The use of Black spies in Eastern North Carolina.

   While researching my upcoming book on the battle of Plymouth (Savas Beatie), I came across one of the few accounts of the execution of a Black man for spying. A member of the 1^st Virginia Infantry, the morning of the battle, recalled that they found a Black man “wearing the dress of a field hand, and having a red handkerchief tied around his head.” Under these clothes was “the full uniform of a Yankee soldier.” The spy was “hung on the spot,” his identity unknown. Most people would either discount this story, or add it to a somewhat questionable list of atrocities committed by Confederate soldiers during the Plymouth Campaign.[1]

From Colyer.

   Yet in 1864, Vincent Colyer published an interesting account of using slaves as scouts and spies in Eastern North Carolina. Colyer, born in New York in 1824, was an artist. During the war, he served with the United States Christian Commission. In March 1862, after the battle of Roanoke Island and New Bern, Federal General Benjamin Butler appointed Colyer Superintendent of the Poor. He was ordered to employ up to 5,000 Black men, offering them $8 a month, one daily ration, and clothes. These men, mainly former slaves, constructed forts, unloaded cargo vessels, repaired bridges, built cots for hospitals, and operated as spies and scouts. Colyer writes that up to fifty Black men were employed as scouts and spies. “They went from thirty to three hundred miles within the enemy’s lines; visiting principal camps and most important posts, and bringing us back important and reliable information.”[2]

   Colyer then gives us a few names and exploits. One spy, Charley, made three trips to Kinston. W.M. Kinnegy also scouted for the Federals in Kinston. Two freemen who came into the lines were used to scout in the Beaufort area. 

   Spies are seldom mentioned in official correspondence. When they are, their race is almost never mentioned. Major General J.G. Foster, wrote from New Bern on January 20, 1863 to Henry Halleck, “I have just received information from a spy, who has been within the enemy’s lines and conversed with their soldiers, to the effect that the rebel force in this State has been largely increased; that the main body intended to be thrown by railroad either to Weldon or Wilmington… The rebel soldiers reported to the spy that 75,000 men were at Goldsboro.”[3] Writing from Suffolk on March 21, 1863, Maj. Gen. John J. Peck asked Major General Dix: “Is it not time for your peddler [spy] to return?”[4] Writing from Wilmington in August 1863, Maj. Gen. W.H.C. Whiting complained to the Secretary of War that he had too few men. The few that he did have were busy, among other things, in the “detection of spies.”[5]

   Spies were even used in the greater Plymouth area. Major General John Peck, commanding the eastern North Carolina district, gave several accounts of using the local population to gather intelligence on Confederate operations.  In February 1864 Peck mentions a letter from Brig. General Wessels, commanding at Plymouth, that Wessel’s “spy has just come in from Halifax. He came from Wilmington, and 25,000 pounds of iron was on the same train.” It was iron for a gun boat. On March 18, Peck reported that Wessels had reported on the “return of a man sent out … to procure information concerning the ram at Halifax.” On March 29, Peck wrote that “My spy came in from Kinston last evening, having been out seven days.” There is little clue about the race of each of these spies, although Peck adds that in March, an officer had examined “all the contrabands” and that they “agree that there is a large force at Kinston, and also at Greenville, and that the obstructions below Kinston are being removed.”[6]

   The use of Blacks as spies, both free and formerly enslaved, was something of which even the Confederate high command was aware. In May 1863, Robert E. Lee, in writing to Lt. Col. J. Critcher, 15^th Virginia Cavalry, noted that "The chief source of information to the enemy is through our Negroes."[7]

   Was the treatment of the Black man caught wearing a Federal uniform under other clothes unusually harsh? Maybe not. Execution has been the normal punishment for spies caught by the enemy for quite some time. We need only to mention names like Timothy Webster and Sam Davis. There were other Black spies, probably the most famous on the Northern side being John Scobell, who worked for Pinkerton. Overall, the work of Black men and women as spies is one that needs to be explored more. That is a challenge. If spies are successful, no one, except their handlers, know of their accomplishments.

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[1] The Daily Dispatch, April 23, 1864.

[2] Colyer, Report, 9.

[3] OR, 18: 524.

