders.
The person suspected of disloyalty was often seized at
night, searched, borne off to the nearest fort, deprived of his
valuables, and locked up in a casemate, Or in a battery generally
crowded with men that had had similar experiences. It
was not rare for arrests regarded as political to be made by
order of the Secretary of War or of some military officer; but,
with only a few exceptions, these prisoners came under the
control of the Secretary of State just as if he had taken the
original action.
For a few days the newcomer usually varied reflection and
loud denunciation of the administration. But the discomforts
of his confinement soon led him to seek his freedom. When he
resolved to send for friends and an attorney, he was informed
that the rules forbade visitors, except in rare instances, that
attorneys were entirely excluded, and the prisoner who sought
their aid would greatly prejudice his case. Only unsealed letters
would be forwarded, and if they contained objectionable
statements they were returned to the writer or filed in the Department
of State with other papers relating to the case.
There still remained a possibility, it was generally assumed,
of speedy relief by appeal to the Secretary in person. Then a
long narrative, describing the experiences of a man whose
innocence was equaled only by his misfortunes, was addressed
to the nervous, wiry, all-powerful man keeping watch over
international relations, political offenders, and affairs generally.
The letter was usually read by the Chief Clerk or Assistant
Secretary, and then merely filed. A second, third, and
fourth petition for liberation and explanations was sent to the
department-but with no result save that the materials for
the study of history and human nature were thereby enlarged;
the Secretary was calm in the belief that the man was
a plotter and could do no harm while he remained in
custody.76
To rectify this situation, two important steps were taken in February,
1862. On St. Valentine's Day, an Executive order was issued providing
for the wholesale release of most political prisoners, excepting
only "persons detained as spies in the service of the insurgents, or
others whose release at the present moment may be deemed incompatible
with the public safety." 77 In addition, a special review panel,
.,. Frederick Bancroft. The TAte ot William H. Seward (Vol. 2). New YOlrk, Harper
and Brothers, 1900, p. 260.
'" Ibid., PP. 261-262.
77 See Richardson, op. cit. (Vol. 7), pp. 3303-3305.
34
consisting of Judge Edwards Pierrepont and General John A. Dix,
was established to expedite releases under this directive.78
With regard to intelligence activities, Seward apparently employed
Allan Pinkerton for such operations during the summer of 1861, "but
did not keep him long, perhaps because he felt that the detective was
too close to the President, and Seward wanted his own man, whose
loyalty would be direct to him." 79 A listening post was sought in
Canada for purposes of checking on the activities of Confederate
agents and to monitor the trend of sentiment in British North America
during the secession crisis.80 Former Massachusetts Congressman
George Ashmun was appointed special agent to Canada for three
months in early 1861 at a salary of $10 a day plus expenses. Seward
[ldvanced $500 cash on account. Another operative, Charles S. Ogden,
took residence in Quebec and additional stations were subsequently
established at Halifax and St. John's, among other seaports.81
A domestic network also came into being while the Canadian group
~truggledto recruit confidential agents.
Seward's "Secret Service Letter Book" for 1861 was full of
inquiries dispatched to friends and trusted official associates
throughout the country asking them to discover persons who
could be put on important investigating tasks. He wanted "a
discreet and active man" for the Northern frontier, to arrest
spies seeking entrance from Canada, and offered to pay such
It man $100 a month. A little later he appointed a special
agent at Niagara Falls, to examine the persons coming over
the Suspension Bridge, and seize and hold any who seemed
suspicious. He sought, without immediate results, a good man
for Chicago and another for Detroit. He authorized the
United States Marshal at Boston to employ two detectives for
two month's time, each at $150 a month. This was particularly
urgent; therefore let the Marshal consult the governor of the
State, "and take effective measures to break up the business of
making and sending shoes for the Rebel Army." 82
Almost unnoticed, Seward's intelligence organization began to grow,
though its agents often proved to be ineffective amateurs. Shortly,
however, professionalism, discipline, and a careful sense of mission
came to the Secretary's spy corps in the person of Lafayette Charles
Baker.
VIII. Baker
Born in New York in 1826 and reared in the Michigan wilderness,
Lafayette Baker engaged in mechanical and mercantile pursuits in the
f'tate of his birth and in Philadelphia in 1848 before departing, in
,. The correspondence of this panel and lists of those released at its direction
may be found in Fred C. Ainsworth and Joseph W. Kirkley, comps. The War of
the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Unum and Confederate
Armies, Series II (Vol. 2). Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1897.
.,. Milton, op. cit., p. 49.
so See John W. Headley. Confederate Operations In Canada antt New York. New
York and Washington, The Neale Publishing Company. 1906; also of related interest
is James D. Bulloch. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in
Europe. New York, Thomas Yoseloff, 1956; originally published 1884.
B/. Milton, loco cit .
.. Ibitt., pp. 50--51.
35
1853, for California. Three years later he was an active member of the
Vigilance Committee. This experience and his admiration of Francios
Vidocq (1775-1857), an infamous Paris detective whom Raker came
to imitate, whetted his appetite for intrigue and the life of the sleuth.
'Vhen hostilities broke out between the North and the South, Baker
happened to be heading for New York City on business. ·When he
became aware of the mischief and misdeeds of Confederate spies and
saboteurs in and around 'Yashington, he set out for the capital determined
to offer his services as a Union agent.83
Arriving in the District of Columbia, Baker obtained an interview
with General Winfield Scott, commander of the Army and himself not
Hnfamiliar with spy services. In need of information about the rebel
forces at Manassas, Scott, having already lost five previous agents on
the mission, solicited Baker's assistance. After an adventure of daring
and dash, the intrepid Baker returned three weeks later with the details
sought by General Scott. The success of the mission earned Baker
a permanent position with the 'Val' Department.84
The next assignment given Baker involved ferreting out two Baltimore
brothers who were running the Union blockade to supply munitions
to the Confederates. This he did, breaking up the smuggling
operation and earning himself a considerable amount of press
publicity.55
These activities came to the attention of Secretary Seward who hired
Baker at the rate of $100 a month plus expenses 86 and sent him off to
prowl wherever espionage, sabotage, or rebel spy agents were thought
to be lurking,87 Assisted by three hundred Indiana cavalrymen, Baker
was later ordered to probe the Maryland country side for the presence
of rebel agents and Confederate sympathies. His mission took him to
Chaptico, Leonardstown, Port Tobacco, Old Factory, and the farmland
of St. George's, St. Charles and St. Marys counties.88 As his
column advanced, they punished the disloyal. As a result, "he left
behind a trail of burning buildings, frightened men, women, and
children, terrified informers, [and] bullet-pierced Secesh tobacco
planters." 89
As a consequence of this campaign, Baker attempted to interest
Postmaster General Montgomery Blair in a purge of disloyal Maryland
postmasters, replacing them with Union stalwarts or closing the
stations. Blair was well aware of disloyalty among some of the Maryland
postmasters and earlier had ordered their displacement. In a
report to the Secretary of State, Baker claimed he had obtained unlimited
authority to conduct the postmaster purge and requested a
military force of two hundred to three hundred men to police the
localities in Maryland where these disloyal officials had been dis-
8S See L. C. Baker, Historll of the United States Secret Service. Philadelphia,
Kin~ and Baird, 1868, pp. 15-20; Jacob MOg"E'lever. Death to Tra¢tors: The Story
of General Lafayette O. Baker, Lincoln's Forgotten Secret Service Ohief. New
York, Doubleday and COffinanv. 1960. pp. 22-48.
84 Baker, op. cit., pp. 45-72; Mogelever, op. cit., pp. 48-62.
.. Baker, op., ait., pp. 72--84; Mogelever, op. cit., pp. 68--72.
.. Mogelever, op. cit., p. 73.
81 See Baker, oJ!. cit., PT>. 85-101.
88 Ibid., pp. 102-111; Mogelever, op. cit., pp. 74-79.
.. Mogelever, OJ). cit., p. 79.
36
covered. The proposal was ignored but Baker had a variety of other
tasks to occupy him as Seward's intelligence chief.90
With enough endurance for a dozen men, he worked almost
without rest to educate himself in the ever-spreading operations
of the rebels and their sympathizers. He traveled to
Canada to see for himself what the South was doing to build
a fire in the rear of the Union: he made the acquaintance of
police chiefs of the big northern cities; he personally took
prisoners to the harbor forts to look over conditions; he uncovered
and jotted down identities of suppliers <:if war goods
to the South; he acquired a firsthand knowledge of Seceshsupporting
newspapers, in sedition-ridden New York, New
Jersey, and the seething 'Yest. Only on rare occasions, when
official duty took him there, did he see his wife Jennie, who
had gone to the security of her parent's home in Philadelphia.
91
As a consequence of Lincoln's St. Valentine's Day directive regarding
the release of political prisoners and limiting "extraordinary
arrests" to "the direction of the military authorities alone," Baker
was recommended to the War Department and its new Secretary,
Edwin M. Stanton.92 In accepting Baker's services, Stanton warned
him of the grave and desperate situation facing the government, advised
him that he would never be permitted to disclose the authority
for his actions, and gave notice that he would be expected to pursue
all enemies of the Union, regardless of their station, power, loyalty,
partisanship, or profession. Baker's detective service was to be the
terror of the North as well as the South, secretly funded, and accountable
exclusively and directly to the Secretary of War.93
The enemies of the state took many forms. An enemy could
be a pretty girl with swaying hips covered by an acre of
crinoline, carrier of rebellion-sustaining contraband goods.
Or an enemy could be a contractor selling the Union shoddy
clothing. Or an enemy could be a Copperhead sapping the
strength of the Union by discouraging enlistments. An enemy
could also be a Union general with larceny in his soul,
gambling away the pay of his soldiers. He could be a guerrilla
with a torch firing a government corral within sight of the
White House.94
For three years, Baker gathered intelligence on the enemies of the
Union, reporting his findings to Stanton and Lincoln. In addition,
at their direction or sometimes on his own authority, he functioned
as an instrument for directly punishing the enemy or for arresting
and incarcerating them. Utilizing his intelligence sources, Baker
identified and prejudged the despoilers of the Union; relying upon
extraordinary military authority and martial law, he seized his foe
in his capacity as a Federal policeman; and as the custodian of the
.. See Ibid., pp. 79-81.
91 Ibid., p. 84.
93 See Richardson, op. cit. (Vol. 7), pp. 3003--8005.
"" See Mogelever, op. cit., pp. 86-88.
•• Ibid., p. 89.
37
Old Capitol Prison and its nefarious annex, the Carroll Prison, he
served as jailer of those he captured.
Of Baker's Commander-in-Chief, one authority has commented:
"No one can ever know just what Lincoln conceived to be limits of
his powers." 95
In his own words, the Sixteenth President wrote:
. . . my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my
~bil.ity, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every
mdispensable means, that government-that nation~f
which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible
to lose the nation,and yet preserve the constitution ~ By
general law life a.nd limb must be protected; yet often a
limb must be amputated to save a life, but a life is never
wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise
unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable
to the preservation of the constitution through the
preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this
ground,and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best
of my ability, I had ever tried to preserve the constitution
if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the
wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together.
96
And in the more contemporary view of Clinton Rossiter:
. . . Mr. Lincoln subscribed to a theory that in the absence
of Congress and in the presence of an emergency the President
has the right and duty to adopt measures which would
ordinarily be illegal, subject to the necessity of subsequent
congressional approval. He did more than this; he seemed
to assert that the war powers of the Constitution could upon
occasion devolve completely upon the President, if their
exercise was based upon public opinion and an inexorable
necessity. They were then sufficient to embrace any action
within the fields of executive or legislative or even judicial
power essential to the preservation of the Union. [He] ...
implied that this government, like all others, possessed an
absolute power of self-defense, a power to be exerted by the
President of the United States. And this power extended to
the breaking of the fundamental laws of the nation, if such
a step were unavoidable.D1
The presence of this operating viewpoint at the highest level of
the Executive Branch, coupled with his own personal ambitions for
power and prestige, contributed significantly to Baker's zealous, authoritarian,
and often illegal manner of carrying out his War Department
mission. Nevertheless, Baker must be recognized as a professional
.. Wilfred E. Binkley. President and Oongress. New York, Alfred A. Knopf,
1947, p. 126.
.. Letter to Albert G. Hodges (April 4, 1864) in Roy P. Basler, ed. The Oo"t~
ected Works 01 Abraham Lincoln (Vol. 8). New Brunswick, Rutgers University
Press, 1953, p. 281.
Il1 Rossiter, op. cit., p. 229.
38
thoroughly familiar with the methods and tactics of his profession.
Reflecting a classically Machiavellian perspective, he once wrote:
It may be said that the deception and misstatements resorted
~o, and inseparable from the detective service, are demoralizmg
and prove unsoundness of character in its officers. But it
must be borne in mind that, in war, no commander fails to
deceive the enemy when possible, to secure the least advantage.
Spies, scouts, intercepted correspondence, feints in army
movements, misrepresentations of military strength and position,
are regarded as honorable means of securing victory
over the foe. The work of the detectives is simply deception
reduced to a science or profession; and whatever objection,
on ethical grounds, may lie against the secret service, lies
with equal force against the strategy and tactics of Washington,
Scott, Grant, and the host of their illustrious associates
in the wars of the world. War is a last and terrible resort in
the defense of even a righteous cause, and sets at defiance all
of the ordinary laws and customs of society, overriding the
rights of property and the sanctity of the Sabbath. And not
until the nation learns war no more, will the work of deception
and waste of morals, men and treasures, cease.98
Establishing offices at 217 Pennsylvania Avenue, in close proximity
to both the White House and the War Department, Baker began
gathering recruits and organizing his unit. Operating without official
status, the group was generally referred to as the Secret Service
Bureau. Its personnel, known only to Baker in terms of number and
complete identity, bore no credentials other thana small silver badge.99
Secretly commissioned asa colonel, Baker initially represented himself,
when absolutely necessary, as an agent of the War Department.
