THE SECRET SERVICE OF THE WAR.
Mr. Stanton's agents and spies—Regular subterranean traffic between Washington and Richmond—A man who spied for both sides—The arrest of the Baltimore merchants—Stanton's remarkable speech on the meaning of disloyalty—Intercepting Jefferson Davis's letters to Canada—Detecting the plot to burn New York, and the plan to invade Vermont—Story of the cleverest and pluckiest of spies and his remarkable adventures.
After Early's invaders had retired and quiet was restored, I went to Mr. Stanton for new orders. As there was no probability of an immediate change in the situation before Petersburg, the Secretary did not think it necessary for me to go back to Grant, but preferred that I remain in the department, helping with the routine work.
Much of my time at this period was spent in investigating charges against defaulting contractors and dishonest agents, and in ordering arrests of persons suspected of disloyalty to the Government. I assisted, too, in supervising the spies who were going back and forth between the lines. Among these I remember one, a sort of peddler—whose name I will call Morse—who traveled between Washington and Richmond. When he went down it was in the character of a man who had entirely hoodwinked the Washington authorities, and who, in spite of them, or by some corruption or other, always brought with him into the Confederate lines something that the people wanted—dresses for the ladies or some little luxury that they couldn't get otherwise. The things that he took with him were always supervised by our agents before he went away. When he came back he brought us in exchange a lot of valuable information. He was doubtless a spy on both sides; but as we got a great deal of information, which could be had in no other way, about the strength of the Confederate armies, and the preparations and the movements of the enemy, we allowed the thing to go on. The man really did good service for us that summer, and, as we were frequently able to verify by other means the important information he brought, we had a great deal of confidence in him.
Early in October, 1864, he came back from Richmond, and, as usual, went to Baltimore to get his outfit for the return trip. When he presented himself again in Washington, the chief detective of the War Department, Colonel Baker, examined his goods carefully, but this time he found that Morse had many things that we could not allow him to take. Among his stuff were uniforms and other military goods, and all this, of course, was altogether too contraband to be passed. We had all his bills, telling where he had bought these things in Baltimore. They amounted to perhaps twenty-five thousand dollars, or more. So we confiscated the contraband goods, and put Morse in prison.
But the merchants in Baltimore were partners in his guilt, and Secretary Stanton declared he would arrest every one of them and put them in prison until the affair could be straightened up. He turned the matter over to me then, as he was going to Fort Monroe for a few days. I immediately sent Assistant-Adjutant-General Lawrence to Baltimore with orders to see that all persons implicated were arrested. Lawrence telegraphed me, on October 16th, that the case would involve the arrest of two hundred citizens. I reported to the Secretary, but he was determined to go ahead. The next morning ninety-seven of the leading citizens of Baltimore were arrested, brought to Washington, and confined in Old Capitol Prison, principally in solitary cells. There was great satisfaction among the Union people of the town, but great indignation among Southern sympathizers. Presently a deputation from Baltimore came over to see President Lincoln. It was an outrage, they said; the gentlemen arrested were most respectable merchants and faultless citizens, and they demanded that they all be set instantly at liberty and damages paid them. Mr. Lincoln sent the deputation over to the War Department, and Mr. Stanton, who had returned by this time, sent for me. "All Baltimore is coming here," he said. "Sit down and hear the discussion."
They came in, the bank presidents and boss merchants of Baltimore—there must have been at least fifty million dollars represented in the deputation—and sat down around the fire in the Secretary's office. Presently they began to make their speeches, detailing the circumstances and the wickedness of this outrage. There was no ground for it, they said, no justification. After half a dozen of them had spoken, Mr. Stanton asked one after another if he had anything more to say, and they all said no. Then Stanton began, and delivered one of the most eloquent speeches that I ever heard. He described the beginning of the war, for which, he said, there was no justification; being beaten in an election was no reason for destroying the Government. Then he went on to the fact that half a million of our young men had been laid in untimely graves by this conspiracy of the slave interest. He outlined the whole conspiracy in the most solemn and impressive terms, and then he depicted the offense that this man Morse, aided by these several merchants, had committed. "Gentlemen," he said, "if you would like to examine the bills of what he was taking to the enemy, here they are."
When Stanton had finished, these gentlemen, without answering a word, got up and one by one went away. That was the only speech I ever listened to that cleared out the entire audience.
Early in the winter of 1863-'64 a curious thing happened in the secret service of the War Department. Some time in the February or March before, a slender and prepossessing young fellow, between twenty-two and twenty-six apparently, had applied at the War Department for employment as a spy within the Confederate lines.
The main body of the Army of Northern Virginia was then lying at Gordonsville, and the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac were at Culpeper Courthouse. General Grant had not yet come from the West to take command of the momentous campaign which afterward opened with his movement into the Wilderness on the 5th of May.
