The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 8: Soldier Life and Secret Service.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

The personality, the adventures, and the exploits of the Confederate scouts and spies are seldom noted in the annals of the war, and yet these unknown patriots were often a controlling factor in the hostilities. Generals depended largely on the information they brought, in planning attack and in accepting or avoiding battle. It is indeed a notable fact that a Confederate army was never surprised in an important engagement of the war.

Apart from the military service in the field, the State Department at Richmond maintained a regular line of couriers at all periods between the capital and Maryland, and thus kept familiar with every phase of the war situation at Washington and in the North. The operations of these skilful secret agents gave constant employment to the detective force of the Federal Middle Department. One efficient means of securing information was through agents at Washington, Baltimore, New York, and other Northern points, who used the cipher and inserted personals in friendly newspapers, such as the New York News, Express, and Day Book. These journals were hurried through to Richmond. At the opening of the war many well-known people of Baltimore and Washington were as hostile to the Federal Government as were the inhabitants of Richmond and New Orleans, and these were of great service to the Southern armies.

Colonel Thomas Jordan, adjutant-general of the Confederate forces under General Beauregard at Manassas, made arrangements with several Southern sympathizers at Washington for the transmission of war information, which in almost every instance proved to be extremely accurate. On July 4, 1861, some Confederate pickets captured a Union soldier who was carrying on his person the returns of McDowell's army. ‘His statement of the strength and composition of ’