Later, he publicly cited his military rank and held the title of
Provost-Marshal.
He initiated the nation's first police dossier system although
the rebels, the Copperheads, and the misguided among the
Loyalists in the North charged him with poking his prIvate
eyes into the homes of the innocent.
He gathered systematically the first criminal photo file,
enabling a more efficient pursuit of the enemies of the nation.
He instituted a policy of seizing suspects in the dead of
night when their resistance to interrogation and their ability
to seek help would be at the lowest ebb.
He made a science of the interrogation of prisoners, using
teams of detectives to work over a suspect until he was satisfied
he either had the full story or he could drag no more
information from his victim.
He established a secret fund for building and feeding a
vast army of informers and unlisted agents. Noone except
he knew the full range of his organization. Even his most
trusted aides were not allowed to know the identity of all of
his operatives.loo
98 Mogelever, op. cit., p. 91.
.. Ibid., pp. 95, 169.
100 Ibid., p. 111.
39
For reasons of both security and strategy, Baker's agents were divided
into daylight and nighttime units--the men in one group did
not know the identity of those in the other-and another section
counted operatives who infiltrated and trafficked in the capital's high
society.101 He cultivated contacts with the police in the nation's major
cities 102 and kept a close watch on Confederate activities in Canada.lOa
By the summer of 1863, a branch office had been set up in New York
City 104 and he succeeded in placing his personnel in the Post Office for
purposes of inspecting the mails.lo~
On two occasions Baker's spy service gathered intelligence which
probably contributed to the downfall of General McClellan: Baker's
personal penetration of the Confederate forces at Manassas resulted in
the discovery that the fortifications and artillery which were supposedly
keeping McClellan's army at bay were actually earthen and
wooden fakes and later Lincoln utilized the services of one of Baker's
agents to secretly observe McClellan's conduct on the battlefield.l06
With the decline of McClellan, Allan Pinkerton, whom Baker regarded
as "sagacious," departed from the scene, leaving some agents
and the spy field to Baker.l01 The only other threat to Baker's supreme
command of secret service operations was the reputed organizer of
the old Mexican Spy Company, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, but he was
found to be an old man seized with mysticism and pursuits of alchemy
with no desires for any responsibility in the hostilities.l08
In June of 1863, Baker gained an open commission in the army with
the rank of colonel, the opportunity to wear the Union uniform, and
command of a military police force he had sought for some time.l09 The
exact size of the unit is not known, or its losses, or its complete record
of action. After much pressuring from Baker, Stanton agreed to establish
the troop utilizing authorIty entitling the District of Columbia
to a battalion of infantry and cavalry for use within its confines,uo
Placed under the direct authority of the Secretary of War, the First
Regiment Cavalry, known as "Baker's Rangers," consisted, ironically,
of recruits from Robert E. Lee's former command, the Second Dragoons,
renamed the Second Regular United States Cavalry at the outbreak
of the war.1ll
Hundreds of men sought places in the new regiment; some
offered bribes. Whether the attraction was the promise that
no soldier in the Baker command would ever be sent outside
the immediate vicinity of the District of Columbia or whether
101 Ibid., pp. 169-170.
102 Ibid., p. 109.
103 Ibid., p. 242; also see Baker, ap. cit., pp. 174-178.
104 Ibid., p. 241.
106 Ibid., p. 164.
100 See Ibid., pp. 101-107, 139-140.
"'" See Ibid., p. 108.
103 See Ibid., pp. 107-108.
lOf See Baker, ap. cit., pp. 19&-203.
110 Mogelever, ap. cit., p. 214; the District of Columbia had only one cavalry
unit during the civil war but counted the First and Second Regiment Infantry,
serving from 1861 until 1865, and several short-lived infantry battalions and
militia companies which were hastily organized in 1861 and mustered out by the
end of the year.
111 Ibid., pp. 21&-216.
40
Baker's fame inspired all types of adventurers to flock to his
banner was the subject of much conjecture at that time.1l2
In an appeal to the Governor of New York, Baker wrote:
. . . the duties to be performed by this regiment demand on
the part of both men and officers qualities of a high order, both
mental and physical. Among these, I may enumerate intelligence,
sobriety, self-dependence, bodily vigor, the power of
endurance and, though last not least, that knowledge of the
horse which results from early practical experience and management
of that noble animal.l13
The personal qualifications of Baker's recruits, of course, cannot be
assessed. By their actions, however, they demonstrated great military
ability, intense loyalty to their commander, and a complete insenSItivity
to the property, liberties and lives of those they encountered as
enemies. For reasons of high morality and public image, the Rangers
were unleashed upon the gambling parlors and vice dens of Washington.
l14 Soon, however, they began engaging in forays of destruction
against enemies of the Union beyond the confines of the capital.l15
The Rangers were an auxiliary to Baker's intelligence activities;
they were his agents of espionage, enforcement, and protection. Secret
operatives gathered information in both the cities and the countrysides
of the Potomac region. Baker devoured their reports, conferred with
Stanton and/or Lincoln, and then set out with enforcements against
the subversives.
In addition to ferreting out spies, blockade runners, and locals giving
aid and comfort to the rebels, Baker engaged in three major intelligence
enterprises: unmasking crimes in the Treasury Department,
smashing the Northwest conspiracy, and capturing the President's
assassin.ll6 The opportunity to probe the Treasury Department regarding
allegations that it had become a bawdyhouse and command post
for certain predatory interests arose around Christmas, 1863, when
Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase invited Baker to investigate the
situation.
There was growing talk of scandals in the Treasury Department.
Newspapers were saying that the hundreds of girls busy
scissoring the new greenbacks were hussies in the night. There
were oyster feasts in the bonnet room. Clerks were making off
with sheets of uncut currency. Counterfeiters were discovering
it was easier to steal a plate and run off bales of money
rather than go to the trouble of making an imitation engraving
in some hideaway. The Treasury's own police seemed
helpless to stem the tide of corruption and debauchery. The
WI Ibid., p. 220.
U3 Ibid., p. 221.
114 See Baker, op. cit., pp. 241-253; Mogelever, op. cit., pp. 245--248.
u5 Generally, see Mogelever, 0fJ. cit., pp. 213-241.
114 Baker's own account of his bureau's activities and his troops' adventures is
thin and, compared with the Mogelever account which relies on Baker's correspondenceand
the letters and diaries of relatives, fails to convey the questionable
nature of their operations or their possible illegality; see Baker, op. cit., pp. 147198,230-
241,253-261,329-378,384-452.
41
Blair family, avowed enemies of Chase, were giving support
to the rumors. [Postmaster General] Montgomery Blair's
brother, Frank, cried out for congressional inquiry.ll7
The probe was charged and politically explosive. Seward, eyes upon
the 1864 election and the White House beyond, might well have wanted
Lincoln's top detective mired in the scandals, defused and defamed
along with most of the Administration. In Hanson A. Risley, special
Treasury agent, Seward had his own source of intelligence. So close
were the two men that Risley gave over one of his daughters to Seward
for adoption and, after Mrs. Seward's death, the old man sought her
for his second wife.
In detailing Baker to Treasury, Stanton probably thought he would
be the best man to vindicate the President as untainted, honest, and
ignorant of the conditions there. Himself a frequent critic of Lincoln,
the Secretary of War nevertheless realized that public confidence in
the President must be maintained in the midst of the moment's perils
and he might well have been aware that Lincoln had no direct involvement
in the Treasury calamities.
Factions within Congress were ready to intervene to attack Lincoln,
Chase, and Baker. Ultimately, a committee of investigation was
formed, probed the situation, and beclouded the facts and the guilt
of those involved.
Baker plunged into the Treasury probe with ferocity and determination.
He temporarily relinquished command of the Raiders and
established an office in the dark basement of the Treasury building.
His techniques were direct and dauntless; he stalked the printing
facilities and subjected clerks and lesser officials to ruthless and merciless
interrogation. At one juncture he halted a funeral cortege in
the midst of the city, seized the corpse of a Treasury girl and had an
examination made to determine if her death had resulted from an
abortion.118
And what did Baker find? At the outset he discovered that young
James Cornwell, who had the function of burning mutilated bonds
and notes, had pocketed $2,000 worth of notes. Cornwall was convicted
and sent to jail for this offense, the only individual to be prosecuted
for crimes against the Treasury in this probe.
Next, Baker alleged that two printers who had sold the Treasury
new presses, paper, and a technique for printing- currency were conspiring
to sell the government worthless machinery and processes.
Their presses were weakening the upper floors of the Treasury building
and their security procedures were viritually non-existent, allowing
ready access to both plates and process. In the midst of the inquiry,
the new presses began malfunctioning and greater demands were
placed on the building for "improved" printing devices.
U1Mogelever, op. cit., p. 249; in 1863 (12 Stat. 713 at 726) Congress authorized
the Secretary of the Treasury to appoint three revenue agents". . . to aid in the
prevention, detection, and punishment of frauds upon the revenue." These were
the small beginnings of the Treasury Department's intelligence organization and
the only designated investigative force available to the Secretary at the time
of the Baker inquiry.
118 See Mogelever, op. cit., p. 252.
42
Baker discovered that the head of the department of printing and
engraving, Spencer Clark, was involved with a number of young
women who were cutting and preparing new currency. An associate
of Clark's was also implicated and both men were named for dismissal
by Baker. Eventually it came to pass that it was Secre~ary
Chase who was to resign and the great Treasury scandal passed mto
history.119
In mid-November of 1863, a full month before the Treasury investigation
got underway, rumors of a dangerous conspiracy along
the Canadian border began circulating, Baker's agents pursued the
facts of the matter and by late spring of the following year a fairly
clear image of the attack planned by the Confederates was evident. In
Richmond, Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State for the rebel government,
a holder of three cabinet posts in the Confederacy, and a man
of imagination, conceived a desperate plan of havoc: utilizing secret
societies reminiscent of the later Ku Klux Klan, guerrilla warriors
behind Union lines would burn down New York City, free rebel troops
imprisoned in the North to loot and pillage throughout the industrial
Northeast, and seize Chicago, Buffalo, and Indianapolis. The plan
failed to recognize the drift of northern morale: those disenchanted
with the war still supported Lincoln, sought the Union as was and the
Constitution as is, and otherwise had no interest in or sympathy for
a separate Confederate nation.
In the aftermath of the destructive campaigns of Generals Sheridan
in the Shenandoah Valley and Sherman in Georgia, the rebels were
ready for unconventional warfare of their own making. The Copperhead
firebrand Clement Vallandigham was recruited to obtain support
for a new nation composed of states adjacent to the Canadian border.
Army officers in civilian dress were dispatched north to act as terrorists.
The first target for revenge was Chicago. Assembled in Toronto,
the band of insurgents made their plans-all of which were carefully
recorded by a Baker informer.
Commanders of military prisons were informed of these developments
and advised to be prepared for uprisings within or attacks from
outside of their institutions. Baker advanced a squadron of agents to
Toronto to maintain surveillance of the conspirators who were followed
and observed as they straggled into Chicago in the midst of the Democratic
National Convention. More than 2,000 civilian-clad Confederate
soldiers were scattered around the city, At the height of the convention
proceedings, the area would be put to the torch. While police and firemen
fought the flames, an attack would be made on Camp Douglas and
its prisoners freed. The banks would be looted, City Hall seized, and
the police headquarters occupied. Thus, the second largest city in the
land was to fall to rebel control.
Politics among the conspirators caused a postponement of their
assault until Election Day. After reassembling in Toronto, burnings
and attacks on local authorities were scheduled for simultaneous occurrence
in Chicago, New York, Cincinnati, and Boston. Still the surveillance
of these preparations continued and still flowed the informer's
details to Baker.
U9 GenerallY,see Ibid., pp. 252-278; Baker, op. cit., pp. 261-287.
43
Offensive actions were unleashed against the terrorists. Without
warning, General Benjamin F. Butler, seasoned in maintaining the
security and serenity of New Orleans, marched into New York with
10,000 Union troops as the clock moved toward Election Day. Confederate
arsonists abandoned their grandiose plan of havoc, set a few
fires in some hotels (which were quickly extinguished), and fled to
Canada. Across the border, they soon learned that they had been fortunate
in their escape. A Baker spy in Chicago brought about the
ruination of terrorist activities in that city and a Union operative in
Indiana gathered enough information to 'implicate almost the entire
band of Confederate conspirators in that state. While these elements
were being rounded up and jailed, Union authorities took an imprisoned
Confederate officer into their intelligence corps, swore him
to loyalty to the Union cause, and released him to make contact with
some of the remaining members of the Northwest Conspiracy. Followed
by Baker's agents, the man soon met with a group seeking to
liberate 3,000 rebel officers incarcerated on Johnson's Island in Lake
Michigan. The intervention of this spy cost the conspirators a cache of
arms and the loss of a few men in Chicago and indirectly contributed
to the scuttling of the Johnson's Island mission.
By late fall, 1864, the Northwest Conspiracy had collapsed and its
principal leaders and organizers had been jailed.120
The excitement and stimulation of the chase ended. Baker
found himself in a now familiar situation. He was given no
public credit for his part in smashing the great conspiracy.
