Providing Information

One of the first orders that Union Major General Joseph Hooker made after becoming the commander of the Army of the Potomac was on February 11^th 1863, creating the Bureau of Military Information.

The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, run by Allan Pinkerton assumed responsibility for President Abraham Lincoln’s safety in 1861.  Pinkerton also provided intelligence for Union General George B McClellan.  General Winfield Scott hired Lafayette C Baker a detective for information.  Lincoln himself paid a publisher; William A Lloyd to infiltrate the Confederacy and provide information.  In all these cases though, these men were civilians.

When Union Major General Joseph Hooker became the commander of the Army of the Potomac, he ordered his deputy provost marshal Colonel George H Sharpe to create an intelligence unit.  Sharpe received assistance from John C Babcock; a former Pinkerton employee and they established the Bureau of Military Information [the BMI] on February 11^th 1863.

The BMI had about 70 field agents during the, 10 of whom were killed during the war.  These and additional agents preformed interrogations, scanned confederate newspapers and captured documents for information that could be helpful to the Union war effort.  Union General Ulysses S Grant kept BMI staff in his headquarters, so he would have the most recent information.

The BMI ceased to be once the Civil War came to an end in 1865. 

The First Union Spy

Pinkerton agent Timothy Webster became the first spy to be executed during the Civil War on April 29th 1862.

Timothy Webster was born March 12th 1822, and moved with his parents to America in 1830. They settled in Princeton, New Jersey. Webster became a New York City policeman in 1853, and was brought to attention of Allan Pinkerton a year latter.

At the beginning of 1861 Pinkerton sent Webster and a female spy, Hattie Lawton to Baltimore, Maryland. They were supposed to pose as husband and wife pro-Southerns. It was Webster’s actives in Baltimore that gave Pinkerton the information about the Baltimore Plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln before his inauguration. Once the war started Webster was sent to Tennessee, Kentucky and Richmond, Virginia to gather information about the Confederacy for Pinkerton. While in Richmond in 1862 Webster had a bout of inflammatory rheumatism and was to sick to make reports. Pinkerton sent two other agents, Pryce Lewis and John Scully to find Webster. Lewis and Scully were recognized as Union spies, and they along with Webster were arrested. Lewis and Scully would be released, but Webster who had received and passed valuable documents from Confederate officers and higher-ups was tried and sentenced to death.

Upon learning of Webster’s death sentence, Pinkerton and President Lincoln warned the Confederacy that if they put Webster to death, the Union would reciprocate by hanging a Confederate spy. At Camp Lee in Richmond, Virginia on April 29th 1862 Webster was led to the gallows. Something went wrong with the first hanging, but he was executed in a second attempt. Webster was buried in Richmond, but Pinkerton had his body moved in 1871. Webster was finally laid to rest in Onarga, Illinois, where he was buried next to his father and a son who had been killed during the war.

America's First Detective

A detective and spy, and the founder of the first detective agency in the United States, Allan Pinkerton was born on August 25th 1819.

Allan Pinkerton was born in Glasgow, Scotland August 25th 1819 the son of William and Isabel Pinkerton. He emigrated to the US in 1842. In 1850 Pinkerton joined with lawyer Edward Rucker of Chicago IL to form the North-Western Police Agency, which would become in 1852 the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. It was the first detective agency in the United States. He guarded Abraham Lincoln on his way to his first inauguration, protecting him from an alleged assassination plot. With the outbreak of the Civil War Pinkerton served as the head of the Union Intelligence Service at the sugestion of General George B McClellan [this was the forerunner of the Secret Service]. Pinkerton and his agents often worked undercover as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers to gain information. He used an alias of Major E J Allen.

His agency led in the pursuit for Frank and Jessie James between 1867 and 1875. One of the Pinkerton’s agents, James McParland infiltrated the secret society of the Molly Maguires in 1875, leading to the execution of twenty of its members.

In June of 1884 he slipped and bit his tongue. Pinkerton didn’t get any treatment, and his tongue became infected. He died July 1st 1884. Pinkerton is buried in Chicago Illinois in the  Graceland Cemetery. At the time of his death he was working on a method of centralizing criminal records, a data base now maintained by the FBI.

Sneaking Into Town

At six am on February 23 1861 Abraham Lincoln along with his friend Ward H Lamon and Allan Pinkerton arrived by train in Washington DC. Before this leg, Lincoln’s journey east had been very public, filled with parades, rallies and speeches. However do to concerns about his safety, and rumors of a plot to kill him when he traveled through Baltimore MD, this last train ride was made in secrecy.

After reluctantly agreeing, Lincoln and his traveling companions left Harrisburg PA after dinner on the 22nd, on a special train to Philadelphia PA. From Philadelphia they connected with a late train which arrived in Baltimore MD about four in the morning. From the there they switched trains for the one into Washington, where they were met by Illinois Representative Elihu Washburne, who took them to the Willard Hotel. Lincoln’s enemies as well as many of his supporters ridiculed his sneaking into Washington. Lincoln himself came to regret the move, feeling it wasn’t a commendable action for the leader of the republic.

Some other reading you might be interested in
History And Evidence Of The Passage Of Abraham Lincoln From Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, To Washington, D.C., On February 22-23, 1861

The Gold Took Her Down

Rose Greenhow was a heroin of the Confederacy,  she drowned  October 1st 1864, while trying to get away from a grounded ship with $ 2,000 in gold.

Maria Rosatta O’Neal was born 1817 in Port Tobacco,Maryland. She received the nick name Wild Rose at an early age. Her father John O’Neal was killed by one of his slaves when she was young, leaving her mother Eliza with a cash poor farm to manage. To help with finances, Rose was sent to live in Washington,DC with an Aunt who ran a boarding house. She married Dr Robert Greenhow in 1835, and was the toast of Washington society.  They were blessed with four daughters.

As a member of Washington’s high society Rose traveled in important political, and military circles. These connections allowed her to become a top Confederate Spy. She passed information to General PGT Beauregard regarding the Union plans for the First Battle of Manassas, perhaps changing the out come of the day. She was arrested in Aug of 1861 by Allan Pinkerton, and transferred to the Old Capitol Prison in January. Even while in the prison Rose was able to get and send information to the Confederate government. In May of 1862 Rose and her 8 year old daughter were deported to Richmond,VA.

Rose spent 1863 and 1864 in Europe, traveling through France and Britain raising sympathy for the Confederacy among European aristocrats. While in London Mrs. Greenhow wrote a book about her time in prison, which sold well in England. In September of 1864 she headed home on the “Condor”; a blockade runner, carrying $2,000 in gold sewn into her dress for the Confederacy. The ship was run aground near Wilmington, North Carolina October 1st 1864, and Rose was drowned while trying to escape in a rowboat.