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head of the Bureau of military information and supervised all its Secret-service work until the close of the war. He brought the Bureau to a state of great efficiency.
Lieutenant H. B. Smith was chief detective of the middle Department, which comprised Maryland, Delaware, and part of Virginia.
His headquarters was at Baltimore, one of the most fertile fields for the work of the Secret service.
This city, of all that remained within the Union, was probably the most occupied in aiding and abetting the cause of the South.
Smith gathered about him a staff of about forty soldiers and civilians, and an immense amount of significant information as to the plans and movements of the citizens, some of them of great prominence, began to pour into the provostmarshal's office.
Many schemes were frustrated and the offenders arrested.
The numerous coves and bays of the Chesapeake offered secure harbors and secluded landing-places for contraband vessels.
On one occasion, Smith and two of his assistants came upon a fleet of a dozen schooners riding at anchor in an isolated spot.
The crews were unarmed and the three agents succeeded in capturing the entire lot of blockaderunners with their rich cargoes.
spies and mail-carriers were constantly apprehended and their activities interrupted.
Deserters were pursued and brought to justice.
In march, 1865, one Lewis Payne was arrested in Baltimore on a criminal charge.
Smith believed the man to be a spy, but a searching examination failed to procure any definite evidence.
The cautious detective, however, made him take the oath of allegiance, and recommended his release on condition that he would go to some point north of Philadelphia and remain there until the close of the war. A month later Payne committed the attack on William H. Seward and others at the secretary's Washington home.
during the presidential campaign of 1864, certain party powers at Albany were striving for the election.
They sent their political agents to various voting-agencies of the New
Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
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