Other writers have described the ‘Intelligence Bureau’ of the rank and file, by means of which the troops seemed well supplied with tidings of every Union move of consequence—tidings only too quickly carried by daring and devoted sons of the South, who courted instant death by accepting duty in the Secret Service, and lived the lonely life, and in many an instance died the lonely, unhallowed death of the spy. Men who sought that calling must have had illimitable love for and faith in the cause for which they accepted the ignominy that, justly or unjustly, attaches to the name. Men like Major Andre and Nathan Hale had succeeded in throwing about their hapless fate the glamour of romance and martyrdom, but such halos seem to have hovered over the head of few, if ally, who, in either army during the bitter four years war, were condemned to die, by the felon's rope, the death of the spy.
The Old Capitol Prison in Washington was long the abiding place of men and women confined by order of our ‘Iron Secretary’ on well-founded suspicion of being connected with the Southern system, and in the Camp of the Army of the Cumberland, two sons of the Confederacy, men with gentle blood in their veins and reckless daring in their hearts, were stripped of the uniforms of officers of the Union cavalry, in which they had been masquerading for who can say what purpose, tried by court martial, and summarily executed.
Secret Service at best was a perilous and ill-requited duty. In spite of high pay it was held in low estimation, first on general principles, and later because it was soon suspected, and presently known, that many men most useful as purveyors of information had been shrewd enough to gain the confidence, accept the pay, and become the informants of both sides. Even Secretary Stanton was sometimes hoodwinked, as in the case of the ‘confidential adviser’ he recommended to Sheridan in the fall of 1864.