On the contrary, his enemies increased their efforts to build up
the ugly image of the bastille master, and he continued to be
identified in the public mind with unjust arrests and imprisonments,
invasions of the rights of private persons and rumored
profiteering. Baker still knew that, as a secret agent, the
details of his activities must remain secret. If, however, he
had hoped that this sensational case would change the attitude
toward him in Congress and Administration circles, or would
convince the Copperheads that he put the Union before personal
gain, he must have been sadly disappointed. His success
in securing and transmitting information which led to the
dramatic collaspe of the great conspiracy and the punishment
of its leaders in the North still brought him no evidence that
his services were to be fairly judged by the results he achieved
for the Union cause.121
Baker had just completed a successful investigation of fraud and
deception surrounding the draft, bounty-hunting. defrauding sailors
out of prize money, and efforts at morally corrupting Union troops in
the New York City area when he received the news of Lincoln's assassination.
Undoubtedly he felt guilt for not having had advance information
about the conspiracy against the President and for not ha,ving
had agentE near the Chief Executive when the murderer struck. Upon
"'" Generally, see Baker, OPt cit., pp. 452-476; Mogelever, OPt cit., pp. 278-292;
John W. Headley. Confederate Operations in Canada and New York. New York
and Wa"Shington, The Neale Publishing Company, 1906, pp. 211-382.
121 Mogelever, OPt cit., pp. 291-292.
70-990 0 - 76 - 4
44
r~ceiving- word that L~ncoln had been shot and was dead, Baker threw
hImself mto t~e pUrsUIt a~d capture of those responsible for the crime.
After producmg a handbIll, the first to be circulated for a nationally
wanted criminal, describing John Wilkes Booth in detail Baker set
about interrogating everyone and anyone who knew anythin.'g about the
conspirators involved in the assassination,122
Stanton went along with the detective's thinking and supported
his tigerish moves to stalk his prey. One by one,
Booth's accomplices were rounded up. Baker's rival police
agencies did most of the work. But he took charge of the prisoners,
dragged incriminating admissions from them, put
black hoods on their heads, and stuffed them in the hold of a
monitor in the river.123
Finally, Baker found Booth's track, pursued him with a command
of cavalry, and came at last to the Garrett farm where the assassin had
taken refuge in a barn. His prey cornered, Baker confronted the killer,
demanded his surrender or the alternative of firing the barn. In the
midst of negotiations and flames, Booth was shot by either himself or
by Sergeant Boston Corbett. Baker took charge of the body and later
sought a 'Portion of the rewards for capturing Booth. The amount subsequently
awarded Baker was reduced to $3,750 from a potential of
$17,500: the secret service chief continued to be unpopular with the
Congress.124
With the death of Lincoln, Baker became the protector of the new
President, Andrew Johnson, and set up the first White House secret
service detail in the history of the Republic.125 With the peace of Appomattox,
however, the career of the spy chief began to rapidly decline.
The rebel foe of wartime now walked the streets of the capital. Many
of the prostitutes and gamblers Baker had jailed under military law
were again free. These, together with political enemies, taunted and
reproached the once powerful secret service, a vestige of war which
seemed to have no future mission. Nevertheless, Baker attempted to
carryon in the old style. His task was to protect the President: his immediate
foe, he surmised, were various female pardon brokers, lately
sympathetic to the South, who prevailed upon the President to grant
clemency and forgiveness to all manner of rebels. In attempting to halt
this traffic in and out of the White House, Baker incurred the wrath of
President Johnson and a lawsuit which successfully damaged his
status and role. In the midst of the trial, he was routinely mustered out
of the army and effectively left without a f.riend or defender.126 He
departed Washington in disgrace, returned to his wife in Philadelphia,
wrote his memoirs in lieu of finding- other work, contracted spinal
meningitis and died on the evening of July 3, 1868.
Lafayette Baker was a zealot who, imbued with a strong sense of
rig-hteowmess and a taste of vigilantism, in the name of a cause became
oblivious to the ends-means relationship underlying his function. In
"'See Ibid., p. 337.
... Ibid., p. 339.
1lY Generally, see Baker, op. vit., PP. 476--567; Mogelever, op. alt., pp. 342-885.
... Mogelever, op. cit., p. 386. .
... Generally, see Baker, op. cit., pp. 582---600; Mogelever, op. vit., pp. 385-419.
45
his defense of the Union and democratic government, he resorted to
extreme actions obnoxious to popular rule and, in some instances, in
violation of constitutional guarantees. He actively sought to exceed
his intelligence role and became policeman, judge, and jailer. His
desires in this regard, and his capacity for achievement of same, were
fostered and fed by the exigencies of the moment and the liberties
Lincoln took in administering (or not administering) the law. When
Lincoln died and the war ended, Baker became a political pariah with
a vestigial function. His activities had annoyed many, frightened
some, and made bitter enemies of an important and powerful few.
With the onset of peace in the Nation, he was virtually stripped of
his organization and official status and left vulnerable to legal, political,
and financial reprisals. These forces converged, coalesced, and
crushed. Due to the secret nature of Baker's operations and his
tendency to embellish fact, the full account of the activities of this
spy chief may never be known. In all likelihood, his record of service
will always be controversial and of debatable value.
IX. Dodge
When Allan Pinkerton withdrew from the intelligence field in 1862,
Lafayette Baker became his heir in the East. In the West, the principal
benefiactor of Pinkerton's legacy was Grenville M. Dodge. Born
in a Massachusetts farmhouse in 1831, he attended the Durham
Academy (N.H.), Norwich University (Vt.) , and matriculated from
Partridge's private school in 1851 with a degree in civil and military
engineering. Prior to the Civil War he held various surveying positions
with western railroad companies. With the outbreak of hostilities,
he served in a military capacity on the Iowa governor's staff
before becoming a colonel of the 4th Iowa Regiment. He saw heavy
fighting in the Southwest and distinguished himself in combat
with the result that in March of 1862 he was advanced to
brigadier-general.
Dodge was introduced to intelligence operations in late 1861 when
General John C. Fremont, the commander of Missouri, ordered him
to investigate certain rumors regarding rebel activity in the area.127
It is not evident that he had prior familiarity with this type of duty
but it is possible that his surveying positions had acquainted him with
the techniques of frontier scouts and railroad detectives. In response
to Fremont's order, Dodge sent his cavalry into all parts of the state,
spent two months in the pursuit, exhausting many horses and riders.
From this experience, he decided to maintain a few men in the field
who knew Arkansas and Missouri, paying them with money received
from fines and licenses. Thus began his spy network, a system subsequently
credited with saving the Army of the Southwest in March,
1862, from advancing Confederate forces. l211
While rebuilding the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, Dodge
again sent agents into the field. He concluded that most of
the rumors he heard were false, but about this time he hit
l27 Stanley P. Hirshson. Grenville M. Dodge: Soldier, Politician, Railroad
Pioneer. Bloomington and London, Indiana University Press, 1967, p. 67.
m Ibid.,. J. R. Perkins. Trails, Rails and War: The Life Of General G. M.
Dodge. Indianapolis, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1929, pp. 108-109.
46
upon a method by which a spy could estimate the size of any
enemy force by noting the space it occupied on a road. Before
long Dodge was receiving detailed descriptions of Confederate
troop movements throughout the South.129
In July, 1862, Major-General Henry W. Halleck became general-inchief
of the U.S. Army, opening the way for a major intelligence role
for Dodge.
When Halleck went east and Grant succeeded to the command
in the West the hour had come for guessing and
blundering through to give way to strategy and even to cunning.
No one knew the strength of the South, and the Confederates
fought as if they had plenty of reserve. Moreover,
rumors were everywhere about the superior strength they
would bring to bear in the [Vicksburg] campaign at hand.
It was thought that there were sixty thousand Confederates
south of Grant and nearly as many to the east of him. A
loose and inefficient system of secret service in the first eighteen
months of the war had left the Federal officers in the
West believing no one. It was to obviate this condition and
to secure authentic information that General Grant turned
to General Dodge and gave him the responsibility of reorganizing
the whole system.130
Dodge came to his new assignment at the recommendation of General
John A. Rawlins, Grant's chief of staff, and had not actually met
with the new commander of the western troops. In his new role,
Dodge had two forces. He organized the First Tennessee Cavalry,
a regiment of southern Unionists who served in the regular army.
By virtue of their relatives and friends in the Confederacy, members
of this unit contributed to Dodge's clandestine spy network with contacts
and informers. He also utilized many blacks who, disregarded
by southern pickets and patrols, functioned as messengers.
Dodge's system brought headaches as well as rewards. Financial
troubles were especially severe, for a spy commencing
a long trip was usually given between $5,000 and $10,000 in
Confederate money. Moreover, Dodge paid his spies for each
mission. Those who lived permanently within enemy lines received
what they requested, although some of them refused
compensation because they were Unionists or because their
sons, brothers, or husbands were in the Federal army.lSl
In early 1863 the economic problem was solved when Grant authorized
the use of confiscated Confederate funds to maintain the
sPY network. At its peak, Dodge's intelligence system counted 117
field agents, known personally only to him and familiar to his most
trusted aides only by an identifying number. This situation created
certain accountability problems. Once Dodge's immediate superior
cut off his funds when the identities of the spies were refused for
reasons of security but the matter was appealed to Grant who, taking
m Hirshson, loco cit.
,.. Perkins, op. cit., pp.l05-106.
tal Hirshson, Of). cit., p. 67.
47
time from his Vicksburg campaign, reinstated the funding.132 Another
time Dodge was charged with land cotton speculation for financially
enhancing his spies and/or himself. The dilemma was such that, in
refuting the allegation, the identities of certain agents operating behind
Confederate lines might become known, and Dodge decided, at
Grant's suggestion, to remain silent about the matter. For many years
thereafter, however, accusations about the charges dogged him.133
During the war about half of Dodge's spies were captured or
killed by the enemy. Some were court-martialed and executed
by the Confederates, but not one betrayed the North,
although to save their lives, many pretended to do so. Forced
to join the Southern army, one agent within a short time was
made first sergeant of his company. For a year Dodge believed
he was dead. Late in the war, however, the spy, still
dressed in his Confederate uniform, slipped through the lines
and again reported for duty.134
. Dodge proved to be a shrewd spy master, disguising his operations
and utilizing the information he gained for the best possible military
advantages. He emphasized geographic data and details regarding
weapon and troop strength. In his intelligence activities, Dodge was
Grant's general and, when Grant was given command of all Union
forces in March, 1864, the secret service force began to be phased out.
In August, in the battle for Atlanta, Dodge was severely wounded and
temporarily retired from active duty. During this time, the intelligence
network he had built terminated completely and no directive for
reinstatement ever revived it. Dodge returned to military service in
November and finished war duty. He later fought in Indian skirmishes
before turning his attention to politics and railroad development. In
1866 he served in the House of Representatives, declining renomination
in 1868. He subsequently became active in railroad construction, was
president of the Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf line in 1892, and even
promoted railroads in Cuba before his death in 1916. In his intelligence
activities, Dodge reflects military professionalism: he sought
information almost exclusively to enhance army field operations and
to develop effective strategy for pursuing the Confederate fighting
forces.
X. Oarrington
Unlike Dodge, Henry Beebee Carrington conducted intelligence operations
against political enemies-the Copperheads and rehel conspirators
attempting to undermine the Union cause. Born in Connecticut
in 1824, Carrington became an ardent abolitionist in his youth,
graduated from Yale in 1845, and taught for a while in the Irving
Institute at Tarrytown, New York. Under the influence of the school's
founder, Washington Irving, he subsequently wrote Battles of the
American Revolution which appeared in 1876. He was also to write
seven other major titles. Leaving New York, he taught at the New
Haven Collegiate Institute while pursuing a law degree at his old
alma mater. In 1848 he moved to Ohio and entered upon a law prac-
132 Ibid., p. 68.
1&'l Perkins, op. cit., pp. 112-113.
... Hirshon, Of). cit., p. 68..
48
tice. Over the next dozen years Carrington represented a variety of
commercial, manufacturing, banking, and railroad interests and became
a pioneer in Republican politics. A close friend and supporter
of Governor Salmon P. Chase, he was subsequently appointed to a
position to reorganize the state militia (1857). He subsequently became
the adjutant-general for Ohio, mustering nine regiments of militia at
the outbreak of the Civil War. He then was commissioned a colonel of
the 18th United States Infantry and took command of an army camp
near Columbus.
In neighboring Indiana, Governor Oliver P. Morton had need of
Carrington's services. For reasons not altogether clear-perhaps it
was his partisan political past and/or his ardent abolitionism-Carrington
was ordered, upon the request of Morton, to organize the
state's levies for service.
When Carrington arrived in Indiana, political warfare between
the adherents of the administration and its opponents
was beginning in earnest. The favor~te weapon of the Republicans
was that ephemeral and elusive order, the Knights
of the Golden Circle. Carrington joined in wholeheartedly.
