Spies Of The Confederacy

A fascinating and well-documented account of the true-life exploits of famous and obscure Southern spies who served the Southern cause. Essential reading for Civil War buffs, American History students and spy story aficionados..

Details the lives of six women who fought to preserve the Confederacy and the Southern way of life by serving as spies during the Civil War.

This title takes a close look at the operatives who collected intelligence for the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War, introducing readers to these colorful characters and explaining how they carried out their risky missions. Gripping narrative text, historic photographs, and primary sources make the book perfect for report writing. Features include a glossary, additional resources, source notes, and an index, plus a timeline and essential facts. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

This major addition to the history of the Civil War is a “fast-paced, fact-rich account” (The Wall Street Journal) offering a detailed look at President Abraham Lincoln’s use of clandestine services and the secret battles waged by Union spies and agents to save the nation—filled with espionage, sabotage, and intrigue. Veteran CIA correspondent Douglas Waller delivers a riveting account of the heroes and misfits who carried out a shadow war of espionage and covert operations behind the Confederate battlefields. Lincoln’s Spies follows four agents from the North—three men and one woman—who informed Lincoln’s generals on the enemy positions for crucial battles and busted up clandestine Rebel networks. Famed detective Allan Pinkerton mounted a successful covert operation to slip Lincoln through Baltimore before his inauguration after he learns of an assassination attempt from his agents working undercover as Confederate soldiers. But he proved less than competent as General George McClellan’s spymaster, delivering faulty intelligence reports that overestimated Confederate strength. George Sharpe, an erudite New York lawyer, succeeded Pinkerton as spymaster for the Union’s Army of the Potomac. Sharpe deployed secret agents throughout the South, planted misinformation with Robert E. Lee’s army, and outpaced anything the enemy could field. Elizabeth Van Lew, a Virginia heiress who hated slavery and disapproved of secession, was one of Sharpe’s most successful agents. She ran a Union spy ring in Richmond out of her mansion with dozens of agents feeding her military and political secrets that she funneled to General Ulysses S. Grant as his army closed in on the Confederate capital. Van Lew became one of the unsung heroes of history. Lafayette Baker was a handsome Union officer with a controversial past, whose agents clashed with Pinkerton’s operatives. He assembled a retinue of disreputable spies, thieves, and prostitutes to root out traitors in Washington, DC. But he failed at his most important mission: uncovering the threat to Lincoln from John Wilkes Booth and his gang. Behind these operatives was Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents, who was an avid consumer of intelligence and a ruthless aficionado of clandestine warfare, willing to take whatever chances necessary to win the war. Lincoln’s Spies is a “meticulous chronicle of all facets of Lincoln’s war effort” (Kirkus Reviews) and an excellent choice for those wanting “a cracking good tale” (Publishers Weekly) of espionage in the Civil War.

Barred from fighting for their beliefs on the battlefield, though many tried, Southern women served the Confederacy in other ways, like through the timeless art of espionage. Confederate women used their wits, charm, and beauty to discover Union secrets and carry out covert operations for the war efforts. This insightful book highlights these little-discussed Confederate figures, including the famously persuasive Rose O'Neal. Readers will meet the Moon sisters, who used their acting skills to smuggle information and supplies under the noses of Union soldiers using all manner of disguises.

The New York Times-bestselling final book by the beloved, Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Tony Horwitz. With Spying on the South, the best-selling author of Confederates in the Attic returns to the South and the Civil War era for an epic adventure on the trail of America's greatest landscape architect. In the 1850s, the young Frederick Law Olmsted was adrift, a restless farmer and dreamer in search of a mission. He found it during an extraordinary journey, as an undercover correspondent in the South for the up-and-coming New York Times. For the Connecticut Yankee, pen name "Yeoman," the South was alien, often hostile territory. Yet Olmsted traveled for 14 months, by horseback, steamboat, and stagecoach, seeking dialogue and common ground. His vivid dispatches about the lives and beliefs of Southerners were revelatory for readers of his day, and Yeoman's remarkable trek also reshaped the American landscape, as Olmsted sought to reform his own society by creating democratic spaces for the uplift of all. The result: Central Park and Olmsted's career as America's first and foremost landscape architect. Tony Horwitz rediscovers Yeoman Olmsted amidst the discord and polarization of our own time. Is America still one country? In search of answers, and his own adventures, Horwitz follows Olmsted's tracks and often his mode of transport (including muleback): through Appalachia, down the Mississippi River, into bayou Louisiana, and across Texas to the contested Mexican borderland. Venturing far off beaten paths, Horwitz uncovers bracing vestiges and strange new mutations of the Cotton Kingdom. Horwitz's intrepid and often hilarious journey through an outsized American landscape is a masterpiece in the tradition of Great Plains, Bad Land, and the author's own classic, Confederates in the Attic.

A month after Lincoln’s assassination, William Alvin Lloyd arrived in Washington, DC, to press a claim against the federal government for money due him for serving as the president’s spy in the Confederacy. Lloyd claimed that Lincoln personally had issued papers of transit for him to cross into the South, a salary of $200 a month, and a secret commission as Lincoln’s own top-secret spy. The claim convinced Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt—but was it true? Before the war, Lloyd hawked his Southern Steamboat and Railroad Guide wherever he could, including the South, which would have made him a perfect operative for the Union. By 1861, though, he needed cash, so he crossed enemy lines to collect debts owed by advertising clients in Dixie. Officials arrested and jailed him, after just a few days in Memphis, for bigamy. But Lloyd later claimed it was for being a suspected Yankee spy. After bribing his way out, he crisscrossed the Confederacy, trying to collect enough money to stay alive. Between riding the rails he found time to marry plenty of unsuspecting young women only ditch them a few days later. His behavior drew the attention of Confederate detectives, who nabbed him in Savannah and charged him as a suspected spy. But after nine months, they couldn’t find any incriminating evidence or anyone to testify against him, so they let him go. A free but broken man, Lloyd continued roaming the South, making money however he could. In May 1865, he went to Washington with an extraordinary claim and little else: a few coached witnesses, a pass to cross the lines signed “A. Lincoln” (the most forged signature in American history), and his own testimony. So was he really Lincoln’s secret agent or nothing more than a notorious con man? Find out in this completely irresistible, high-spirited historical caper.

"This is the story of two Confederate spies, Tom Harbin and Charlie Russell. It was Harbin who left a getaway horse for Booth, and Harbin who helped Booth escape across the Potomac. The other half of this book presents a new Confederate spy: Tom Harbin's step-cousin Charlie Russell"--Provided by publisher.