[4] OR, 18:566.

[5] OR Vol. 29, pt. 2, 670.

[6] OR, Vol. 33, 291.

[7] OR. Vol. 25, Pt. 2, 826.

Piracy! Smuggled Weapons! A Master of Disguise! The Capture of the St. Nicolas

   The first couple of months of the war include a series of well-documented events: Fort Sumter fell in April, the U.S. Army occupied Arlington Heights in May, and the two sides clashed at Big Bethel in June. Those are all well-known stories. Lesser known is the strange story of one of the first Confederate naval victories.

   George N. Hollis had an idea. He was going to steal the St. Nicholas, “and manning her with volunteers . . then take the Pawnee.” It was a bold and daring plan. The Maryland side of the Potomac swarmed with Federal soldiers. But, the plan just might work.[1] 

The Baltimore Sun, March 19, 1861. 

   The St. Nicholas was a packet boat that ran regularly between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., with other stops in Alexandria and Georgetown.[2] With a Confederate commission in hand, the permission of Virginia’s Governor Letcher, and cash to purchase firearms up North, Hollis set out with his two sons and five other men. Upon reaching Point Lookout, the draft for the firearms was given to “Colonel Thomas, of Maryland, alias Zarvona,” who proceeded on to Baltimore and Philadelphia to procure weapons and maybe a few more men. Hollis told Thomas to return to Point Lookout on the St. Nicholas. A day or two later, the St. Nicholas returned for its regular stop at Point Lookout. Hollis and his band boarded the vessel about midnight where he found “Colonel Thomas dressed as a woman, to avoid suspicion, as he had high, large, trunks such as milliners use; they contained arms and ammunition.”[3]

   Just a few minutes after leaving the wharf, Hollis gave the signal. The trunks were opened, and the members of the party were armed, with Hollis taking a Sharps rifle and pair of pistols. He ran to the wheelhouse and put his “hand on the captain’s shoulder,” capturing the vessel. Hollis ordered the captain to sail the St. Nicholas to Coan River, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. He was joined by a small body of Confederate soldiers under a Captain Lewis. The passengers were landed and most made their way home. There was a group of ladies that “amused themselves by making Confederate flags out of the Yankee flags I had captured.” Hollis determined that the Pawnee was out of reach. Instead, he sailed out into the Chesapeake Bay toward Fredericksburg. He soon spotted the brig Monticello, with a load of coffee from Rio. Hollis captured the brig without firing a shot. He moved a crew under Lt. Robert D. Minor and sent the load of coffee to Fredericksburg. An hour later. Hollis and the St. Nicholas captured a schooner coming from Baltimore and bound for Washington, D.C., with a load of ice. Once again, Hollis placed a “prize” crew aboard and sent the vessel to Fredericksburg. On board, Hollis found a “splendid flag of a 74” that had been borrowed from the U.S. Naval yard for Stephen Douglas’s funeral. He used the large flag to make “a goodly number of secession flags.”[4]

   Hollis then captured another vessel coming from Baltimore and headed to Boston. This one was loaded with coal, which Hollis used to replenish the St. Nicholas. At that point, Hollis, afraid that word had gotten out and Federal gunboats were looking for him, sailed the St. Nicholas to Fredericksburg. The Confederate government purchased the St. Nicholas for “about $45,000” and turned it into a gunboat.[5]

   “Piracy on the Chesapeake” read a headline in The Baltimore Sun on July 2, 1861. The St. Nicholas was last seen leaving Point Lookout “under great speed for the Virginia shore . . . There is no doubt but that she was taken forcible possession of by parties who came passengers in her from Baltimore.”[6] By the evening, The Baltimore Sun was able to report that it was Hollis who had captured the St. Nicholas. After unloading passengers and taking on board soldiers, Hollis proceeded to capture three other vessels.[7]

   The news quickly made the rounds. “The rebels have succeeded by a coup de main in seizing and carrying off a Baltimore steamer” reported the New York Daily Herald.[8] “The seizure of the steamer St. Nicholas from this port . . . proved to have been a bold piratical expedition,” summed up The New York Times.[9] The Richmond Dispatch considered the affair a “Brilliant Achievement.”[10] The New Bern Daily Progress labeled it a “Daring Exploit.”[11]

