Black Civil War Spies to Receive Recognition

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The sun sets over cannons arrayed on the Civil War battlefield at Manassas, Va. (AP Photo/Chris Sullivan)

Blacks among most useful intelligence gatherers

Harriet Tubman ran entire spy operations from her own

Confederate officers thought the black slaves were powerless and oblivious – they were dead wrong.

Leaders in the South would openly discuss troop movements and battle plans and leave important documents right under their noses, without any fear they would comprehend and relay the information.

Who would they tell? They were just butlers, deckhands on a rebel sympathizer’s steamboat, or field workers.

Freedom fighter: Allan Pinkerton, head of the Union Intelligence Service at the onset of the Civil War, on horseback during the Battle of Antietam, Md.

But some weren’t just slaves – they were also spies working undercover as Union intelligence officers.

‘The chief source of information to the enemy,’ General Robert E Lee, commander of the Confederate Army, said in May 1863, ‘is through our Negroes.’

Little is known about the black men and women who served as Union intelligence officers, other than the fact that some were former slaves or servants who escaped from their masters and others were Northerners who volunteered to pose as slaves to spy on the Confederacy.

There are scant references to their contributions in historical records, mainly because Union spymasters destroyed documents to shield them from Confederate soldiers and sympathizers during the war and vengeful whites afterwards.

(Newser) With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War upon us, experts on African-American history are hoping under-appreciated spies will finally get proper recognition for years of dangerous service, reports the AP. Some of the most useful intelligence-gatherers during the Civil War were black men and women posing as slaves. Because Confederates believed them to be illiterate, ignorant, and inferior, black men and women were able to live and work among high-ranking officers and even in Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ own home.

Harriet Tubman is one high-profile figure who ran spy operations for the Union army while running slaves on the Underground Railroad. Another, Mary Elizabeth Bowser, got hired as a housekeeper in the home of Davis. “She had a photographic mind,” says the records of a Union spymaster. “Everything she saw on the Rebel President’s desk she could repeat word for word.” But many who served as spies did so anonymously and at great risk. One son watched his father get beheaded, and was allowed to live himself only as a warning to others.

Thanks to MailOnline for their contributions to this article.

What do you think? Do you think that blacks should receive immediate recognition for their services during the civil war?

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Professor Mike

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