On December 22, 1862, he blamed the apalling rate of desertion
on the treasonable secret societies, whose penetration
of the army was shown by knowledge among soldiers of a
"battle sign" which would save them from rebel bullets. In a
long report dated March 19, 1863, he described the situation
as so alarming that it bordered on open revolt. He claimed
that the Knights had ninety-two thousand members between
sixteen and seventy who were drilling constantly. They were
plotting to seize the arsenals, the railroads, and the telegraph
in order to revolutionize Indiana and "assert independent
authority as a state." They communicated with Confederntes,
in particular with General Morgan, whose picture hung in
many homes and whose name was "daily praised." Thousands
of them believed the bold raider would shortly appear to
"raise the standard of revolt in Indiana." If he did, Carrington
was sure Morgan could raise "an army of 20,000
traitors." lS5
What prompted these comments by Carrington 'and where did he
get his information? The answer to these questions appears to derive
from the activities of Governor Morton. Taking advantage of the
crisis conditions which the war created, Morton had established himself
as virtual dictator of the state. He dealt harshly with rebel
sympathizers, Copperheads, Democrats, and anyone opposed to his
rule. Before the end of 1861, lL spy system had been inlLugurated to
keep watch of these enemies.lsB Carrington was given charge of this
intelligence organization and thus became familiar with the "foes of
the Union" which it kept under surveillance. There is strong evidence
that Carrington had no desire for combat service and twice Morton
intervened to prevent his transferral to the front lines. Thus, it was
... G. R. Tredway. Democratic Opposition to the Lincoln Admini8tration in
Indiana. Indianapolis, Indiana Historical Bureau, 1973, pp. 209-210.
Ul\ Ibid., p. 216.
49
important that Carrington cast himself in the role of an intelligence
chief devoted to maintaining the security of the state, even though
disaster appeared to be just around the corner.
In March, 1863, Carrington was promoted to brigadier-general and
made commander of the District of Indiana of the Department of
the Ohio, la.ter renamed the Northern Department. By this time, however,
he had intelligence activities organized and operating under his
direction. His secret service--
... was composed of spies, informers, betrayers, and outside
secret agents. Inside officials who were jealous of more important
leaders were worked on; the itch for money played a
part; in quite a few instances, unsuspecting loyal men who
had joined the castles were amazed at the lengths to which
love of constitutional rights or Southern sympathies could
carry the assertion of dissent. From many sources, and for
almost as many motives, disclosures flowed in to Carrington's
headquarters.ls1
Claiming ,to have between two and three thousand men reporting to
him, Carrington enlisted the services of almost anyone who would
provide informationaoout an "enemy." Unsolicited reports were gratefully
accepted as well. The amateur sleuths and informers were supplemented
with a few choice agents and detectives. Spies apparently
were paid from state funds at the rate of $100 per month, over six
times the amount received by a Federal soldier.ls8
Early in 1863 Carrington claimed to have emissaries a.t the
meetings of the secret societies. In April, 1864, he asked
Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas for money to organize
a twelve-man detective force. One of his agents said he had
ei~hteen men at such work early in 1864. General Alvin P.
Hovey, who succeeded Carrington August 25, 1864, continued
his espionage organization. Colonel Conrad Baker, the state
provost marshal, also employed informers who reported directly
to him. At least. one of the district provost marshals,
Colonel Thompson, had an agent who worked for him among
Democrats of the Seventh District. He signed his reports only
as "R.," and his identity was not even known to Colonel
Baker, Thompson's superior. Carrington claimed he participated
personally in this work, once attending "in dis'Wise" a
meeting of the Sons of Liberty in Indianapolis. Be that as it
may, the general was probably not exaggerating when he
claimed to know every morning what had happened in the
lodges the night before. Not only did he have his own spies,
but he kept in close touch with other officials who conducted
espionage.139
137 Milton, op. cit., pp. 76---77.
'" Tredway, op. cit., p. 217.
,.. Ibid., p. 216; also see William Dudley Foulke. Life of Oliver P. Mornan
(Vol. 1). Indianapolis-Kansas City. The Bowen-Merrill Compllny, 1899, Pj'). 405407;
also, for a view of Carrington's spies reporting on each other and otherwise
over-inlITstiating themselves with unsuspecting rebels, see Tredway, OIl. cit.,
pp. 216---217.
50
"While Carrington's operatives were effective in breaking up the Sons
of Liberty, the Knights of the Golden Circle, and elements of the
Northwest Conspiracy, they also contributed to arbitrary arrests,
infringements upon the freedom of speech and freedom of association,
and otherwise maintained a corrupt and despotic regime. The manner
in which the intelligence organization was recruited-utilizing betrayerR,
jealous and disgruntled officials, infonners, and unvalidated
hearsay from unsolicited sources-eaused it to traffic in unreliable
information of generally more political than military value. And the
suspicion prevails that the whole arrangement served to maintain
Governor Morton's administration and coincidently counteracted Confederate
operatives who happened to count among his foes.
Carrington was replaced by General Alvin P. Hovey in August,
1864. W"ith less than a year of warfare ahead of him, Hovey assumed
control of the espionage organization as the new commander of the
Indiana District. It is not immediately evident if he made any changes
in the intelligence operation other than to gain access to the funds
seized from bounty jumpers to pay his agents,14o If the spy system did
nOL collapse at the end of the war, it must certainly have been discarded
in 1867 when Governor Morton resigned to enter the United
States Senate.
Carrington was first mustered out of service as a brigadier-general
of volunteers, rejoined his old regiment in the Army of the Cumberland,
completed war duty and saw Indian campaigns in the West. He
built and commanded Fort Phil Kearny but lost the respect of his
fellow officers due to his reputation as a "political warrior" and his
demonstrated lack of aggressiveness in several Indian skirmishes.
Before a decision to remove him from command could be implemented,
Carrington became further embroiled in controversy. In December,
1866, a force of eighty officers and men under Captain William J.
Fetterman was massacred by a force of fifteen hundred to three thousand
Indians. The disaster was attributed to Fettennan's disobeyance
of Carrington's order to proceed on a certain route of march: instead,
he had directly engaged the war party from their rear while they
were attacking a group of woodcutters. The Indians turned on Fetterman's
force and annihilated them. Because no one had heard Carrington's
orders to Fetterman, coupled with existing distrust of the
colonel's leadership, rumors persisted that the men had been ordered
into tragedy. General Grant moved to court-martial Carrington but,
at the suggestion of General William T. Shennan, submitted the
matter to a court of inquiry which subsequently exonerated Carrington.
Nevertheless, Carrington was relieved of command and. with his
military career ruined, he resigned and spent the rest of his life attempting
to convince the public of his innocence in the incident. He
also wrote a number of books and taught military science at Wabash
College in Indiana before his death in 1912.
XI. Signal Services
The Civil War, which was first in many things, provided the opportunity
for the extensive use of the telegraph for all possible wartime
140 Tredway, op. cit., p. 218.
51
purp.oses. The introduction of this communications device effected
t:vo Imp<?rtan~ developme~ts in the ~voluti~n and organization of the
Federa~ mtelhgence funchon. One mnovatIon was the utilization of
sophIstIcated c.odes for communication not just among some elite
groups, but wIthin the entire military system.14l Further, as byproducts
of this phenomenon, the first concerted efforts at codebreal~
ing and communications system penetration, or telegraph line
tappmg, were undertaken.
The other important occurrence was the creation of the United
States Army Signal Corps. Not only did this organization have int~
lligence responsibilities during the war, but it became the institutIon,
thereafter, which fostered and advanced coding, code-breaking,
and communications system penetration practices. Prior to the occasi~~
of the Civil War, no nation, except Germany, had a permanent
mIlItary telegraph unit within its armed forces organization.142 With
the outbreak of hostilities in the United States in 1861, two signal
services were pressed into action by the Union.
The Signal Corps, the pioneering communications unit of the United
States Army of a century's duration, came into existence largely
through the efforts of General Albert J. Myer. Born in New York in
1827, Myer apprenticed as a telegraph operator while preparing for
his college education. Graduated from Hobart College in 1827, he
continued his studies at Buffalo Medical College, obtaining his M.D.
in 1851. During his final year of academic studies he became interested
in the use of communications signals for military and naval
purposes. Thus, early in his life, Myer became acquainted with two
important means of long-distance communication.
After practicing as a physician for three years, he sought and obtained
a commission as assistant surgeon in the regular army. Ordered
to New Mexico, his interest in signal communications was renewed in
observations of the various Comanche practices of this nature. After
developing his thoughts on the matter, Myer wrote to the War Department
in 1856, asking if the government might be interested in his
signaling systBm. No action was taken on the inquiry until 1859 when
a board of evaluation, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee,
considered the matter and gave qualified approval to the idea. Field
tests followed and negotiations were made in the War Department
for some institutional accommodations for the new communications
effort. As a consequence, provision was made in legislation enacted (12
Stat. 64 at 66) in 1860 authorizing the appointment of one signal
"1 It will be recalled that spies in the service of General Washington used
ciphered messag<>s. The Civil War experience was an elaboration on this situation:
more sophisticated codes were developed for use within the entire army. A
cipher system usually substitutes a single symbol (number, letter, or special sign)
for a single letter of the standard alphabet. A code system substitutes a code term
(number, number group, letter, letter group, word, sign, or marking) for an item
of plaintext· (a word, phrase, date, general prefix or suffix, or some such identifiable
language referent). The two systems can, of course, be intertwined and
otherwise sophisticated by skilled cryptographers.
.... William R. Plum. The Military Telegraph During the Civil Warin the United
States (Vol. 1). Chicago, Jansen, McClurg and Company, 1882, p. 62.
52
officer with. the rank of major and $2,000 for signaling equipment.
Thus, the SIgnal Corps began to take shape.143
Shortly after the initiation of hostilities between the North and
~he South, Myer, in May, 1861, traveled east, arriving at Fort Monroe
m June where General Benja!llin F. Butler ordered details for signal
duty a~d My~r proceeded to mstruct them. The practical application
~as a sI~al hne between the Fort and Newport News and the directmg
of artIllery fi~e from a battery at Rip Raps. Such direction of gunfire
would be a prImary Signal Corps responsibility into the TwentIeth
Century.
While still assigned to Butler, Myer sought orders by which
he could control all military telegraphy, asserting that the
law under which he held his commission gave him "general
charge of the telegraphic duty of the Army, whether ...
by means of signals transmitted by . . . electricity or by
aerial signals." Although Myer obtained no War Department
help, Butler ordered all telegraphic duty in his department,
in which the budding U.S. Mihtary Telegraph was already
at work, placed under Myer's control. Myer implied that the
immediate results were quite satisfactory, but the historian
of the Military Telegraph later revealed that the word went
out sub rosa to all telegraph operators to ignore Myer while
seeming to comply with his orders, and that the Secretary
of War soon instructed Butler not to interfere with them.1H
The U.S. Military Telegraph, a quasi-military organization created
in 1861 to operate the existing commercial telegraph lines, was the
great rival of the Signal Corps for control of telegraph communication
durin~ the Civil War. It ceased to exist after the cessation of
hostilities In 1865 and the telegraph communication field was left
to the Signal Corps. While it existed, however, it had direct access
to and favor of the Secretary of War. Its organization and operations
will be discussed shortly.
During the Civil War, the Signal Corps had limited responsibility
for telegraphic communications. It provided some telegraphy services
for the shifting Union forces, but, generally, its efforts in this field of
communication were supervised by Military Telegraph officials. The
Corps apparently developed codes 145 and ciphers 146 but there is some
question as to their security.H7 Signal Corps telegraphers were sworn
1.. While it is ironic that Lee should be the head of the panel approving the
idea of a Signal Corps, which would be combat tested facing forces subsequently
under his command, it is also equally ironic that Senator Jefferson Davis (D.Miss.)
opposed the signal officer provision in the 1860 legislation; the Confederacy
was destined to have a fine Signal Corps of its own, one which Davis
supported in all ways. See J. Willard Brown. The SignaZ Oorps, U.S.A., in the
War of tke Rebellion. Boston, U.S. Veteran Signal Corps Association, 1896, pp.
205-224; also see Max L. Marshall, ed. The Story of tke U.s. Army' SignaZ Oorps.
New York, Franklin Watts, 1965, pp. 63-76.
1" Paul J. Scheips. Union Signal Communications: Innovation and Conllict.
OiviZ War History, v. 9, December, 1963: 401; the reference to the Military
Telegraph historian is to Plum (Vol. 1), op. oit., pp. 71-73; also see Brown,
op. cit., pp. 171-172.
1" See Brown, op. cit., pp. 91-99.
1" See Ibid., pp. 83,99-102,118-119.
141 See. Scheips, op. cit., p. 407.
53
to secrecy regarding both the cipher-codes they utilized and the content
of their communiques, a condition which sometimes created difficulties
when high-ranking officers were curious about telegraph
traffic.u8
Until 1863, Myer had to rely largely upon detailees for his man·
power. It was in that year, however, on March 3, that Congress enacted
legislation (12 Stat. 744 at 753) creating an organization beyond
the authority for a single Signal Officer.149
According to one source, 146 officers were "commissioned in
the Corps" during the war, or were offered commissions.
About twenty of this number "declined the appointments offered
them, and some ten or twelve resigned from the army
soon after the reorganization was effected." In addition, about
297 acting signal officers served in the wartime Corps, but
some of them for only very brief periods. The total number of
enlisted men who served at one time or another was about
2,500. In October, 1863, 198 officers, besides Myer, and 814 enlisted
men graced the rolls of the Signal COrpS.15O
In addition to cryptological activities, Meyer, on the occasion of his
assignment to General Edward Canby's MilItary Division of Western
Mississippi, sought to involve Signal Corps personnel in another aspect
of intelligence operations.