Harper's Weekly, July 27, 1861

   In 1910, the Evening Sun told the story of George W. Watts, the “Last Survivor of Col. Zarvona Thomas’ Band.” Watts stated that Thomas had sixteen men with him that night. After boarding the vessel, Watts could not find the colonel, but did notice “a mighty pretty young woman, stylishly dressed, flirting outrageously with some young officers. She talked with a strong French accent . . . That young woman behaved so scandalously that all the other women on the boat were in a terrible state over it.” Later, Watts was summoned below deck. On entering the cabin, he saw his comrades, “gathered around that frisky French lady.” Watts recognized the eyes as belonging to Thomas. Thomas “shed his bonnet, wig, and dress and stepped forth clad in a brilliant new Zouave uniform. In a jiffy the ‘French lady’s’ three big trunks were dragged out and opened. One was filled with cutlasses, another with Colt’s revolvers and the third with carbines.” Watts and the others armed themselves, then proceeded to take possession of the St. Nicholas. According to Watts, the Pawnee was no longer in position guarding the river south of Washington, but had moved closer to the city, escorting a dead naval officer to the capital.[12]

   The story of the capture of the St. Nicholas is so outlandish that it almost seems like an episode in a work of fiction. Yet, it really did happen, and the history of this strange event, though less spectacular than a battle, needs to be told along with those of Fort Sumter and Big Bethel Church.

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[1] OR Navy, 4:553.

[2] The Baltimore Sun, March 19, 1861.

[3] OR Navy, 4:553.

[4] OR Navy, 4:555.

[5] OR Navy, 4:555.

[6] The Baltimore Sun, July 2, 1861.

[7] The Baltimore Sun, July 2, 1861.

[8] New York Daily Herald, July 2, 1861.

[9] The New York Times, July 3, 1861.

[10] Richmond Dispatch, July 2, 1861.

[11] Daily Progress, July 1, 1861.

[12] The Evening Sun, August 27, 1910.

Memphis’s Irving Block Prison

   “Notorious for its cruel and unsanitary living conditions” is how the Irving Block Prison in Memphis has been described. The building was constructed in 1860 as a hotel. “This section of town was notably tough and iron slates were used to cover the windows,” a 1939 guide to Tennessee recorded. Located on the west side of Court Square, the building was three stories tall. When the war came, the building was used as one of the Confederate hospitals, and it was run by the Southern Mothers. When the Confederates abandoned Memphis in June 1862, Federal officials repurposed the building as a prison for Confederate and Federal soldiers, along with civilians and spies.

   Absalom Grimes was one of the men imprisoned at Irving Block. Grimes was a river boat pilot who was selected by Sterling B. Price to carry or smuggle the mail between the South and the North. Grimes was captured numerous times, including once in Memphis.[1] After being interrogated by the provost marshal, Grimes was taken to the Irving Block Prison. “That prison was on the west side of Jackson Square in Memphis . . . three stories high. A pair of stairs led from the lower storeroom into the basement, where there was an excavated doorway leading into the yard. This doorway had boards nailed over it, and one wide board was off about three feet above the ground,” Grimes wrote after the war. “When I was placed in this cellar a ball with a chain about three feet long was riveted to my right ankle and one end of the chain was stapled to the floor. There were eighteen other prisoners chained to the floor in like manner, placed in a row from the front to the rear of the long cellar. I was chained next to a big stove . . .” Grimes wrote of there being a Federal soldier in the cellar, “imprisoned for stealing government mules out of the corral and selling them.” Grimes was held in the cellar for more than two weeks, “and my daily fare consisted of two stale crackers and a piece of rotten bacon and some water, or coffee made of beans and dried Cherokee rose leaves.” Adjoining the room where Grimes was held was a room for female prisoners. Grimes was eventually transferred to Alton, Illinois.[2]  

 Irving Block Prison in 1864. (Historic-Memphis)