The young man who sought this terrible service was well dressed and intelligent, and professed to be animated by motives purely patriotic. He was a clerk in one of the departments. All that he asked was that he should have a horse and an order which would carry him safely through the Federal lines, and, in return, he undertook to bring information from General Lee's army and from the Government of the Confederacy in Richmond. He understood perfectly the perilous nature of the enterprise he proposed.
Finding that the applicant bore a good character in the office where he was employed, it was determined to accept his proposal. He was furnished with a horse, an order that would pass him through the Union lines, and also, I believe, with a moderate sum of money, and then he departed. Two or three weeks later he reported at the War Department. He had been in Gordonsville and Richmond, had obtained the confidence of the Confederate authorities, and was the bearer of a letter from Mr. Jefferson Davis to Mr. Clement C. Clay, the agent of the Confederate Government in Canada, then known to be stationed at St. Catherine's, not far from Niagara Falls. Mr. Clay had as his official associate Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, who had been Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Buchanan, and, like Mr. Clay, had been serving the Confederate Government ever since its organization.
The letter from Mr. Davis the young man exhibited, but only the outside of the envelope was examined. The address was in the handwriting of the Confederate chief, and the statement of our young adventurer that it was merely a letter of recommendation advising Messrs. Clay and Thompson that they might repose confidence in the bearer, since he was ardently devoted to the Confederate cause and anxious to serve the great purpose that it had in view, appeared entirely probable; so the young man was allowed to proceed to Niagara Falls and Canada. He made some general report upon the condition of the rebel army at Gordonsville, but it was of no particular value, except that in its more interesting features it agreed with our information from other sources.
Our spy was not long in returning from St. Catherine's with a dispatch which was also allowed to pass unopened, upon his assurance that it contained nothing of importance. In this way he went back and forward from Richmond to St. Catherine's once or twice. We supplied him with money to a limited extent, and also with one or two more horses. He said that he got some money from the Confederates, but had not thought it prudent to accept from them anything more than very small sums, since his professed zeal for the Confederate cause forbade his receiving anything for his traveling expenses beyond what was absolutely necessary.
During the summer of 1864 the activity of Grant's campaign, and the fighting which prevailed all along the line, somewhat impeded our young man's expeditions, but did not stop them. All his subsequent dispatches, however, whether coming from Richmond or from Canada, were regularly brought to the War Department, and were opened, and in every case a copy of them was kept. As it was necessary to break the seals and destroy the envelopes in opening them, there was some difficulty in sending them forward in what should appear to be the original wrappers. Coming from Canada, the paper employed was English, and there was a good deal of trouble in procuring paper of the same appearance. I remember also that one important dispatch, which was sealed with Mr. Clay's seal, had to be delayed somewhat while we had an imitation seal engraved. But these delays were easily accounted for at Richmond by the pretense that they had been caused by accidents upon the road and by the necessity of avoiding the Federal pickets. At any rate, the confidence of the Confederates in our agent and in theirs never seemed to be shaken by any of these occurrences.
Finally our dispatch bearer reported one day at the War Department with a document which, he said, was of extraordinary consequence. It was found to contain an account of a scheme for setting fire to New York and Chicago by means of clock-work machines that were to be placed in several of the large hotels and places of amusement—particularly in Barnum's Museum in New York—and to be set off simultaneously, so that the fire department in each place would be unable to attend to the great number of calls that would be made upon it on account of these Confederate conflagrations in so many different quarters, and thus these cities might be greatly damaged, or even destroyed.
This dispatch was duly sealed up again and was taken to Richmond, and a confidential officer was at once sent to New York to warn General Dix, who was in command there, of the Confederate project. The general was very unwilling to believe that any such design could be seriously entertained, and Mr. John A. Kennedy, then superintendent of police, was equally incredulous. But the Secretary of War was peremptory in his orders, and when the day of the incendiary attempt arrived both the military and the police made every preparation to prevent the threatened catastrophe. The officer who went from Washington was lodged in the St. Nicholas Hotel, one of the large establishments that were to be set on fire, and while he was washing his hands in the evening, preparatory to going to dinner, a fire began burning in the room next to his. It was promptly put out, and was found to be caused by a clock-work apparatus which had been left in that room by a lodger who had departed some hours before. Other fires likewise occurred. In every instance these fires were extinguished without much damage and without exciting any considerable public attention, thanks to the precautions that had been taken in consequence of the warning derived from Mr. Clay's dispatch to Mr. Benjamin in Richmond. The plan of setting fire to Chicago proved even more abortive; I do not remember that any report of actual burning was received from there.
Later in the fall, after the military operations had substantially terminated for the season, a dispatch was brought from Canada, signed by Mr. Clay, and addressed to Mr. Benjamin, as Secretary of State in the Confederate Government, conveying the information that a new and really formidable military expedition against northern Vermont—particularly against Burlington, if I am not mistaken—had been organized and fitted out in Canada, and would make its attack as soon as practicable. This was after the well-known attempt upon St. Albans and Lake Champlain, on October 19, 1864, and promised to be much more injurious. The dispatch reached Washington one Sunday morning, and was brought to the War Department as usual, but its importance in the eyes of the Confederate agents had led to its being prepared for transportation with uncommon care. It was placed between two thicknesses of the pair of re-enforced cavalry trousers which the messenger wore, and sewed up so that when he was mounted it was held between his thigh and the saddle.