Within a week or two of his reporting to General Canby,
Colonel Myer proposed a new service which Canby assigned
at once to the Signal Corps. Canby's order of May 30, .1864
read: "Deserters, refugees, and other persons coming m at
any military post in the Division of West Mississippi, or any
of the spots on the east bank of the Mississippi River, will be
carefully examined by a discreet officer, and the information
obtained from them compared and collated with that derived
from scouts and other sources, and reported direct to
the Chief Signal Officer at these headquarters, Natchez,
Mississippi...." 151
It would appear that only this one command utilized a SiWlal Officer
to coordinate this intelligence information. Meyer completed his
war service with General Sherman and sought to continue his military
career as Chief Si/2:nal Officer of the U.S. Army. In November, 1863,
he had clashed with Secretary of War Stanton over control of the
telegraph lines and the rivalries between the Signal Corps and the
Military Telegraph. As a consequence of this dispute, Myer had been
removed as Chief Signal Officer and he believed that the action was
illegal. Through litigation and politics, he won his reinstatement on
October 30, 1866. The victory for Myer was total: his position had
been made permanent in the recently enacted Armed Forces Act (14
Stat, 332 at 335-336); Stanton was suspended from office; and the
Signal Corps was granted sole responsibility for telegraphy in combat
zones. The Corps itself depended upon detailees for its manpower
1&. See Brown, op. oit., pp. 70, 191.
1" See Ibid., pp.141-169.
1ao Scheips, op. cit., p. 406; also see Brown, op. oit., pp. 160-161, 713-902.
151 Marshall, op. cit., p. 60.
54
under the Armed Forces Act. Myer promoted the visibility of his
organization by establishing a Department of Practical Military Engineering,
Military Signaling, and Telegraphy at West Point, improved
upon the signaling courses at the Naval Academy, and
instituted signaling curricula at the Artillery School of Practice
(Fort Monroe, Va.) and the Engineering School of Practice (Willett's
Point, N.Y.). His achievements on behalf of the Corps and military
communications were both numerous and continuous until his death in
August, 1880.
The great rival of the Signal Corps, and in some regards Myer's
nemesis, was the United States Military Telegraph. The organization
derived from the expediency of Union seizure and control of the commerical
telegraph lines.
In April 1861, the Government took exclusive control of
the telegraph lines radiating from 'Yashington; and the
function of censoring the dispatches sent over the wires from
the national capital was at different times under the charge
of the Treasury, the State, and the War Departments.
Operating under the instructions from the Cabinet officer in
whose department he was placed, the censor excluded communications
giving military information, and also those
which were deemed to convey too much news concerning the
activities of the Government. Reports of delicate diplomatic
questions, criticisms of Cabinet members, comments giving
the mere opinion of correspondents, advance information of
contemplated measures, and stories injurious to the reputation
of officers, were denied the wires.152
With the onset of hostilities and the seizure of the telegraph lines,
the government needed some group to operate and maintain the communications
system. Secretary of War Simon Cameron enlisted the
assistance of Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad who
provided four operators to man the telegraph. Their supervisor was
Andrew Carnegie, shortly followed by David Strouse and others.153
The U.S. Military Telegraph did not obtain formal sanction
until Lincoln, in October, 1861, authorized Cameron to act on
recommendations that had been made by Anson Stager, a
Western Union official who had been invited to Washington.
On February 26, 1862, under permissive legislation [12 Stat.
334-335] of the preceding month, the President 'took control
of all telegraph lines in the United States, which meant in
practice that the Military Telegraph could use them as circumstances
demanded.154
Stager became head of the organization which counted somewhere
between 1,200 to 1,500 operators and linesmen.155 With the exception
of a handful of immediate leaders who were given commissions, the
]J52 Randall, op. oit., 481---482; also see Plum, op. cit. (Vol. 1), pp. 64-00.
153 See David Homer Bates Lincoln In The Telegraph Office. New York. The
Century Company, 1907, pp. 30-32, 35; Plum, op. cit. (Vol. 1), pp. 66-68, 127-134.
1M Scheips, op. cit.• p. 402.
""Ibid., p. 403; Bates, op. cit., pp. 26-27; Plum, op. cit. (Vol. 2), pp. 352,
376-380.
55
personnel of the Military Telegraph were denied military status in
order that field officers could not give them orders regarding communications
cloaked in secrecy. Technically, the group was a segment
of the Quartermaster's Department and the officers in the Military
Telegraph could, by these arrangements, disburse funds and property.
If proper channels of communication were to be used, Stager had to
send messages to the Secretary of War through Quartermaster General
Montgomery C. Meigs while Myer could speak directly to the
Secretary on behalf of the Signal Corps. Stager, however, soon gained
Stanton's favor and "channels" were no barrier to the advancement
of the cause of the Military Telegraph.
Generally, operators in the Military Telegraph took an oath of
secrecy regarding the contents of messages and their work.15~ On various
occasions these personnel were pressured by field officers to breach
security by revealing the contents of telegraph traffic or cipher-code
keys but the operators stood fast.157
The Military Telegraph also developed its own ciphers and codes.
Anson Stager was the author of the first Federal ciphers,
which he devised for General McClellan's use in West Virginia,
in the summer of 1861, before McClellan came to Washington.
They were very simple, consisting merely of cards,
about three inches by five, on which was printed a series of
key-words and arbitraries, the former indicating the number
of lines and columns and the route or order in which the
message might be written, the arbitrary words being used to
represent names of places and persons. When an important
dispatch was intrusted to a cipher-operator for transmission,
he first rewrote it carefully in five, six, or seven columns, as the
case might be, adding extra or blind words on the last line, if
it was not full. A key-word was then selected to indicate the
number of columns and lines and the order in which the words
of the message were to be copied for transmission by wire.158
Stager encouraged his immediate Washington staff to develop new
cipher-codes and to break those of the rebels.'59 On the general success
of the Military Telegraph in regard to this aspect of intelligence, one
authority has written:
Copies of cipher messages quite often reached the enemy, and
some were published in their newspapers, with a general request
for translation, but all to no purpose. To the statement
that in no case did an enemy ever succeed in deciphering such
messages, let us add that neither did any Federal cipher operator
ever prove recreant to his sacred trust, and we have, in
a sentence, two facts that reflect infinite credit upon the corps.
Fidelity is an attribute of the business of telegraphy. However
deficient an operator may be in other qualifications, he is invariably
to be trusted with any secret that comes to him in the
1>8 See Plum, op. ait., (Vol. 2), pp. 108-109.
""See Bates, op. cit., pp. 49-85; Plum, 01>. cit. (Vol. I), pp. 34-61; Plum, 01>.
cit. (Vol. 2), pp. 170--174
U8 Bates, 01> cit., p.49.
U9 See Ibiil., pp. 68-85.
56
line of his employment. To a natural disposition to merit such
a trust, is added a habit or faculty, acquired by constant, daily
experience, of keeping the ears open and the mouth shut.l60
Friction between Stager and Myer reached a decisive point in the
autumn of 1863 when the latter attempted, by public advertisements,
to lure telegraphers away from or out of the Military Telegraph and
into the Signal Corps where they would "have ... charge of the ...
light field telegraph lines which are under . . . the Signal Corps, and
which, in battle or at sieges, are run out and worked on the field or
in the trenches under fire." For this unauthorized and independent
action, Myer, at the outset, earned Stanton's enmity.
Events now moved rapidly. Stager, who could not let Myer's
challenge to the Military Telegraph go unanswered, wrote
Stanton. He spoke of "the embarrassment already experienced
and the complications likely to arise from the organizing
of Field Telegraphs by the Signal Corps," and advised
"the propriety of placing the Field Telegraphs under the
... Military Telegraph Department, and thus avoid ...
two organizations in the same grade of service." He explained
that the Signal Corps "is now making efforts to secure the
best electricians in the service by offers of rank and increased
pay, which it is enabled to do through its military organization,
an advantage not possessed by the Military Telegraph.
. . ." He recommended that either the Military Telegraph
should have all telegraphic responsibility or It should be
abolished and the entire responsibility given to the Corps.
Stanton's decision was soon made and apparently imparted
to Myer in a difficult interview at the War Department. On
November 10, 1863, Myer was ordered to surrender his responsibilities
to the next ranking Signal Corps officer ...
and to leave for Memphis, Tennessee. At the same time all
maWJ,etoelectric telegraphic equipment was to be turned over
to Stager.l6l
Thus, for the duration of the war, the Military Telegraph operated
and controlled virtually all telegraph communication in Union territory.
Central command was maintained in Washington and notable
field performances were made under Grant and Meade in Virginia,
Sherman in Georgia, and Banks in the Red River Expedition. Stager's
personal office was in Cleveland and it was there that Myer journeyed
shortly after arriving in Memphis. The two men worked out the absorption
of Signal Corps' telegraphic resources and Myer indicated
his regret that the two organizations had not established a formal
liaison during his command.162
When the Civil War ended the Military Telegraph supervised
the restoration of commercial telegraph lines in the South,
but its control was soon relinquished. Meanwhile, operators
and Stager's commissioned assistants remained at their posts
. ,.. Plum, op. cit. (Vol. 1), pp. 60-61.
181 Scheips, op. cit., p. 410; also see Plum, op. cit. (Vol. 2), pp. 86-106.
'01 Scheips, op. cit., p. 413.
57
until November 30, 1865, when all operators not at work on
strictly military lines or at assigned posts as cipherers in
major cities were discharged, paid, and, as one operator put
it, "in most cases given transportation to their homes." In
1866 the Military Telegraph lines south of the Ohio River
were turned over to commercial companies in relinquishment
of claims against the United States, while military lines north
of the Ohio were sold. The line from Wilmington, Delaware,
to Richmond, however, was retained to be operated for the
government by the American Telegraph Company. Of the
officers, only Stager and [Thomas T.] Eckert, both of whom
received the brevet rank of brigadier general, remained on
duty by the end of fiscal year 1866. One operator, Charles
Almarin Tinker, remained in the War Department telegraph
office until 1869.163
By the fall of 1866, Myer had won his victory of reinstatement to
Chief Signal Officer of the Army and the added responsibility attached
to the position at that time for supervision of military telegraph operations
and related activities.
XII. Lesser EffQT'ts
The organizations created by Pinkerton, Seward, Baker, Dodge,
Carrington, Myer, and Stager were the major sophisticated intelligence
structures of the Civil War experience within the Union forces. For a
while a Bureau of Military Information was maintained in the War
Department under Colonel George H. Sharpe who maintained the unit
from March of 1863 until the end of the war. He held some investigative
powers by virtue of his position as deputy provost marshall general
and coordinated intelligence for General Grant during the final year
of the war with a high degree of effect.
We run across a few other spy-chiefs who had some contemporary
fame in their own right, and with whom records and
memoirs often bring us face to face. Among them was "Col."
William Truesdail (actually a civilian, like Pinkerton), head
of the Police Office for [General William S.] Rosecrans both
in the Army of the Mississippi and the Department of the
Cumberland. Truesdail's host of duties included the employment
of scouts and spies within and about the enemy's lines to
furnish intelligence for the commanding general. The men
were carefully selected, and most of them were. well acquainted
with the surrounding country and its inhabitants.
What in the Revolutionary days would have been styled a
"channel" of intelligence was said to have been maintained
"to the extreme limits of the Southern Confederacy."
Then there was Maj. R[enry] B. Smith, Gen. Lew Wallace's
chief of detectives in the Middle Department (18641865),
whom Wallace called "a man of ability and zeal." In
that department, whose headquarters were at Baltimore,
treason flourished and plots wew; and counter-espionage
needed to be, as it was under Major Smith's direction, adrOIt
and unremitting. It was Smith who, at Baltimore, in March
teo Ibid., p. 419.
58
1865, administered the oath of allegiance. to Lewis Paine
(Lewis Thornton Powell), later hanged as a party to the
conspiracy to murder Lincoln. He inserted in the parole a
clause requiring Paine "to go north of Philadelphia and remain
during the war," but Paine was one who honored paroles
rather in the breach than in the observance. In 1911 Smith
published "Between the Lines," a decidedly unusual volume
presenting material from his wartime files and throwing new
light on conditions in Maryland and northern Virginia.I6
'
Another important intelligence element which should be noted, but
which attained no degree of organizational sophistication, is the scout
corps. Common to virtually every Union combat command, the scouts
were often an ad hoc body of changing faces. The most celebrated
leader of these forces was :Major Harry Young, General Sheridan's
chief of scouts.
Scouting in the Civil War was something more than touring
the "no-man's-land" between opposing camps. Young had
authority to raise a command of a hundred men; but the roll
never exceeded sixty, and was usually nearer forty. The men
were in Confederate uniforms more often than in their own,
carrying a Spencer carbine and two revolvers. They were the
aristocrats of the army, much as the men of the airservice
were in the first World War. Each was allowed four picked
mounts; they lived in the best quarters to be had; they were
exempt from camp routine; they were paid in gold according
to the value of intelligence obtained or services rendered.
They might go in small details, a few men at a time; or they
might sally out in force on some major expedition. They were
to surprise and capture (or, if necessary, kill) the enemy's
pickets and vedettes; to harass enemy patrols; to pounce upon
guerrilla bands. Once Young and his little company
stampeded a cavalry brigade. And they were also to gather
intelligence. In any case they wore the enemy's uniform (and
sometimes other disguises) within the enemy's lines in order
to deceive. Therefore, under military law, if taken within
or about the enemy's lines, they were to be treated as spies
and suffer death.165
Those serving under Ge.neral Fremont in this capacity during the
spring and summer of 1862 were given the name "Jessie Scouts" in
honor of the commander's wife, Jessie Benton. The name became commonly
used by these daring riders after Fremont had departed the
theater and was applied to any Federal scout who wore the gray in
the Virginia area.
Before the Union forces were mustered out, Harry Young was to
see intelligence service in another field of operations.
After Lee had surrendered, the Mexican frontier needed
watching, for the contest between the French invaders and
the Liberals was still in progress. Therefore Sheridan was
106 Bryan, Gp. oU., pp. 135-186; also. see Henry B. Smith. Between the LineB. New
York, Booll:,Brothers, 1911.