   Some of those female prisoners could have been prostitutes arrested in a raid in mid-1863. The “house of ill repute” was at 115 Beale Street, and the proprietress was Kate Stoner. Six or seven girls were arrested and locked up in the Irving Block Prison until they could be tried. All were found guilty and sent north of Cairo, Illinois, with a promise of imprisonment if they returned to Memphis.[3] Another woman arrested was named Pullen. An officer on picket suspected her of being a smuggler and sent her back to the city where she (and probably her son) were locked up in Irving.[4]

   Colonel R. F. Looney and Capt. A.D. Bright were sent by General Chalmers into west Tennessee to arrest and bring back into Confederate lines Confederate deserters and stragglers. They were captured near Arlington and sent to Memphis and the Irving Block Prison. “They were placed in a back room and strongly guarded, but in a short time the officer ordered that they be moved to the third story, a dirty place, where thieves, thugs, and cut-throats were kept, and where vermin abounded . . . There was not a bed of any description in the long room, neither was there a chair or bench to sit on. They walked the floor all night.” These men were later paroled.[5]  

   In another instance, Lt. Jason Hoey, 17^th Arkansas, wrote to the Secretary of War that Lt. Col. Woods had bribed a Federal officer, Lt. Denis Lewis, to allow him to escape. After effecting his escape, Lewis had Woods rearrested. Woods complained that Lewis, “did not act the gentleman with him; he had given Lieutenant Lewis his money and then he (Lewis) betrayed him.” Lewis went to the prison, was shown into the cell where Woods was, and finding Wood asleep, Lewis drew his pistol and shot Woods in the head, killing him. According to Hoey, Lewis was tried by a court-martial, but “went to parts unknown.” He supposedly was tried and convicted of the crime, but escaped.[6] The Memphis Bulletin, in November 1863, related had it was so cold, and fuel in so short of supply, that some of the prisoners tore up fifty bunks to burn and keep warm.[7]

   There were some successful escapes. Captain M.A. Miller was caught smuggling two boxes of cavalry swords across the Mississippi River. He was tried by courts-martial, found guilty, and condemned to death. At this early date, prisoners from the city were allowed to visit their homes with a guard, and under the pretext of having a sick child, Miller was able to escape. Much of the plan previous to his escape was passed along when his family brought him food, “as the prison fare was unfit to eat.”[8] There were reports of sixty or more who escaped in February 1864, and eleven in May 1864.[9]

   U.S. Grant appointed Maj. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut as commander in Memphis. While the Irving Block Prison had various commanders, Hurlbut would appoint Capt. George A. Williams in 1863.

Maj. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut (LOC)

   In April 1864, Lt. Col. John F. Marsh, 24^th Veterans Reserve Corps, was sent to inspect the prison. March stated that Irving Block Prison was “the filthiest place the inspector ever saw occupied by human beings . . . The whole management and government of the prisoners could not be worse. Discipline and order are unknown. Food sufficient, but badly served. In a dark, wet cellar, I found twenty-eight prisoners chained to a wet floor, where they had been constantly confined, many of them for months, one since November 16, 1863, and are not for a moment released, even to relive the calls of nature.” The prison hospital had a “shiftless appearance ad the guard dirty and inefficient.” There was no “book of memorandum showing the disposition of the prison fund.”[10] Charges were drawn up and Williams arrested. He argued that he had actually done much to improve the prison. It did come out that Hurlburt, and maybe Williams, were running a multi-faceted extortion ring in Memphis. For example, they demanded ransoms from local wealthy families for the release of prisoners. Hurlbert also engaged in profiteering, getting cuts from the cotton that moved through the city. Hurlburt also targeted the Jewish population of Memphis, closing their businesses, but leaving non-Jewish businesses open. Hurlbut was brought up on charges toward the end of the war, but was allowed to resign. [11]

   History says that Lincoln ordered the prison closed in 1865.[12] However, that does not seem to be true. In March 1865, Col. John P.C. Shanks, commanding a cavalry brigade in west Tennessee, makes mention of capturing two “Guerrillas” and sending them to Irving Block Prison.[13] John G. Ryan, on parole, was passing through Memphis in July 1865 when he was arrested and hauled by the provost to Irving Block Prison. Ryan described the third floor room he was taken to as having “shackles, manacles, handcuffs and balls and chains.” A ball and chain was affixed to his left ankle. He was removed to another room and chained to the floor. Several days later, Ryan was sent to Washington, D.C. He was believed to be John H. Surratt, a spy accused of plotting with John Wilkes Booth to kidnap and assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Ryan was not released until October, and later sued the Federal government for false arrest.[14]

   The building was demolished in 1937.  

