John R. Kelso’s Civil Wars:
A Graphic History - Episode 5

More on the text

Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy, 92-103.  Civil War espionage left only a thin record in the archives because military commanders did not like to write about military intelligence in their official reports and tended to steer clear of the legally and ethically dubious undertakings in their postwar memoirs. (Kelso would later complain that he was never paid for his secret service because of the lack of documentation.)  Major General George McClellan, general-in-chief of all the Union armies and commander of the Army of the Potomac, hired Alan Pinkerton, who had run a well-known detective agency before the war.  Major General Ambrose Burnside, who replaced McClellan, failed to replace the Pinkerton men with better spies and in general neglected military intelligence.  Major General Joseph Hooker, however, who next commanded the Army of the Potomac, created a modern intelligence staff that gathered and analyzed information from all sources: embedded civilian spies and military scouts; cavalry reconnaissance; the interrogation of deserters, prisoners of war, and escaped slaves; intercepted enemy dispatches and stolen signals; and clues found in Confederate newspapers.  Hooker himself even took a spyglass and went up in a hot air balloon.

In the Western theater, no generals scouted the enemy from the clouds but there were plenty of spies on the ground.  Major General John C. Frémont, who arrived in Missouri in July 1861 to command the Department of the West, created an intelligence unit he named the “Jessie Scouts” in honor of his wife.  Frémont’s subordinate, Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, tried to recruit his own local secret service.  Major General Henry W. Halleck, who arrived in Missouri after Frémont’s departure in November, 1861 to command the new Department of Missouri, quickly organized his own intelligence service, though he always felt a little queasy about espionage.

Kelso’s favorite commanding officer, Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, whom Halleck made the commander of the Army of the Southwest in December, 1861, received information about the Confederate and State Guard occupation of southwestern Missouri from multiple sources, including civilian spies and military scouts like Kelso operating under cover.  When Kelso returned from an especially dangerous spy mission, Curtis received him with “great courtesy and compliments,” treating him with affection and respect in front of all the officers.  The spy considered this his reward for all his effort and suffering.