1e6 Bryan, op. cit., PP. 136-137.
59
ordered to the Rio Grande with a corps. Colonel Young-he
was by now brevetted lieutenant-colonel-went along, taking
with him four of his old command. Sheridan admits that
material aid was given the Liberals from United States arsenals;
and he also recommended Young as a trusty gobetween
and an agent who could furnish reliable intelligence
of affairs within Mexico itself; but outwardly there was
adherence to neutrality. Young, however, without first getting
Sheridan's approval, took Liberal money, raised a band of
fifty or so, and attempted to cross the river. A fight ensuredsome
were killed, some escaped [Young himself disappearing
completely] .166
By the end of the Civil War, all military intelligence operations
virtually ceased to exist. Undoubtedly some scouts were retained for
immediate observation duties in the ,Vest in the Indian campaigns.
Beyond this, the intelligence organization (s) created by the Union
armed forces establishment was totally dismantled with the peace of
Appomattox and the demise, in the opinion of at least one expert, was
not necessarily a loss to be bemoaned.
From beginning to end of the Civil War the ordinary hazards
of professional espionage were doubled and trebled by the inexperience
or downright incompetence of staff officers assigned
to Intelligence. The transmitting of information was primitive
and unsystematized; and where cipher messages were resorted
to, the ciphers were so transparently contrived they
did little more than guarantee the guilt of the bearer. In
addition, while men and women fashioned for themselves
a hairbreath existence to penetrate the secrets of the enemy,
what they learned and communicated was too seldom interpreted
effectively. Often spy reports were ignored until all
their military value and timeliness had subsided into
history.167
XIII. Secret Service
During the Civil ·War, the combination of new revenue legislation
and scandals within the Treasury Department prompted congressional
action with a view to providing the Secretary of the Treasury with
some investigative authority to deal with fraud. In 1863 legislation
was enacted (12 Stat. 713 at 726) authorizing the Secretary to "appoint
not exceeding three revenue agents ... to aid in the prevention, detection,
and punishment of frauds upon the revenue." From these
statutory origins would evolve the Intelligence Division and Security
Inspection Division of the current Internal Revenue Service and the
enforcement branch of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Division.
From the experience of this early investigative authority, and the need
to operationalize prior mandates (11 Stat. 254; 12 Stat. 83; 12 Stat.
102) regarding the prevention of counterfeiting, a Secret Service
Division was established within the Treasury Department in July,
1865, to be initially supervised by the Solicitor of the Treasury and
later by an Assistant Secretary (and in 1933 came under the direct
111 IbU., p. :152.
ll1r Rowan. op. cit.. p. 145.
60
authority of the Secretary). The head of the new organization,
William P. Wood, was sworn in on July 5. A close personal friend
of Secretary of 'Val' Stanton, ,Vood undoubtedly became acquainted
with Lafayette Baker while serving as keeper of the Old Capitol
Prison and he may also have known Pinkerton or his operatives. He
served as both a detective and as a spy in Stanton's employ and was
detailed on one occasion to the Treasury Department to probe counterfeiting
matters. While running the Old Capitol Prison-
,Vood assigned undercover agents to pose as Southern sympathizers
who could smuggle mail from Richmond to 'Washington.
The letters were brought to him at the prison, where
he skillfully opened, read, copied and resealed them for transmission
to their destinations. The information they contained
was funneled to Stanton's office and served as valuable leads
for the conduct of the war. Prospective movements of Southern
forces were revealed in this way, including plans for
Lee's northern advances "'hich ended in the Battle of
Gettysburg.168
As head of the Secret Service, ,Vood had a force of approximately
thirty men, some of whom were former private detectives he had
known while pursuing counterfeiters and others were personal friends
he had directed in wartime intelligence activities. Six general orders
guided these personnel.
1. Each man must recognize that his service belongs to the
government through 24 hours of every day.
2. All must agree to assignment to the locations chosen by
the Chief and respond to whatever mobility of movement the
work might require.
3. All must exercise such careful saving of money spent for
travel, subsistence, and payments for information as can be
self-evidently justified.
4. Continuing employment in the Service will depend upon
demonstrated fitness, ability as investigators, and honesty and
fidelity in all transactions.
5. The title of regular employees will be Operative, Secret
Service. Temporary employees will be Assistant Operatives
or Informants.
6. All employment will be at a daily pay rate; accounts
submitted monthly. Each operative will be expected to keep
on hand enough personal reserve funds to carryon Service
business between paydays.169
Distributed among eleven cities with a national office in Washington,
the agents carried no badges or official identification other than handwritten
letters of appointment. U.S. Marshals and other peace officers
were notified by circular of the existence of the new organization and
its purposes. At the end of its first year of operation, the agency had
captured over 200 counterfeiters and had established a close working
168 Walter S. Bowen and Harrv Edward Neal. The United States Secret Service.
Philadelphia and Xew York, Chilton Company, 1960, p. 13.
100 Ibid., p. 16.
61
relationship with marshals, local police departments, and United
States Attorneys in various localities.
Wood remained in charge of the Secret Service until 1869 when
he was succeeded by Herman C. ·Whitley who, like ·Wood, had been
an army detective during the war and had later associated himself
with the Internal Revenue Bureau. O,'er the next half century the
Service would be led by seven other men. '
Secret Sermce Ohief8
Service
William P. Wood 1865--1869
Herman C. Whitley 1869-1874
Elmer Washburn 1874-1876
James J. lBrQoks 1876-1888
John S. Bell --- - 1888-1890
A. L. Drummond 1891-1894
William P. Hazen 1894-1898
John E. Wilkie 1898-1911
William J. Flynn 1912-1917
During this period the Secret Service investigated a variety of matters
in addition to counterfeiting, including the Mafia, gambling interests,
peonage practices, the security of Treasury Department facilities
concerned with the production of securities and money, alcohol
revenue enforcement, and the activities of the Ku Klux Klan.170 The
intelligence structures and techniques developed in conjunction with
these probes are difficult to assess. The Secret Service was a permanent
structure with regional offices. In pursuing counterfeiters, organIzed
crime, and gambling interests, the Service cooperated with various subnational
law enforcement agencies and informers. Concentrating on
these subjects, the organization undoubtedly cultivated sources of continuing
intelligence at the local level. Before the advent of World
""Var I, in 1902, in the aftermath of the assassination of President William
McKinley, the Secret Service was assigned the function of protecting
the President, a mission which would encourage intelligence
gathering regarding any and all enemies of the Chief Executive.
XIV. Armed Force8 Intelligence
With the approach of the Twentieth Century, both the Army and
the Navy took steps to formally establish intelligence institutions within
their organizations.
Until after the U.S. Civil War, the Navy's intelligence
efforts and requirements were essentially those within the capacity
of a ship's commanding officer to conduct and use. Then
technical developments stimulated not only by the Civil War
in the United States but also by the Crimean War and the
Franco-Prussian ·War in Europe, resulted in improved metals
and powder which, in turn, led to the progressive development
of larger caliber, built-up, rifled ordinance firing elongated
missiles.
The German development of the sliding wedge breech block
made muzzle-loading obsolete and permitted fixed gun mounts
170 Generally, see: Ibid., pp. 12-83; George P. lBurnham. Memoirs of the United
States Secret Service. Boston, Lee and Shepard, 1872; H. C. Whitley. In It. Cambridge,
Riverside Press, 1894, PP. 102-311.
62
and more accurate aiming. Armor progressed from wood to
iron to steel.
Recognizing the need for keeping in touch with such
progress in foreign navies, the Secretary of the Navy, on 23
Mar 1882, signed General Order 292, establishing the "Office
of Intelligence" in the Bureau of Navigation "to collect and
record such naval information as may be useful to the Department
in wartime as well as in peace."
The Navy Department Library was combined with the Office
of Intelligence. Naval Attache posts were set up in London
in 1882, in Paris in 1885 and in Rome in 1888. The attache
in Paris was also accredited to Berlin and St. Petersburg
(later Petrograd, then Leningrad) and the attache at Rome
included Austria in his area of accreditation.l7l
As constituted, the Office of Naval Intelligence collected and disseminated
largely technical information about naval affairs. Undoubtedly
some amount of political information was garnered through
the attache system managed by the Office. It would appear, however,
that until vVorld 'War I, the unit, which was attached to the newly
created Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in 1915, concerned
itself largely with technical matters. Some of these topics of concern
to the Office are reflected in the titles of its general information series
of publications.172
From its inception until June, 1899. the Office had no authorization
for clerical employees and relied upon detailees from other bureaus
for staff. The advent of the Spanish-American War not only
prompted an authorization (30 Stat. 846 at 874) for clerks, but also
triggered an expansion of the attache system. Officers were assigned
to Tokyo (1895), Madrid (1897), Caracas (1903), Buenos Aires
(1910), and The Hague (1911). Commenting on the evolution of the
171 W. H. Packard. A Briefing on Naval Intelligence. All Hands, No. 591 April
1966: 15.
17. These include the following:
U.S. Navy Department. Bureau of Navigation. Office of Naval Intelligence. Observations
Upon The Korean Ooast, Japanese-Korean Ports, and Siberia, Made
. Dwring a Journey From The Asiatic Station to The United States Through
Siberia and Europe by Lieutenant B. H. Buckingham, Ensigns George C. Foulk,
and Walter McLean, Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1883. 163 p.
--. --. --, Report on The Exhibits at the Orystal Palace Electrical
Exhibition, 1882 by Ensign Frank J. Sprague. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off.,
1883.169 p.
--. --. --. Examples, Oonclusions, and Maxims 01 Modern Naval
Tactics by Commander William Bainbridge-Hoff. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print.
Off., 1884. 149 p.
--. --. --. Papers on Naval Operations During the Year Ending
July, 1885. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1885. 135:p.
--. --. --. Papers on Squadrons of Evolutions: The Recent Development
01 Naval Materiel. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1886. 265 p.
--. --. --. Recent Naval Progress. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print.
Off, 1887, 346 p.
--. --, --. Naval Reserves, Training, and Materiel. Washington,
U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1888. 433 p.
--. --, --. Naval MobiUza·tion and Improvement In Materiel.
Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1889.485 p.
--. --. --. A Year's Naval Progress. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print.
Off., 1890. 423 p.
63
Navy's intelligence unit vis-a-vis the emergence of the Army's counterpart
structure, one authority, himself a former director of the Office
of Naval Intelligence, has said:
... it is well to recognize that [the] Military Information
Division has much more complex duties, not only in keeping
track of enemy activities within our own borders and foiling
them, but in expanding and coordinating all the military resources
of the country. The Navy is always ready for war
or on a tentative war footing with some trained reserves to
draw upon. It is a comparatively simple matter to pass from a
peace to a war footing. Intensive target practice, torpedo exercises,
mine laying exercises and maneuvers keep the personnel
deeply interested through the competitive spirit. It is the
duty of the Navy to hold the enemy in check while the Army
mobilizes and deploys. Curiously enough, naval strategy may
be planned in time of peace by building stations, acquiring
bases, and studying all the elements of the possible enemy's
strategy, but an army cannot acquire supply bases or fortified
stations in the same way in time of peace. A navy is not
efficient unless it is always on a tentative war footing, for
when war comes you cannot improvise a navy. We have never
done anything else than improvise an army.173
The War Department inaugurated its permanent intelligence institution
three years after the Navy established the Office of Naval
Intelligence.
In 1885 the Secretary of War had asked the Adjutant General
for information on the armed forces of a certain powerit
may have been Russia, against whom Germany's Bismarck
--. Office of Naval Intelligence. The Year's Nava~ Progress. Washington,
U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1891. 491 p.
--. --. Notes on the Year's Nava~ Progress. Washington, U.S. Govt.
Print. Off., 1892. 366 p.
--. --. The International Oo~umbian Nava~ Rendezvous and Review
of 1893 and Naval Manoeuvres of 1892. Washingon, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1893.
238 p.
--. --. Notes on the Year's Nava~ Progress. Washington, U.S. Govt.
Print. Off., 1894. 458 p.
The series was continued until at least 1902 under the title Notes on the Year's
Naval Progress, one volume for each year (1895-1902).
Another series of four reports were produced during this same period (188819(
0) under the title Coaling, Docking, and Repairing Facilities of the Ports at
the Wor~d. Another frequent issuance (1881-1909) was a pamphlet, updated at
various times, entitled Information Conoerning Some of the Principal Navies of
the World which was apparently created for public distribution.
One special report was produced as ·a consequence of the Spanish-American
War which was in the format of the general information series but captioned
"war notes" and entitled: U.S. Navy Department. Office of Naval Intelligence.
Notes on the Spanish American War. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1899.
Other specialized studies may have been produced for publication during the
periOd in addition to these documents indicated here which are based upon holdings
of the Library of Congress.
173 U.S. Navy Department. Division of Operations. The Hi!ltory and Aims of
the Office of Naval Intelligence by Rear Admiral A. P. Niblack. Washington,
U.S. Govt. Print. Office, 1920, p. 11. Copies of this study bear the marking "Not
for publication," indicating limited distribution; the copy utilized in this study
was supplied by the National Archives and Records Service.
64
was busy aligning allies to effect a balance of power. To the
Secretary's surprise, he learned that no such information was
readily available in 'Vashington. Furthermore, no government
agency existed for collecting and compiling such information.
From this frustration was born what would become
the Military Information Division of the Adjutant General's
office. The grandiose name did not originally apply to the one
officer and clerk detailed to "gather and file information concerning
the military organizations of foreign countries in
which, for one reason or another, the United States might
become interested."