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[1] Ralls County Record, March 31, 1911.

[2] Grimes, Absalon Grimes, Confederate Mail Runner, 150-51, 153.

[3] Lowery, Confederate Heroines, 90-5.

[4] Jackson, The Colonel’s Diary, 98.

[5] Dinkins,  1861 to 1865, by an Old Johnnie, 217-18.

[6] OR, Series II, 5:945; Confederate Veteran, Vol. 27, No. 1, 19.

[7] Memphis Bulletin, December 1, 1863.

[8] Confederate Veteran, 157, Vol. 13, No. 4, 157.

[9] The Illinois State Journal, February 22, 1864; Daily Missouri Republican, May 14, 1864.

[10] OR, Ser. 2, 7:402-3.

[11] Lash, A Politician Turned General, 137; Korn and Nevis, American Jewry and the Civil War, 154.

[12] Daily News, January 10, 2013: “Irving Block Prison” https://historic-memphis.com/memphis-historic/irving-block/irving-block.html

[13] OR, Series I, Vol. 49, 1:79.

[14] Memphis Avalanche, March 14, 1888; The Boston Globe, July 10, 1888.

Lottie and Ginnie Moon, Confederate spies

   There are many celebrated Southern spies. Rose Greenhow, Belle Boyd, and Henry Harrison come to mind. Sisters Lottie and Ginnie Moon are not usually included on that list as being famous or celebrated. But they were spies, none-the-less.[1]

Virginia "Ginnie" Moon

   Richard Hall considered them “An extraordinary pair of sisters who did not at all fit the stereotype of the Southern belle.”[2] Robert S. Moon was doctor who passed in 1858. He was married to Cynthia Ann Sullivan, and they had several children, including daughters Charlotte C. “Lottie” Moon Clark (1829-1895) and Virginia B. “Ginnie” Moon (1844-1925). Lottie was born in Danville, Virginia, while Ginnie’s birthplace is often listed as either Memphis, Tennessee, or in Ohio. The family had an extensive library, and the daughters grew up reading volumes like Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason and Charles Darwin’s works. Cynthia, Virginia, and another sister Mary were living in Oxford, Butler County, Ohio, in the 1860 census. It is not clear where Lottie Moon was living according to the 1860 census. One account states that Ginnie was attending a girl’s school in Ohio at the start of the war, probably the Western Female Seminary. This account states that Ginnie, previously an abolitionist, but wishing to support the Confederacy once the war began, begged school officials to “allow her to leave school and join her mother in Memphis.” Of course, her mother is listed in the 1860 census as living in Oxford, Ohio. Maybe she had left and moved to Memphis in the few weeks between when the census taker came by and the start of the war. Another account states that  Ginnie “showed a little too much fervor and was expelled [from the school] when she shot the US flag that was flying over the campus full of holes.”[3]  

