TRUE TALES OF SECRET SERVICE

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 225, 22 September 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

TRUE TALES OF SECRET SERVICE

fllj ■-- '(By DONALD CAMPBELL)==| j H 111 IrfWIMNWMMAMfMMMVWMM »•»•■».■ J

[No. B.] NORTH v. SOUTH.

"Too much attention cannot be given to ■pie*. Montecoenlt uji that they are as necessary -to a general as the eyes an to the head." —Marshal Base.

When the Civil War broke out in the United States of America over sixty years ago, the small Army and Navy staffs were divided by their very allegiance. The Northerners called in Allen Pinkerton, founder of the famous detective agency, to be chief, of their secret service, and he was henceforth known as "Major Allen," and employed for the duration of the war in spite of many mistakes he made, some of which he acknowledged in the book of memoirs he wrote later. That great American President, Abraham Lincoln, wrote, in remarks on staff service, that "detective experience is not enough for secret service," and this was probably brought in a very bitter manner to his notice by the fact that fiis chief agent in the Confederate States waa captured early in 1862. The name of this agent was Webster. He went into the heart of the Confederates, and then was taken very iIL In spite of bis advice, his supporting agents across the line took certain risks and, when arrested, saved their lives by denouncing Webster, who was hanged in Rich* mond, Virginia, as a spy in February, 1862. The rope broke, and that breaking almost conquered his self-restraint. As he was placed on the gallows for the second time, he exclaimed: 'Is this my second agony!" This execution did not serve to improve political relations between the North and the South. Spies sped from both sides]. There were Southern gentlemen planters who went to New York; there were New England "Yankees who passed the lines into Richmond, Virginia, then tha capital of the South? era States. The situation in Northern America was intricate and exceedingly difficult to understand at this period. In the Southern States, you had the planters who employed black labour; in the North, you had the businesslike Yankees who wished to make money out of the fertile South. The Southerners, or most of them, treated their negroes welL There may have been exceptions, hence a book entitled "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which is a melodramatic favour* ite in America to-day. The rights and wrongs of .the case between the Northerners and the South--4 ernere; the Federals and the Confederates, would take too long to describe here. Suffice it to say that when - the Civil War broke out, the Southern negroes stayed by their masters. America bad its own aristocracy, especially in those days. In the North, there were the descendants of the original Dutch or Knickerbocker settlers (like the Roosevelt* and the Van Courtlands), the French Huguenots (Loril- , lards) and the English (Allen, Mather, ... Sands, etc.). In the South, you had French, English and Spanish; all of whom were used to their own plantations and, in spite of the accusation of slavery brought against them, mostly courteous and kindly.pebple, but feudal in their aspect, whereas the North was Republican. Tragedies of Civil War. The South distrusted the North, and the North envied the South. Anyway, when the first hostilities broke out, both sides used every possible method of procuring information about the enemy, and this led to some terrible tragedies because the differences between certain supporters of the North and others of the South were not very well marked out. Brother ,was against brother, friend against friend. In fact the situation was worse than that during the period when King Charles I. fought the Roundheads in our own England. The Southerners had little money but intense patriotism. Their civilian workman'volunteered to put in extra time building war vessels at the beginning of the war when they had little or no navy. Yet, right in the heart of the South, the North, had their cleverest and most trustworthy agents. Jn Richmond, Virginia," there lived a Miss Van- Law, member of a very old Knickerbocker family, who kept on her colonial mansion. Her ancestors had been adventurous settlers, who had con><; South from the original "New Amsterdam." She declaimed -against the Southern policy, although she was in, their midst, and was put down as eccentric, but .she was not too eccentric to avoid establishing her personal negro maidservant as staff waitress to Jeffer? son Davis, President of the Confederate and Southern States. In her old colonial mansion, she hid emissaries of the North, spies and escapees from Waif prison*. Back of her boudoir, she had a secret room, similar to, the priest holes to be found in certain old English country mansions, and the Southerners could never discern the secret of this, although once they came near ii. - iA man named Pole, an Englishman? came down to Richmond, posing as a Federal agent who had managed to pass the Southern lines. For some reason or the other, Miss Van Law took a dislike to h.m, which was fortunate for The Reward of Valour. Mies Van Law was ill-rewarded for her services. After the war, she was cut dead by all the old Southern LTucy, arid totally ignored by the Northerners who came in," to govern. She walked abroad, an old woman, with no friend but a crippled niect. In her diary, she wrote this down: "If I am entitled to the name of spy because I was in the Secret Service I accept it willingly; but it will'herein ter have, to my-mind, a high and honourable signification. For my loyaltv lo my country, I have two beautiful names—here, I am called 'traitor,' farther North, a 'spy*—instead of the I , honoured, name of faithful." | Miss Van Law, descendant of one of the historic American families, served 'he North. As a matter of fact, it was i , number of Northern officers who oscued her financially when the United stales Treasury refused to- redeem its promises to her. , * , ~ On the'opposite side was Mrs. Greenow, nee Rose O'Neal, who. lived in Viisliington, the capital of the North■ruors, so near the Southern line. Her wart was in the South, yet Northern

