The Mythology of Civil War Intelligence

Abstract

THE MYTHOLOGY OF CIVIL WAR INTELLIGENCE Edwin C. Fishel By illuminating the strategic and tactical decisions made by military commanders, historical study of intelligence operations reveals much about how battles, campaigns, and perhaps even wars were won or lost. For the Civil War no significant study of this land has yet seen the light of day. Its place was preempted years ago by another kind of intelligence history: the collection of colorful improbabilities—mere cloakand -dagger stories—that a handful of Federal and Confederate spies published as memoirs. These tall tales have been reworked again and again by "popular" biographers and historians until they have long since hardened into a mythology. Fact ordinarily stands a poor chance against a fable with a head start. But the body of Civil War intelligence myths is small (the spymemoirists numbered only about two dozen ) and the amount of available fact to be matched against them is vast; once the true intelligence story enters the literature, the myths must dwindle into insignificance. As a beginning of this corrective task, let us identify and dispel the most prevalent of the myths.1 Myth No. I—There was in the Civil War an activity known as intelligence . In the United States of the 1860's "intelligence" was simply a synonym for "information." The special meaning of information about an enemy or rival power did not enter the American military lexicon until about three decades later.2 Today it is difficult—and the attempt will not be made here—to deal in military history without using "intelligence" in 1 This article is drawn from some of the major findings of a full-length study of Civil War intelligence operations and their effect on the military campaigns. The first volume of this project, covering the war in the East through Gettysburg, is complete; most of the examples cited here are extracted from this volume. Citations of principal manuscript and unpublished archival sources are omitted in order to protect the material still in preparation. 2 Gen. Philip Sheridan employed the term "intelligence-establishment" in his Personal Memoirs (New York, 1888), II, 1, but such usage had not yet become widespread. Col. Arthur L. Wagner, whose West Point textbook on intelligence and security went through numerous printings, was still using The Service of Security and Information as his title in the eleventh edition (Kansas City, 1903). 344 this modern sense. But many of its occurrences in latter-day works reflect an unawareness of its usage a century ago. In the Civil War the term used to designate the activities now called intelligence, and also those now known as counterintelligence, was "secret service." Even ordinary criminal investigation was likely to be referred to as secret service when performed by persons or organizations ako engaged in counterintelligence. This matter of terminology has more than semantical or philological significance. That the imprecise and melodramatic phrase "secret service " enjoyed such status reveals a good bit about the concepts underlying these activities—or, rather, their lack of conceptual basis. "Secret service" is not ignored in die modern literature, but there too it is misused , especially widi respect to Myth No. 2—There was an organization in the Federal Government known as the Secret Service and one in the Confederacy known as the Signal and Secret Service Bureau. Again the error is merely a matter of usage, but again one with the quality of suggesting a state of things quite different from what actually existed. Each government possessed a secret service, to be sure, but neither one called it the Secret Service or used any extension of that title; for in both cases this service had no national organization and little national character. Generals at any and all echelons engaged in intelligence and counterintelligence operations ad libitum. They hired their own spies and detectives, devised projects, and assigned missions altogether on their own initiative. One assigned responsibility for this activity to his provost marshal, another to his adjutant, another to his signal officer, another to his chief of staff; still another would create a special staff position for the purpose. Some commanders personally supervised their spies and detectives. In some commands intelligence was assigned to one...