A CONFEDERATE Spy

A CONFEDERATE Spy. A Story of the CIVIL WAR. -BY — Captain Thomas N. Conrad. THE PEERLESS SERIES, No. 63. Issued Monthly. September, 1892. $3.00 per year. Entered at New York Post-Office as second-class matter. Copyright, 1892, by J. S. Ogilvie. NEW YORK : J. S. OGILVIE, PUBLISHER, 57 ROSE STREET, [COPY.] Richmond, Va., May 27, 1864. Mr. T. N. CONRAD. Dear Sir: Please accept my thanks for the zealous and patriotic manner in which you have lately served the Confederacy by going within the enemy's lines. If the expression of m; satisfaction at the efforts made by you for the advantage of 01 cause will afford you gratification, it is a pleasing duty to me thank you for them. With the assurance of my regard, I am, Very respectfully yours, JEFFERSON DAVIS. Confederate States of America, WAR DEPARTMENT, [COPY.] CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT, Richmond, Va., Sept. 15, 1864 Lt.-Col. Mosby and Lieutenant Cawood are hereby ted to aid and facilitate the movements of Capt. Conrad. JAMES A. SEDDON, Secretary of War, A CONFEDERATE SPY. THIRTY years ago I was a rebel spy. Although more than a quarter of a century has elapsed, since, under the orders of the Confederate Secretary of War and General "Jeb" Stuart, I stealthily moved through Fed eral lines and camps, observed the movements of Federal armies and then reported to superior officers ; yet the recollec tion of those hazardous days is as vivid as though it were but yesterday, when the modest work I had been able to perform for the Confederacy, brought a letter of commendation from President Davis himself and led the brilliant, dashing Stuart on one of his most daring raids around Washington. My un expected detention as a suspicious character by Yankee videttes, almost within sight of the Capitol's-dome was the only obstacle, which saved the nation's chief city from seeing at that time, what it never had before, never did after, and thank God, never will see—the charge of a force of gray- backed, hat-plumed cavalry through far famed Pennsylvania Avenue itself. For I had already been able to forward certain information to General Stuart and, had I reached his command in season, for the second time in a century would an enemy have appeared in force within the city's gates. Almost to the very day, when Lee turned from the parlor of that little house at Appomattox, where he laid down the last hope of the cause, for which he fought and Jackson died, and where Grant displayed a magnanimity, compared to which his exploits in battle paled to insignificance^ it had been a wonder (3) 4 A CONFEDERATE SPY. to the people of the North how Southern generals—particu larly those of the Army of Northern Virginia—secured so much accurate information regarding the Federal Army. Union commander after Union commander has admitted since those bloody days that more than one grandly planned coup d'etat failed of execution only because Lee and Stuart seemed in the most inexplicable manner to have acquired not only a minute idea of the Federal general's intentions, but in most cases were prepared for onslaughts with some counter dem onstration or equally well planned movement. Naturally, after the war had been in progress for a year or more, the at titude of defensive warfare gave the Confederate leader abundant opportunity to judge of his adversaries' strength, but much, if not most, was due to information secured by scouts. General " Jeb's " scouts were to his superior officer the very "eyes and ears of the army" and down to the last great struggle around Petersburg, it seldom happened that Lee was without available intelligence concerning the army in his front and often the very point of coming attack. The Southern scout was ever upon the flank or in the rear of the Federal army and when Stuart gave orders for certain information as wanted, it was a fair certainty that the scout detailed found but little sleep until he had satisfied the chief of the intent of the other " general commanding." He could forecast a con templated advance days ahead, with as much certainty as if he had himself written the order requiring it. A sudden bustle in camp, the cooking of extra rations, the issuing of quarter master or commissary supplies, the arrival and departure of couriers with unwanted frequency, were all occurrences of a nature significant to the Southern scout and signs to him as in fallible as the code of signals in use at Uncle Sam's big Wash ington Weather Bureau. At such times he was generally in position to observe what was going on at all hours of the day and night and I have known one of our scouts to hang for weeks around the head quarters of a