officers end officials of the highest rank! would come to her receptions, hence sh< was able to send'to General Beauregarc of the Confederate forces a nine-wore message which resulted in the Yankee* being beaten back with tremendous lost and in great disorder. But the dark blue of the North wai not intended to be conquered by the grej of the South, and certain staff officers of the United States Government began to I*ke an intelligent interest in Mrs. Greenhow, with the remit that, she wai finally arrested, after avoiding arrest twice previously, and making capital out of her escapee, sending messages to tb« other aide by means of a trustworthy negro servant. Anyway «he was arrested, after an ingenious attempt to avoid the Northern provost-marshal. She wai eventually released, and made her way to England, where she preached the gospel of the Southern States, and re turned to her native country in a blockade runner. She was in possession of a considerable quantity of English gold, which was intended to support the Confederate paper notes which had little value. The blockade runner put her oil in a skiff; so that she could land near Wilmington,, Delaware, when a sudden storm blew up and the boat overt urn ad, She was weighed down wjth the gold she was bringing back to the Confederates and disappeared. * A Master Spy. In the records of the United States Government, you will find that a trooper named Archibald H. Rowand, of the Ist West Virginia Cavalry, was recommended by the famous General Sheridan for the Medal of Honour—and was awarded it. Now Rowand's name appears in. a good many of the field intelligence report* of the Civil War. He was a Virginian, but net a Confederate; His manner and accent recommended him to the Northern Secret Service Department, and he was continually sent across the line as a Southern soldier. He was daring and totally -unscrupulous. He existed for weeks in Confederate uniform, and then would take picked troopa of United States cavalry over the line, all in Southern uniform, to raid and create discord generally on the Southern lines of communication. , On the other hand, tbo Southerners were very well served in Europe, principally through 'a very popular naval officer named Captain James D. Bullock, who worked in Paris and in London for the cause he loved. - Now most of the European nations were intensely interested in the American Civil War because of the new types of warships which were being used, and their interest complicated matters exceedingly. Yet, as in all civil wars, there were enough complications already. Fathers had to court-martial their own sons; officers who- had known gallant messmates had to sentence them to a firing party. No wonder the famous phrase originated from.ah American commander of the period, "War is Hen." Can you picture a war in England between two political parties, and you do not know whether the engineer officer with the Lancashire accent, who cornea to examine your front line trenches is an enemy, or not If you have him arrested and he is your superior officer, you are "for it." Yet on $he other hand— And this is how a very fine old American officer described the Civil War to me. He had shouldered a musket at the age of fourteen, and helped to make one of a firing party who executed a Yankee spy. Secret Service Precedents. The American Civil War gave many precedents to the students of military affairs. Its secret service tangles were also studied, and were closely considered by the Prussian General Staff, and;in a minor manner by the British. It also afforded a political sideline on the British information service. Th * Prussians were to use the lessons they learnt from the Americans to great effect, yet the cleverest Intelligence agent in that campaign was not Pinkerton, but an Englishman who served the British Government for years in both the United States and Canada. Five and twenty years later he was to give evidence in a cause celebre in London, and then a* casually remarked that he had been an English secret agent for years, but had retired. With a French name, an American Army rank, and Nottingham origin, he had been hard to trace, though the jlrish Brotherhood who found that they had been tricked, swore to be ayenged. - > That is another story. "Major Le Caron" Afterwards described bis adventures in the British Secret Service, and complained, that he'had not been paid enough money, but the gallant ami adventurous "Major" had simply been a clever informant employed against • the Irish -revolutionaries, and BeVer a skilled military agent. This annoyed him and possibly saved his life from the ultimate-vengeance of the Irish Republican Brotherhood of which he had been a popular and leading member at »ne time, through his excellent service in tho>: American Civil War/ and his brilliant faculty,pf assuming a, role to which lie was not entitled. V Pinker ton, the famous private detective, has been already referred to in. the sourse of this narrative. He published i book of his own experiences in which ie claims not unnaturally a great deal of jredit, though he had to admit he was" >eaten by many people, especially Mrs. *reenhow, who died so tragi.; a death, fet Pjnkerton. ('.Major Allen''*'vr.as not l success as a military s-dret agent, hough f j.fsihiy good provost-marshaL PresxU ut Abraham Lincoln, who iated war, but who had wonderfully Hear vision, recognised the deficiencies h the detective and knew instinctively manwh " '#* ° f man was needed 5 s^iw£ ocou,d ™n blockades and walk parts Kf *** Indian ' let alone P»V Y OH *v aWI "S TOOm *- p-eat P °wer s learnt a apart from T* the Anieri «» Civil War, ICal and strategical (To be continued.)