Intelligence and Security: Introduction

INTELLIGSNCS AND SSCURITY: Introduction Pick a random week in the midst of the war—that of June 18, 1864, perhaps. Readers of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper for that date learned many interesting things, among them the following: Confederate morale, announces the lead story, is at last crumbling as the armies of Grant and Sherman drive grimly toward Richmond and Atlanta, respectively. But Rebel guerrillas remain on the rampage in Louisiana and Arkansas; in Congress a newly introduced bill authorizes summary punishment for all such Confederate partisans. At New Orleans, Union officials suspect a waterfront fire which destroyed several government vessels to be the work of a Rebel saboteur. In New York City, "Major" Pauline Cushman commences an engagement at Barnum's American Museum, where the buxom actress daily recounts her brief career as a Federal espionage agent. A counterpart, Miss Belle Boyd, "the famous rebel spy," reportedly arrives in Montreal , Canada. At Stowe, Vermont, meanwhile, the local Universalist congregation is "divided into Union and Copperhead factions," which "have arranged to have preaching on alternate Sundays after their respective hearts." Back at New York City one Andrews, an accused ringleader in the notorious draft riots of 1863, receives a light prison sentence (three years). In the center of the periodical a double-page engraving reproduces a sketch by one of General Ben Butier's scouts, a panoramic view of Confederate sailors laying a minefield in the James River. A full-length portrait of Colonel Lafayette C. Baker, "Special Agent of the War Department ," graces another page, and nearly a full column of text sets forth the salient facts of his colorful career as a Federal spy and investigator . A report on the Union defeat at Jericho Mills, Virginia, stresses the failure of local scouting and patrolling measures. Finally, a back-page cartoon depicts the "Copperhead" governor of New York, Horatio Seymour, vowing to resist any military censorship of the press in his state. To the casual reader, now as in that day, these citations from the week's news probably betray no intrinsic relationships. To those "in the know"—those, that is, in one way or another professionally ac341 342civil war history quainted with such matters—they all clearly fall into a single important category. The modern rubric for it is "intelligence and security." Employed as the title of the present special issue, this term describes those operations by which a government seeks to collect and process militarily useful information about an enemy ("intelligence"), and at the same time protects itself from similar efforts by that enemy ("security"). Also normally included in the latter task is the defense against subversion, sabotage, terrorist and guerrilla activity, and other types of unconventional or clandestine warfare.1 Those vested with intelligence and security duties today thus concern themselves with a wide variety of phenomena pertaining both to enemy and friendly forces and populations. While no attempt has been made here to illustrate all aspects of Civil War intelligence and security, it is the modern concept of these matters which has governed the articles that follow . Historical archives bulge with pertinent materials, but the subject of this issue has been an especially neglected topic—neglected, that is, by all but the romancers. Present-day intelligence and security operations are highly sophisticated matters. The substantive discussions they provoke (usually segregated from the public by government classification ) tend to be technical, even esoteric, and richly complicated by conflicting schools of thought. Relatively few persons outside the closed circle have gained enough understanding of the subject to write plausibly about it—let alone do historical research on it. As an aspect of Civil War history, the topic still awaits competent students, to say nothing of something approaching definitive treatment. The editor is pleased to offer this special issue as a ground-breaking introduction to the subject, an attempt (if he may switch the metaphor ) to wrest it from the grip of the popularizers. As a former intelligence officer, he has employed both historical and "technical" criteria in judging the contents authoritative. First, Edwin C. Fishel discusses the current state of the historical literature on Civil War intelligence, finds it wanting, and provides a comprehensive corrective. Ari Hoogenboom...