FoUl' years later the military attache system was authorized
[25 Stat. 825 at 827-828J by Congress. It has functioned ever
since, although sometimes with hardly more than a flicker,
overtly to gather and forward to the War Department military
information on the countries to which attaches were
assigned. It became a function of the Military Information
Division to select attaches, to pass them their instructions
from the 'Var Department, and to receive their reports for the
Army.174
The Military Information Division remained small and went unnoticed
by the Army's officer corps, its attache system almost nonexistent
on the eve of the Spanish-American War. Nevertheless, however
minute, the United States had a permanent intelligence structure
when once again faced with the prospect of hostilities in 1898.
XV. Spanish-American War
The declaration of war against Spain adopted by Congress on
April 20, 1898, can be attributed to a variety of real and imaginary
factors: among the real considerations were American sympathy for
the Cuban revolutionaries waging war against their colonial oppressors
(1868-1878), sugar interests in Cuba, and outrage over the tactics
of General Valeriano "Butcher" Weyler and his concentration camps;
among the imaginary subjects were all of the propaganda targets
of William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal and Joseph
Pulitzer's New York World. The sinking of the battleship U.S.S.
Maine in Havana harbor on February 15 set the wheels in motion for
a culmination of declared war two months later. The formal resolution
adopted by Congress (1) recognized the independence of Cuba,
(2) demanded the withdrawal of the Spanish armed forces from that
island, (3) authorized the President to utilize the army and navy
to carry out this policy, and (4) disclaimed any American interest in
controlling Cuba or its people. The United States entered the hostilities
with a modern "steel navy" of 2,000 officers and 24.000 enlisted
men; the army, by contrast, consisted of an ill-equipped 2,100 officers
and 28,000 enlistees. Colonel Arthur L. Wagner, chief of the Military
Information Division, counseled the President and the Cabinet against
an immediate invasion of Cuba for reasons of weather and disease
control. His advice won him the enmity of his overlord, Secretary
of War Russell A. Alger, cost him his job, and caused him to be denied
a promotion in rank until he lay on his deathbed.175
'" Ind, op. cit., p.,lll.
1\'l1See Ibid., pp. 11~112.
65
There were, howeYer, a number of successful intelligence operations
carried out during the war. Among the first of these was a mission by
Lieutenant Andrew S. Rowan. a former militarv attache in Chile and
once in charge of the Military Information Dhision's map section,
who, at the request of the President, was directed to carry a series of
questions to the elusive rebel leader Calixto Garcia somewhere in
Cuba. After finding Garcia, Rowan was to determine "the numbers,
location, and morale of the Spanish troops, the character of their
officers; the topography, the condition of the roads in all seasons;
how well each side was armed, and what the insurrecto8 were most in
need of until an American force could be mobilized." 176 To his great
credit and the gratitude of the War Department, Rowan completed
the mission, popularly captioned "a message to Garcia." 177
A series of similar missions were carried out by Lieutenant Victor
Blue, the executive officer of the gunboat Suwanee at the time of the
undertaking. The first Yenture Blue made into enemy territory was
prompted by a need to know where a shipment of arms, ammunition,
and provisions, under escort by the Suwanee and destined for guerrilla
forces, was to be landed. A second mission came at the urging of
Admiral William T. Sampson, commander of the Caribbean fleet, who,
having blocked Santiago harbor, wanted to determine how much of
the Spanish fleet lay at anchor within the port. Blue was required to
make a deep penetration of long duration into the Cuban countryside,
much of which afforded him little protection from detection by patrols.
In a third trip. Blue returned to observe Santiago harbor for purposes
of informing Sampson of channel obstructions, port defenses, and ship
positions relative to an attack on the facility. An unusual officer of
demonstrated abilities, Blue advanced quickly in rank: by the end
of World War I he was a rear-admiral, served as chief of staff of
the Pacific fleet, and was chief of the Bureau of Navigation. Retired
in 1919, he died in 1928.178
A secret agent using the name "Fernandez del Campo" was dispatched
to Spain by the War Department during the hostilities of
1898.179
Stopping at the capital's best hotel, he made no advances and
presented no letters of introduction but let his dislike of the
"Yankees" be understood and gave it out that his visit to
Madrid must be brief. Members of fashionable clubs, military
officers and officials of the government met him, accepted his
casual invitations, were sumptiously entertained and also enriched
by one who lost money at cards with the insouciance of
inherited manners and income.18o
The man carefully and cleverly maneuvered himself into favor with
Spanish officials and naval 'personnel, was shown the armaments, munitions,
and stores of their fleet, observed the Cadiz dockyards and
,,. Bryan, op. cit., PP. 201-202.
171 See Ibid., pp. 200-203; Ind, op. cit., pp. 113-116.
178 See Bryan, op. cit., pp. 203-217.
179 The a<cutal identity of this agent supposedly has never been disclosed but the
source discussing his activities has suggested that he might have been Lieutenant
Colonel Aristides Moreno, an American intelligence officer of Spanish descent, who
was in charge of .counter-espionage matters on General John J. Pershing's staff
in France during World War I. See Rowan and Deindorfer, op. cit., p. 71911.
180 Ibid., p. 800.
66
arsenal, and lea,rned both the departure date and destination of the
armada-the last item being the purpose of his mission. Admiral
George Dewey and his forces around the Philippine Islands were
alerted that they were the target of this Spanish flotilla, and the spy
returned safely to the United States for private honors.181
The Signal Corps was an established entity within the army when
the declaration of war against Spain was ratified. At the time, the
unit's duties were
. . . to establish and maintain intercommunication between
the territorial components of the nation, by submarine or
overland telegraph and telephone; with its armies in the field,
wherever they may be located; between the subdivisions of its
armies, in camp, in campaign, and in battle, by visual signals
and by flying or semi-permanent telegraph and telephone
lines; and the gathering of such valuable military information
as its command of the channels of communication may
make possible. As its duties indicate, its work embraces the
construction and operation of all military telegraph and telephone
lines, the manipulation of submarme cables, the operation
of captive balloons, visual signaling and telegrapp' censorship.
182
Immediately prior to entering- the war, the Signal Corps consisted
of approximately eight officers and fifty enlisted men. This was quickly
expanded to about 150 personnel, pending the organization of a volunteer
corps. Congressional approval (30 Stat. 4'17-418) for a, Volunteer
Sig-nal Corps occurred in May, 1898, and the ,regular ranks of the
unit eventually reached 1,300 men.183
The Signal Corps performed important intelligence service in three
instances during the Spanish-American War. The first of these ex~
ploits involved severing the submarine cables serving Cuba, thereby
isolating the island for purposes of communication, and utilizing the
detached lines at other terminals beyond the island for our own purposes.
In 1898, five submarine cables connected Cuba with thf> continents:
two ran between Havana to Puntarassa" Florida, one connected
Santiago with Haiti and thence to New York or to South America,
and two linked Santiago with King-ston, Jamaica, where one line continued
on to the Bahamas and Halifax and the other skirted the coast
of South America to Pernambuco and ran on to the Canarv Islands
and then to Lisbon. The Florida cables presented no problem as the
United States controlled the terminals and allowed some communications
of a supposedly non-military nature to flow between Cuba and
Florida.
To Colonel James Allen, United States Volunteer Signal
Corps, was entrusted the task of severing Cuba telegraphically
from Spain, and rearranging the cables for American
use. The ship Adria was immediately chartered in New York,
and the cable machinery of the Mexican Telegraph Company
UlL ISee Ibid., pp. 399--400.
182 Howard A. Giddings. ExplOits of the Signal Corps in the War wi-th Spam.
Kansas City, Missouri, Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Company, 1900, p. 10.
183 Ibid., pp. 15, 16.
67
secured and installed in the ship, which proceeded to Boston
and took on twen~y-four miles of deep-sea cable furnished by
the Western Umon Company, and then returning to New
York took ~m twenty-nine miles of intermediate type cable
and fifty mIles of insulated but unarmored wire, with instruments
and supplies, and proceeded to Key ,Vest, without
having attracted the attention of the press.184
After a great deal of difficulty with the ship's crew and his own
technicians assigned to the mission, Allen could recruit only three signal
sergeants, a detail of ten artillery volunteers from the garrison at
Key West Barracks, an assisting Signal Corps officer, and a motley
ship's chew. Of those under this direct command, only one had been
to sea previously and none of them had ever seen a submarine cable.
The Adria arrived off the coast of Santiago on the afternoon of
June 1 and began dragging for the cable within the three-mile limit
which was well within the range of Spanish shore batteries. This proximity
was necessary because, the cables not being the property of Spain,
they could legally be severed only within the jurisdiction of the nations
at war-i.e. within three miles of the coast of their territory. This
position also contributed technical difficulties to the mission as submarine
cable was armor plated where it became subject to coastal tides,
currents, and frictional contact with the ocean bottom. The Adria's
machinery for lifting the cable almost proved impossible for the task.
The cable was snared and lost, relocated and finally surfaced by straining
hoists and coughing motor pulleys. The Adria was fired on by
shore batteries a few times but the mission was finally completed.
Allen and his group also assisted in making the cable between Santiago
and Haiti operational for United States forces after it was severed
by a party aboard the St. Louis. These actions not only isolated
the Spanish forces on Cuba from ready communication with points
beyond the island, but gave the United States almost total control of
cable communication around the theater of war.185
Another important accomplishment of the Signal Corps was the
reporting of the arrival of Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete's squadron
at Santiago within two hours after it entered the harbor. While
the Spanish fleet was known to have departed for the Caribbean, its
mission was unknown: would it attack the United States coast, would
it immediately engage in a sea battle with American ships blockading
Cuba, would it attempt to refuel and drop supplies at a Cuban port
and what harbor would it utilize f Even the army was afraid to dispatch
troops to Cuba for fear of having these forces caught in transports
by the unlocated Spanish flotilla.
On May 19, after eluding the blockading American forces, Cervera,
unobserved on the open sea, entered Santiago harbor. One hour after
the fleet made port, details about its arrival and composition were dispatched
to Washington from Key "rest by Colonel James Allen.
18< Ibid., pp. 30--31.
186 Generally, see Ibid., PP. 23-36.
68
No confidence is violated in now telling that the infonnation
regarding Cervera's squadron came to Colonel Allen through
an employee of the cable company at Havana, who was in the
pay of the Signal Corps. All the information about Cervera
came from Santiago, over the Cuba submarine cable on the
south coast, to the Captain-General at Havana, and Colonel
Allen's agent obtained it from "a Spanish government official
holding a high position." 186
Ten days after its arrival, the Spanish fleet came under blockade
in the harbor when ships under Admiral Sampson arrived off Santiago.
The situation remained static until July 3 when Cervera attempted
to make a dash for the sea. In a four-hour battle along the
Cuban coast, the Spanish ships succumbed to superior American firepower.
The fleet was destroyed, 474 Spanish seamen were killed, and
another 1,750 were taken prisoner. American forces counted one dead
and one ,,·ounded. On July 17, the Santiago garrison surrendered, resulting
in another 24,000 prisoners. The destruction of the Spanish
fleet marked the virtual end of the war.
The Signal Corps' third intelligence effort derived from its mission
of communications control and duty as censor, "whose purpose was not
to restrict the press, or to muzzle the people, but to thwart treason, and
to prevent news of military and naval operations from reaching
Spanish territory, to the injury of the American cause." 181
The lines constructively seized by the Signal Corps, at the
order of the President, embraced the land lines of Florida, the
seven submarine cables to foreign countries having their
termini in New York city, the French cable on the south coast
of Cuba, the English cables in Porto Rico and Santiago, and
the Cuba submarine cables.188
The Signal Corps did not actually displace any personnel operating
these lines but, instead, assumed supervision of operators and messages
in each case. The signal officer attached to each station assumed some
responsibilities as a cenSOr while the Chief Signal Officer held final
authority on such questions. Nat all communication was prohibited
over these cables and, in fact, a certain amount of intelligence derived
from allowing personal and commercial traffic.
All telegrams in Spanish to and from Spain, Cuba, Hayti,
Porto Rico, Jamaica, and St. Thomas were prohibited, as
well as all messages in cipher to any foreign country, except
that the right to communicate in cipher was allowed the legal
diplomatic and consular representatives of neutral foreign
governments.
Personal and commercial messages in plain text were admitted,
when deemed advisable, and when not containing military
information, as it was the purpose of the chief signal
officer to exercise the necessary military censorship with the
least possible inconvenience to legitimate commercial busi-
18G Ibid., p. 46; generally see Ibid., PP. 37-46.
187 Ibid., p. 113.
188 Ibid., p. 114.
69
ness..T~us it happen~d that throughout the war messages
pertallllllg to domestIc or commercial affairs were passed
freely over the lines to Havana, and even to Santiago.
Much information of inestimable value was gleaned from
a perusal of messages which were attempted to be passed by
Spanish agents, blockade-runners, newspaper correspondents,
and unfriendly or neutral persons. The movements of Spanish
ships, the plans of blockade-runners, and the presence and
doings of Spanish agents were thus discovered and watched.
By accepting messages of treasonable character and quietly
dropping them in the wastebasket, the sources of the information
were not alarmed and repeatedly furnished to the United
States valuable intelligence.189
The first efforts at establishing peace were made through the
French ambassador at "\Yashington shortly after the defeat of the
Cervera squadron. A protocol signed on August 12 provided for a
peace treaty to be concluded in Paris and halted hostilities under the
terms that (1) Spain was to relinquish Cuba and cede Puerto Rico
and one of the Ladrone Islands to the United States, (2) American
forces were to continue to hold Manila, and (3) occupation of Manila
would continue until a peace treaty was concluded determining the
disposition and control of the Philippine Islands. The Paris treaty
was finalized on December 10, ceding the Philippines, Puerto Rico,
and Guam to the United States, calling- for a payment of $20 million
for the Philippines, and effectively establishing Cuba as a free nation.