Having been carefully ripped out and opened, it was immediately carried to Mr. Stanton, who was confined to his house by a cold. He read it. "This is serious," he said. "Go over to the White House and ask the President to come here." Mr. Lincoln was found dressing to go to church, and he was soon driven to Mr. Stanton's house. After discussing the subject in every aspect, and considering thoroughly the probability that to keep the dispatch would put an end to communications by this channel, they determined that it must be kept. The conclusive reason for this step was that it established beyond question the fact that the Confederates, while sheltering themselves behind the British Government in Canada, had organized and fitted out a military expedition against the United States. But while the dispatch afforded evidence that could not be gainsaid, the mere possession of it was not sufficient. It must be found in the possession of the Confederate dispatch bearer, and the circumstances attending its capture must be established in such a manner that the British Foreign Office would not be able to dispute the genuineness of the document. "We must have this paper for Seward," said Mr. Lincoln. "As for the young man, get him out of the scrape if you can."
Accordingly, the paper was taken back to the War Department and sewed up again in the trousers whence it had been taken three hours before. The bearer was instructed to start at dusk on the road which he usually took in passing through the lines, to be at a certain tavern outside of Alexandria at nine o'clock in the evening, and to stop there to water his horse. Then information was sent through Major-General Augur, commandant of Washington and the surrounding region, to Colonel Henry H. Wells, then provost marshal general of the defenses south of the Potomac, stationed at Alexandria, directing him to be at this tavern at nine o'clock in the evening, and to arrest a Confederate dispatch bearer, concerning whom authentic information had been received at the War Department, and whose description was furnished for his (Wells's) guidance. He was to do the messenger no injury, but to make sure of his person and of all papers that he might have upon him, and to bring him under a sufficient guard directly to the War Department. And General Augur was directed to be present there, in order to assist in the examination of the prisoner, and to verify any dispatches that might be found.
Just before midnight a carriage drove up to the door of the War Department with a soldier on the box and two soldiers on the front seat within, while the back seat was occupied by Colonel Wells and the prisoner. Of course, no one but the two or three who had been in the secret was aware that this gentleman had walked quietly out of the War Department only a few hours previously, and that the paper which was the cause of the entire ceremony had been sewed up in his clothes just before his departure. Colonel Wells reported that, while the prisoner had offered no resistance, he was very violent and outrageous in his language, and that he boasted fiercely of his devotion to the Confederacy and his detestation of the Union. During the examination which now followed he said nothing except to answer a few questions, but his bearing—patient, scornful, undaunted—was that of an incomparable actor. If Mr. Clay and Mr. Benjamin had been present, they would have been more than ever certain that he was one of their noblest young men. His hat, boots, and other articles of his clothing were taken off one by one. The hat and boots were first searched, and finally the dispatch was found in his trousers and taken out. Its nature and the method of its capture were stated in a memorandum which was drawn up on the spot and signed by General Augur and Colonel Wells and one or two other officers who were there for the purpose, and then the dispatch bearer himself was sent off to the Old Capitol Prison.
The dispatch, with the documents of verification, was handed over to Mr. Seward for use in London, and a day or two afterward the warden of the Old Capitol Prison was directed to give the dispatch bearer an opportunity of escaping, with a proper show of attempted prevention. One afternoon the spy walked into my office. "Ah!" said I, "you have run away."
"Yes, sir," he answered.
"Did they shoot at you?"
"They did, and didn't hit me; but I didn't think that would answer the purpose. So I shot myself through the arm."
He showed me the wound. It was through the fleshy part of the forearm, and due care had been taken not to break any bones. A more deliberate and less dangerous wound could not be, and yet it did not look trivial.
He was ordered to get away to Canada as promptly as possible, so that he might explain the loss of his dispatch before it should become known there by any other means. An advertisement offering two thousand dollars for his recapture was at once inserted in the New York Herald, the Pittsburgh Journal, and the Chicago Tribune. No one ever appeared to claim the reward, but in about a week the escaped prisoner returned from Canada with new dispatches that had been entrusted to him. They contained nothing of importance, however. The wound in his arm had borne testimony in his favor, and the fact that he had hurried through to St. Catherine's without having it dressed was thought to afford conclusive evidence of his fidelity to the Confederate cause.
The war was ended soon after this adventure, and, as his services had been of very great value, a new place, with the assurance of lasting employment, was found for the young man in one of the bureaus of the War Department. He did not remain there very long, however, and I don't know what became of him. He was one of the cleverest creatures I ever saw. His style of patriotic lying was sublime; it amounted to genius.