Edwin C. Fishel - The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War

Copyright 1996 by Edwin C. Fishel

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Fishel, Edwin C.

The secret war for the union : the untold story of military intelligence in the Civil War / Edwin C. Fishel.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-395-74281-1
ISBN 0-395-90136-7 (pbk.)

1. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Military intelligence. 2. Military intelligenceUnited StatesHistory19th century. I. Title.

E 608. F 57 1996 96-12741
973-7'85dc 20 CIP

e ISBN 978-0-544-38813-0
v1.0614

Thanks are due to Kent State University Press for permission to reprint portions of the authors article Pinkerton and McClellan: Who Deceived Whom? Civil War History, 1988.

For Gladys, Reverdy, and Katie

Beginning

Allan Pinkerton with William Moore, George H. Bangs, John Babcock, and Augustus K. Littiefield. Millers Photographic History

General George B. McClellan. National Archives

Colonel Lafayette C. Baker. National Archives

Colonel George H. Sharpe, John Babcock, Lieutenant Frederick L. Manning, and Captain John McEntee. Millers Photographic History

General Joseph Hooker. Millers Photographic History

General Daniel Butterfield. National Archives

General Marsena R. Patrick. National Archives

Captain William J. Palmer. Military History Institute

William Wilson. Millers Photographic History

General John Pope. National Archives

General Alfred Pleasonton. National Archives

David McConaughy. Authors collection

Belle Boyd. National Archives

Rose Greenhow and her daughter, Rose. Millers Photographic History

Elizabeth Van Lew. Authors collection

Colonel Albert J. Myer. Authors collection

General George G. Meade. National Archives

Butterfields draft of the hoax message that deceived Lee. National Archives

The Federals intercept of the Confederate decode of the hoax message. Hooker Papers

John Babcocks report of the depleted condition of Lees army at Gettysburg. National Archives

The signal officers oath of secrecy given by Edward Porter Alexander. Authors collection

Order-of-battle chart of Lees army. Hooker Papers

Region of First Bull Run Campaign

The Northern Virginia Theater

The Peninsula Campaign

Shenandoah Valley

Region of Second Bull Run Campaign

Region of the Antietam Campaign

Region of the Fredericksburg Campaign

Region of the Chancellorsville Campaign

A Section of the Chancellorsville Battlefield

Hookers Advance to Chancellorsville

Situation, 5 P.M. , May 2, 1863

Situation, Afternoon, May 4, 1863

Lees Positions, May 27, 1863

Region of Captain McEntees Operations

Situation, Morning of June 13, 1863

Ewells Attack on Winchester

Situation, June 20, 1863

Ewells Marches in Maryland and Pennsylvania

Lees Advance into Maryland

Situation, P.M. , June 24, 1863

Lees Advance into Pennsylvania

Situation, P.M. , June 28, 1863

Situation, Night of June 30, 1863

From Gettysburg to Appomattox

BY STEPHEN W. SEARS

IN OCTOBER 1959, at the National Archives in Washington, Edwin C. Fishel made a discovery that was, in the context of Civil War historical research, sensational. In what he has described as a half-roomful of miscellaneous records of the Army of the Potomac were bundles of documents he had no idea still existedthe operational files of that armys Bureau of Military Information, arranged with bureaucratic thoroughness and nearly tied with red tapes. They had been undisturbed for nearly a century. Fishel had discovered the first building block for what would beand isthe first authentic history of military intelligence in the Civil War.

It is truly remarkable that after all these decades, after the publication of more than 50,000 books and pamphlets, there could be a major gap in our knowledge and understanding of the Civil War. Certainly no period in our national history has been so minutely examined as the years 1861 to 1865. Yet until now we have known almost nothingnothing authenticof the critically important role of intelligence in Civil War campaigns. The Secret War for the Union is a truly groundbreaking story.

To be sure, in the vast Civil War library there is already a shelf devoted to espionage or intelligence tides. To the serious student of that war it is a sad array, the repository of (in publishings apt slang) the potboiler. These books are descended from the memoirs of men and women who claimed, not all of them truthfully, to have been spies for the Union or the Confederacy. Later writers have added liberally to the numerous fictions and occasional facts in these books. The literature thus created tells mainly of spies trials and tribulations; if it touches on the outcome of battles, it vastly exaggerates the spys contribution and tells nothing that helps us understand the commanders decisions and actions. And it treats espionage as the be-all and end-all of intelligence, ignoring, for example, important information from balloonists and signalmen with their telescopes.

Edwin Fishel went on from that 1959 discovery to find intelligence records in other sources. He cast his net widely. General McClellans papers, which had been available to researchers for nearly a century, contained, among much else of interest, more than a thousand pages of reports by his intelligence chief, detective Allan Pinkertona gold mine untouched by the potboiler writers. The privately held papers of General Hooker, originator of the Bureau of Military Information, yielded a trove of the bureaus reports. These, combined with the reports in the bureaus files, reveal that its officers integrated information from all types of sourcesspies, scouts, cavalry, balloonists and Signal Corps observers, and interrogation of prisoners and deserters. This analytic operation is a milestone in the history of United States intelligence.

But putting previously unexploited sources to use does not make a definitive study. That goal required interpretation of the often disparate evidence in these documents, drawing on Fishels thirty years of experience in the United States intelligence service. Thus we have a fully crafted intelligence history of each campaign examined, with intelligences hits and misses, successes and failures. In these pages, for the first time, are answers to some of the most tantalizing whys of the war.

Walt Whitman, fresh from witnessing the effect of the Civil War on Americans of his time, offered an oft-quoted observation that the real war will never get in the books. The Secret War for the Union takes us one very important step closer to that real war.

I N PRESIDENT LINCOLNS VIEW , intelligence was the hardest nut to crack in the grand strategy that would defeat the Confederacy. Writing to his western generals early in 1862, Lincoln said that knowledge of enemy movements was the most constantly present, and most difficult of the problems to be solved if the Union was to maneuver its forces so that their superior numbers could be brought to bear to offset the Confederates advantage in having interior lines, which meant shorter marches to any point of concentration.