The treaty came to the United States Senate for ratification and a
close division between imperialist and anti-imperialist factions left
its adoption in doubt for a few months. Finally, on February 6, 1899,
it was accepted on a 57-27 vote, a 2-vote confirmation margin. The
war was over.
XVI. Post-War Developments
"\Vhen the Philippines were ceded to the United States, revolutionary
forces within the islands anticipated independence for their country.
"\Vhen they learned that they had merely exchanged colonial overseers,
agitation and insurrection became their tactic of reprisal. Among
those leading these assualts was Emilio Aguinaldo, an insurrectionist
of long-standing whom the United States enlisted in the war against
Spain only to have him become a foe when peace gave America control
of the Philippines. By 1901. Aguinaldo was an intelli~ence interest.
His pursuer was Frederick Funston, an agent of the Military Information
Division.
Funston had served with the Cuban revolutionary forces, was
caught by the Spanish authorities. and obtained release from prison
through the intervention of American diplomats. Upon returning to
the United States, he was debriefed by Colonel Arthur Wagner, head
of the Military Information Division. who recognized his keen eye
and remembered his abilities when difficulties arose with Aguinaldo.
Having served in the islands during the Spanish-American War,
Funston was stationed at San Isidro on Luzon when, in February,
'" Ibid., pp. 115-116.
70
1901, he received \YOI'd of the capture of a band of irusurrecto8, one of
~vhom w~s 3: courier from Aguinaldo with cipher messages for other
mSUITectIOl.llst leaders. It also appeared that Aguinaldo himself was
encamped III the northern area of Luzon, perhaps in the friendly
village of Palanan.
Funston's mind went into action. He knew it would be impossible
to take Aguinaldo by conventional military methodsany
movement of that kind would be telegraphed far ahead
by means only the keen-eyed Tagalog guerrillas knew. He
studied the map. Palanan lay inland from the east coast at the
northern end of Luzon. A plan began to form in his head.
A chosen band of Filipinos loyal to the United States and
led by only a cadre of Americans, who would have to be
disguised somehow, might be taken by sea to the north, then
disembarked at night for quick penetration of the hinterland.
By one ruse or another, Aguinaldo's stronghold would have
to be breached without a fight, or the slippery rebel chief
would disappear into nothingness as he had so often done
before.19o
Funston recruited approximately a hundred Macabebes as "revolutionaries"
and explained the presence of Americans with them as
being "captives." Their cause and case was strengthened by the addition
of some forged communiques and linguistic cramming on the part
of the Macabebes to learn the Tagalogdialect. AuthentiCity was added
to the band with appropriate uniforms and weapons. The gunboat
Vick8burg landed the group on the northern coast and a grueling
march inland was begun. After much suffering, the party came in
contact with one of Aguinaldo's forward observers; the Macabebes
were taken into the enemy camp while the American "captives" were
held a short distance away. At the proper moment, the Macabebes
seized the rebels, the Americans rushed in, and Aguinaldo was captured.
Word of the American success spread across wild northern
Luzon with the rapidity that always has astounded those
accustomed only to the electric marvels of civilization. Funston
turned his force about, prepared for the worst. He knew
that if the trip inland had been rough, the return could be
all but impossible if the country remained hostile. To his immeasurable
relief, it did not; Aguinaldo in captivity seemed
to paralyze the people. The trip to the coast was made almost
without incident and thence by ship to Manila. The
back of the insurrection was broken.19l
It was also in 1901 in the Philippines that another intelligence
actor, Captain Ralph H. Van Deman, made his appearance. A graduate
of wrest Point and once an army surgeon, Van Deman championed
the fledgling Military Information Division and urged his military
superiors to give more consideration to intelligence development.
In the Philippines, he came to the attention of General Arthur Mac-
190 Ind. op. cit., p. 119.
191 Ibid., p. 123.
71
Arthur who asked him to organize a Philippines Military Information
Bureau. Although patterned after the Adjutant General's unit,
Van Deman's office had no official connection with the ",Yashington
namesake. There "as also one major operational difference between
the two organizations: Van Deman utilized undercover operatives,
all Filipinos except for one American. Subsequently, the Philippines
Military Information Bureau ,,,ould uncover a plot to assassinate
General MacArthur, apprise the army of ,Japane:-e interests and intelligence
activity in the Philippines, and make clandestine observations
in China during the Boxer Rebellion.192 In 1903, after the General
Staff system was introduced in the army and the intelligence organization
became the second division (G-2) of the General Staff, the
Philippines Military Information Bureau was given branch status
to the new intelligence division. Van Deman returned from Asian
duty in 1915 and would assume a major leadership role in intelligence
activities as America prepared for world war.
",\Then the General Staff of the Army was created by Congress (32
Stat. 830-831) in 1903, the Military Information Division of the Adjutant
General's office became the second division (G-2) of the new
entity.193 This change in status generally pleased intelligence advocates
within the army. However, General Franklin Bell, a man with
whom Van Deman had publicly disagreed over intelligence matters
in the Philippines and an officer not favorably disposed toward the
intelligence function, became Chief of Staff. When the head of the
Army War College (G-3) suggested that the intelligence division be
physically housed with the ",Yar College to facilitate use of common
resources, Bell approved the proposal as being practical. Shortly thereafter,
the War College sought to absorb the intelligence unit: this action
Bell also approved but perhaps not merely for reasons of practicality
alone. '94 Transferred to the War College in 1908, the intelligence
function was administered by an information committee from
1910 until the dawn of World War I, a panel described by one authority
as "personnel with no knowledge of the intelligence unit's aims
and functions and no interest in learning them." 195
The military were not unaware of possible intelligence penetration
by foreign powers and of the necessity of protecting defense facilities
and information from such scrutiny. New regulations in 1908 on
this matter said:
Commanding officers of posts at which are located lake or
coastal defenses are charged with the responsibility of preventing
as far as practicable, visitors from obtaining information
relative to such defenses which would probably be
communicated to a foreign power, and to this end may pre-
192 Generally, see Ibid., pp. 124-127.
,.. Generally, on the general staff concept, see: J. D. Hittle. The Military Staff:
Its Hiatory and Development. Harrisburg, The Military Service Publishing Company,
1949; otto L. Nelson, Jr. National Security and the General Staff. Washington,
Infantry Journal Press, 1946: Raphael P. Thian. Legislative History ot
the General Staff ot the Army ot the United States, Washington, U.S. Govt.
Print. Off., 1901.
'" See Ind, op. cit., pp. 128-129.
1llli Ibid., p. 130.
72
scribe.and enforce appropriate regulations governing visitors
to theIr posts.
American citizens whose loyalty to their Government is unquestioned
may be permitted to visit such portions of the
defenses as the commanding officer deems proper.
The taking of photographic or other views of permanent
works of defense will not be permitted. Neither written nor
pictorial descriptions of these works will be made for publication
without the authority of the Secretary of War, nor
will any information be given concerning them which is not
contained in the printed reports and documents of the War
Department.
It is thought that this language constitutes the first open admission
by the 'Var Department of an effort to protect fixed defenses and information
pertaining to same against foreign intelligence penetration.
196
At approximately the same point in time as this security directive
was issued, efforts at establishing the government's first general investigative
organization came to fruition, resulting in a force generally
designed to probe crimes against the Federal establishment
and to pursue those alleged to have committed such offenses. Inherent
in this investigative mission was an intelligence function-the systematic
gathering and interpretation of information with a view to
crime control and prevention. A point of contention and debate within
this mission, as will be seen, is whether the "crimes" in question are
solely those which are prosecutable or whether other potential or actual
offenses, not stated in law, may be included in the understanding.
"\Yhile the Attorney General was one of the original Cabinet officers
of 1789, a Department of Justice did not exist until (16 Stat. 162)
June, 1870. The following year, Congress provided (16 Stat. 495 at
497) the new agency with $50,000 for the "detection and prosecution
of crimes against the United States." However, because Attorney
General Amos J. Ackerman had only one "Special Agent" for detection
work, he utilized the appropriation by employing private detectives,
borrowing Secret Service agents, or otherwise burdening United
States Attorneys and marshals with investigative tasks. In 1875, Attorney
General George H. 'Yilliams appointed four regional "special
detectives" and occasionally hired private detectives when the United
States Attorneys had need of such services for specific duties. A few
"examiners" were added to the Justice Department's forces in 1878.
These personnel scrutinized the records of court clerks, marshals,
commissioners, and district attorneys but, because their appointments
soon became embroiled in patronage, they rendered what has been
described as "desuItry service." 197 During his tenure of office, Attorney
General Benjamin H. Brewster (1881-1884) declared he was personally
opposed to utilizing private detectives for Department investigatory
work but, while he said he wanted to dispose of such operatives
as soon as possible, he was forced to rely on some private
196 The evolution of information security policy and practice is discussed in
Appendix II.
191 Harry and Bonaro Overstreet. The FBI In Our Open Society. New York,
W. W. Norton and Company, 1969, p. 14.
73
assistance and chose the Pinkerton agency. After the Homestead
Jlassacye tarnished the Pinkerton name, Congress, in indignation over
the incIdent, forbid (27 Stat. 368, 591) the further utilization of these
agents and effectively ended the use of private detectives by the
Federal government,I98
The Justice Department continued to rely upon the Secret Service
for investigators after the utilization of private detectives was halted
and, by 1906, as many as thirty-two of these operatives had been
detailed from Treasury. The arrangement was a makeshift and rested
upon congressional sanction through the annual appropriations process.
By 1907, Attorney General Charles J. Bona9arte, the Americanborll
grandson of :Napoleon's youngest brothel', attempted to obtain
his own investigators but Congress, for various reasons, was uncon"
inced of their necessity.
One factor was an overgeneralized but not unwarranted
contempt for detectives and their practices. Many persons
who then went into such work were recommended for it by
their own criminal records and what these had taug-ht them
about the underworld, not by any respect for the law.
To Attorney General Bonaparte, the fact that detectives
tended not to be a "high type" signified that Justice should
have its own force of carefully chosen and rigorously supervised
investigators. But to many members of Congressamong
them Chairman James A. Tawney of the House Approriations
Committee-it signified that detectives should,
to the greatest possible extent, be kept out of the Federal
Government.
The other factor was a state of tension between Congress
and the President. Its basic cause was the fact that a Congress
still rooted in the McKinley-Mark Hanna tradition of politics
had no taste for Roosevelt's many-sided reform program~r
for his "trust-busting" fervor.
Speaker Joe Cannon, for example-the most powerful man
in the House-broke with the President and became one of
his arch-foes because of the Government's antitrust action
against Standard Oil. This and other actions of like type
had, Cannon contended, shaken the confidence of the business
community and brought on financial panic.
Secondary causes of tension were, however, soon added to
the primary cause. In 1905, Senator John Mitchell and Representative
John Williamson, both of Oregon, were indicted
in land-fraud cases. When Roosevelt said, in terms that
sounded like a blanket charge of wrongdoing, that he would
order as many more investigations of members of Congress
198 On July 6, 1892, strikers at the Carnegie Steel Company plant in Homestead,
Pennsylvania, fired upon two barges on the ~fonongahela River containing some
300 Pinkerton detectives. The Pinkertons were known strike breakers and their
presence generated hatred among the strikers. After several hours of fighting,
the Pinkerton forces surrendered and were roughlJ' escorted out of town. In the
aftermath of the encounter, three guards and ten strikers lay dead and others
suffered se,·ere injuries. Some 8,000 Xational Guardsmen restored order in the
community and subsequently, after holding out for almost five months, the strike
was given up. Xo effective steel union was organized in the area until the 1930s.
74
as seemed warranted, that body went on the defensive. It
was kept there by rumormongers, some of whom were indubitably
in the pay of elements that wanted to goad Congress
into halting Justice's use of Secret Service operatives.199
Not only did Congress deny Bonaparte's request for an investigative
force in 1907, it refused to comply again the following- year when a
prohibition (35 Stat. 328 and 968) on the detailing of Secret Service
agents to the Justice Department was also effected. Faced with the
prospect of having no avenue for organizing a detection group other
than on his own authority, the Attorney General, with the President's
approval and at the suggestion of Henry L. Stimson who was then
United States Attorney in New York, hired nine Secret Service
agents who were separated from Treasury on June 30, 1908.
On July 1, 1908, Attorney General Bonaparte put his nine
new detectives and such special agents and examiners as
were already on his payroll under the supervision of his
Chief Examiner, Stanley W. Finch-and thus gave himself
a force of twenty-three men. On July 26th, acting on Presidential
instructions, he issued the order which made this
force a permanent subdivision of the Department, with Finch
as its Chief.20o
Reluctantly, Congress accepted the new investigative unit. At first
it did not have a strong- mission prescribed by existing laws. Soon,
however, it began operations pursuant to the Constitution's interstate
commerce clause-tracking down stolen Federal property and thieves
transversing State boundaries, pursuing white slavers violating the
:Mann Act (36 Stat. 825), and scrutinizing the sources of labor unrest
and revolutionary rhetoric. Soon it, along with the other fledgling
intellig-ence institutions, would be confronted with monumental responsibilities
as war clouds in Europe cast shadows upon America
and plunged the world into war.
100 Overstreet, op. cit., pp. 19-20.
200 Ibid., p. 27.

Go to Next Page