   As the story continues, Ginnie was working as a nurse, and after discovering the hospital was running low on supplies, made her way North under the pretext of visiting her boyfriend in Ohio, or, for her mother to sell property. It is unclear how many trips she made before being discovered. When she was searched, Federal soldiers discovered “many vials of medicine in her skirts, as well as a number of dispatches. She escaped arrest only because Union general Ambrose Burnside was an old friend of hers—when she was a little girl, she used to call him ‘Buttons’ because of his military uniform, and he would give her candy.”[4] Another account of the event states that both Ginnie and her mother were apprehended in Cincinnati after boarding a steamship for the journey south. As she related in an autobiographical sketch late in life, she had “on an underskirt with a row of quinine bottles in the bottom and -a row of morphine bottles above. I had the dispatch wrapped in oil silk in my bosom.” The Federal officer stated he had an order for her arrest and demanded for her to be searched, to which Moon would not consent, going so far as to pull a pistol on the officer and daring him to try. She did consent to go to the provost marshal’s office, and, while the officer was gone procuring a carriage, Moon took off the petticoat and hid it under the mattress, with her mother lying down on the bed. The message hid in her bosom she soaked in water and then swallowed. Back at the provost marshal’s office, the soldiers searched her baggage, finding contraband, such as a bolt of blue checked linen that she passed off for  material for future children’s aprons and ball of blue mass that her mother supposedly might consume in a month. The pair were kept confined and could pick the place of confinement. Moon asked for the Newport Barracks, and the Confederate prison in Columbus, but was denied, settling on the Burnett House, where Burnside was staying. She actually gained an audience with Burnside, and Burnside stated that "You have infringed upon a military order of mine. so I'll take you out of the hands of the Custom House and try you by courts martial, myself and my staff." Of the letters she was carrying, none of them contained military information, and Moon and her mother were allowed to proceed to Memphis. While in Memphis she had to report to General Hurlbut every day at 10:00 am. After three months, she was ordered to leave Federal lines and not to return.”[5] There is a thought that before being expelled from Memphis, she secreted messages to Nathan Bedford Forrest. She went to Danville for a while, then planned to go to France with other family members. She was arrested by Federal general Benjamin Butler and confined at Fortress Monroe for a time before being released, sent to City Point, and then back into Confederate lines.[6]

   Richard Hall writes that both sisters lived in Ohio and that Lottie was “romantically involved with future Union general Ambrose Burnside.” Lottie did not marry old “Buttons,” supposedly walking out on him at the altar, but did marry Judge James Clark of Ohio.   According to one source, James Clark was a Copperhead and involved in the Knights of the Golden Circle. Their home in Ohio was a spot where “Confederate couriers” could safely stop. Needing to get a message to Edmund Kirby Smith in Kentucky, Lottie donned the “disguise of an old woman” and “succeeded in passing back and forth through the lines and accomplishing the mission.” Thereafter she conducted several other spying missions, one in which she met agents in Toronto, then delivering papers to Richmond.[7] 

Marker in Memphis

   Ginnie lived in Memphis following the war, then in the early days of Hollywood, went there and was in several films, including Douglas Fairbank’s Robin Hood (1922) and The Spanish Dancer (1923). She next moved to Greenwich Village, where she died in 1925. She is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis. Lottie moved to New York with James after the war. James practiced law and wrote articles for the New York Ledger. Lottie eventually started writing for the New York World and was a correspondent in Paris covering the Franco-Prussian War. Returning to the states, she published How She Came into Her Kingdom, under the nom de plume of Charles M. Clay. She passed away in 1895 in Massachusetts, although her place of burial seems unknown.[8]

   Many of these stories seem larger than life and, in the case of spies, one always has to exercise a little caution. There is a note in the Federal Provost Marshall papers, dated April 7, 1863, stating that Virginia B. Moon, of Butler County, Ohio, had permission to go home to Butler County, but had to report to Hurlbut on April 10 in Memphis. Likewise there is a letter regarding Cynthia A. Moon regarding the same.[9] The Daily Conservative shared an article from Petersburg in May 1864 that “Miss Virginia Moon” was on the flag of truce steamer New York, arriving in City Point.[10] The post-war articles concerning the pair, they are numerous.

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[1] Many books do not mention the Moon sisters, including Wagner, Spies in the Civil War (2009); Towne, Surveillance and Spies in the Civil War (2015); Ford, Daring Women of the Civil War (2004); Bakeless, Confederate Spy Stories (1972); Valezquez, The Woman in Battle (2010).

[2] Hall, Women on the Civil War Battlefront, 90.

[3] https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/virginia-bethel-moon/; Cordell, Courageous Women of the Civil War, xx.

[4] Cordell, Courageous Women of the Civil War, 54.

[5] Moon, “The Moon and Barclay Families,” 32.

[6] Hall, Women on the Civil War Battlefront, 91; Donald, Stealing Secrets, 106.

[7] Hall, Women on the Civil War Battlefront, 91; Donald, Stealing Secrets, 96, 100.

[8] Donald, Stealing Secrets, 107-109.

[9] Virginia B. Moon, Union Provost Marshals File of Paper Relating to Individual Civilians, 1861-1865, RG 109, M345, roll 0194.

[10] The Daily Conservative, May 4, 1864.