Yankee general until he A CONFEDERATE SPY. 5 could be absolutely certain of the latter's plans. Then the next move was to be up-and-away to Stuart and report the re sult of the mission. No detective ever shadowed a supposed criminal with greater vigilance than scouts did a Northern officer and in but few instances were they captured and shot, although hair breadth escapes after capture were not wanting by any means. Stuart's scouts performed duties of three kinds—observing the Federal army in camp, so as to be able to anticipate a move ment; hanging upon the flank of the army, when in motion, reporting line of march and number of corps; and crossing the lines into Washington and beyond, bearing dispatches, interviewing certain parties and securing information. The same scouts often discharged the first and second mentioned duties, but few ever went into Washington city. A college mate, who now sleeps beneath the sod of the Mississippi Val ley, and myself, were among the few perhaps, who not only scouted within our lines, but were frequently sent by President Davis and our general officers within the limits of the Union capital and once into Canada. It was after one of these stealthy excursions into Washington after information as to what probable accessions, re-enforcements and such like, Grant was apt to receive during the Wilderness campaign, which was then on, that I received from President Davis the following autograph letter, which though frayed and stained with its twenty-eight years of wear and tear in a scrap of war-time documents, is still in my possession and, like the spurs, sabre and saddle of scouting days, seems one of the substantial links to recall the scenes in which they bore their humble part: RICHMOND, VA., May 27th, 1864. MR. T. N. CONRAD, DEAR SIR : Please accept my thanks for the zealous and patriotic manner, in which you have lately served the Confederacy by going within the enemy's lines. If the expression, of my satisfaction at the efforts made by you iot 6 A CONFEDERATE SPY. the advantage of our cause will afford you gratification, it is a pleasing duty to me to thank you for them. With the assur ance of my regard. I am Very Respectfully Yours, JEFFERSON DAVIS. And now, like the man in the story book, I may be permit ted to give enough of my ante-bellum pedigree to show how from teaching the young idea how to shoot " in a figurative sense, I took to shooting literally on my own account and be came a full-fledged scout under "Jeb" Stuart, with the nomme de' plume of " Captain Conrad, chaplain of the Third Virginia Cavalry," although the first portion of that official appellation was true enough. Born at Fairfax, in the Old Dominion, and almost in sight of the very spot, where the first skirmish of hostile forces in the great war occurred, the first twenty years of life were rounded out, when I received a degree in course from a time- honored Pennsylvania College. The few years prior to '61 found me congenial occupation in teaching a large private school in Georgetown, just across the brawling little stream known as Rock Creek, which separates the old Potomac town from Washington proper. It was the proposed new national park of 1200 acres on the banks of this stream, which gave rise to so much debate in the Fifty-Second Congress and caused more than one sleepless night to the Secretary of the Treasury, because the District Supreme Court ordered the cabinet officer to unbar sthe Treasury vaults and place nearly one million dol lars at the disposal of the Park Commission, while the appro priations Committee of the House said otherwise, although the bill had passed long before the difficulty arose. That old Georgetown school building was the scene of my first arrest by Federal authorities and hastened the abandon ment of educational pursuits for the sterner ones of war. Few towns of its size, South of Mason's and Dixon's line, contained as many sympathizers with the Confederate cause as A CONFEDERATE SPK 7 did Georgetown. Certainly there were none to compare with it in that respect, proportionately near to the imaginary barrier, beyond which to the North, slavery was not legalized. Seces sion had been declared, Sumter had fallen into Beauregard's hands and hostile forces were massing in Upper Virginia. June of 1861 saw the school, of which I had charge, prepar ing for its commencement day and on that day came my first insight of the " Old Capitol Prison." Some of the gradu ates' speeches undoubtedly smacked of the strongest Southern sentiment and when, at the close of the exercises, the band struck up " Dixie," the audience went wild.

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