After planting his flag with the Army of the Potomac in March, Grant concluded that he had two critical intelligence problems. The first was the disposition of Longstreet’s I Corps, which had been dispatched the previous year to Tennessee where “Old Pete” had been the chief cause of the Confederate victory at Chickamauga in September. The presence or absence of Lee’s most powerful offensive arm in the upcoming campaign against Lee was central to his planning. For that reason, keeping track of Longstreet and especially learning of his return to Virginia became a collection priority for Sharpe.
Grant’s second problem depended largely on the answer to the first—how would he approach Lee’s army to come to grips with it? The Army of Northern Virginia lay south of the Rapidan River, a southwestern tributary of the Rappahannock River. Grant had to decide whether to turn to its right or left as he penetrated south. Beyond that, he would trust to combat to achieve a decision, for his intention was to bring Lee to battle and destroy his army. He had rightly concluded that the Confederacy would collapse when its main military strength was shattered. What he had underestimated was how adamantine that strength was.
As soon as Grant set up his headquarters, barely a mile away from Meade’s, in the last week of March, Sharpe became a frequent visitor to the general-in-chief’s tent. Sharpe’s first summary that Grant saw was dated March 31. Sharpe stated that there was no movement detected in the Army of Northern Virginia and no word in the immediate future of any, according to agents; that Early had returned from the Valley with his forces; and that the forces remaining in the Valley numbered only 3,350 by Babcock’s analysis, almost all cavalry and partisan rangers. With Early’s return and the order-of-battle of forces in the Valley fixed, Grant and Meade could be sure that there were no reinforcements available from that area. It also told Grant that the Valley would be especially vulnerable and likely to draw resources from Lee.
By April 2 Sharpe was able to present Grant with a remarkably accurate estimate of Lee’s present-for-duty strength. He had just interrogated two deserters from the Stonewall Brigade, and one of them was “intelligent, and well informed of the strength and organization of their own division” (Johnson’s Division, Ewell’s Corps). With the reliability of the source verified, Sharpe added another piece of information that now had credibility: “That no considerable number of conscripts have been forwarded to Lee yet, and it is generally understood by officers and men that his army does not number 50,000 men of all arms.” Lee’s own field return for March 20 was 47,045 present for duty. Lee’s strength was so low because Longstreet’s Corps had not rejoined the Army of Northern Virginia.1
On April 5 Lee informed Davis that the Union’s main effort would be made in Virginia, but “Nothing as yet has been discovered to develop their plan … but all the information that reaches me goes to strengthen the belief that General Grant is preparing to move against Richmond.” In this he was only indirectly correct. Grant’s objective was Lee’s army and as that army would always try to protect Richmond, the capital became a byproduct target.
Lee did not need any subtle intelligence to conclude that a mighty offensive was in the making. A blind man would not have missed the massive reinforcement of the Army of the Potomac as well as Grant’s personal presence in the east, not to mention the constant buzz to that effect in the Northern press. Lee was just as intent on discovering Meade’s strength, and surprisingly his old-fashioned intelligence operation was able to keep its fingers constantly on the pulse of the Army of the Potomac. In a letter of the 13th to Braxton Bragg (kicked upstairs after his failure at Chattanooga, to the figurehead position of commanding the armies of Confederate States), Lee stated that his scouts had learned that the three reorganized corps of the Army of the Potomac (II, V, VI) numbered “75,000 men, and that he [Meade] will move with 100,000 men.” His scouts and agents were accurately reporting the continuous reinforcement of the Army of the Potomac. The army’s returns for January showed 64,010 for duty, organized in its original five corps. The army’s returns for March already showed a strength of 93,158 for duty. The return for April 30 showed 74, 356 in the three Union corps and a total of 102,329 for duty four days before Grant initiated the Overland Campaign. In an intelligence summary of April 22, Sharpe reported, “The rebels boast that they get news from Culpeper court-House every other day, and sometimes every day.” He was all too correct. Lee was very much in the intelligence game and still a formidable opponent for Sharpe.2
What Lee did not gather was that the 19,250 men of the reorganized IX Corps under Burnside assembling in Annapolis would be fighting alongside the Army of the Potomac. They were not included in the army’s order-of-battle because Burnside technically ranked Meade, and to avoid complications so common in a rank-conscious army, Grant had decided that Burnside would report directly to him. Grant had also thrown Lee off track by allowing both Burnside and the War Department to think until the last moment that IX Corps was to land on the Virginia coast south of Norfolk to operate against Richmond. It was a clever bit of disinformation that caused the Confederates to plan for a stronger defense of Richmond than would be necessary and to underestimate the strength of the force crossing the Rapidan by a full 20 percent.3
Where Sharpe had an advantage was in the much greater flow of deserters willing to share what they knew about the Army of Northern Virginia. They painted a detailed and harrowing picture of the level of privation throughout the army. The men were reduced to a pint and quarter of corn meal and a quarter pound of bacon a day and complained about the rations that “they get not better very fast.” Sharpe would have been even more encouraged had he been able to read Lee’s desperate letter to Davis of April 12 on the matter of provisions. It was apparent that the trickle of supplies had not allowed him to accumulate an operational reserve, and he had to depend on almost on a day-to-day delivery. “Any derangement in their arrival or disaster to the railroad would render it impossible for me to keep the army together, and might force a retreat into North Carolina. There is nothing to be had in this section for man or animals.”4
More importantly, Sharpe was learning of Lee’s anxiety over what he knew to be a hemorrhage of information from deserters and prisoners. A number of deserters told of Lee’s general orders being read on dress parade, admonishing the men that if they fell into the hands of the enemy to reveal only the letter of their company and number of their regiment and not to give any information on their brigade, division, or corps. The steady stream of deserters made it clear that the resolve of the South was beginning to fray seriously. Deserters included a large number of recent conscripts who had barely arrived in their regiments before they slipped over the Rapidan into the waiting arms of Union pickets. Sharpe was also interrogating a surprising number of veterans who had had enough.5
In the surviving records Sharpe and Babcock interrogated at least 60 deserters and prisoners of war from the following units. There are references to many others but not by regiment.
Late in April Sharpe dispatched Sergeants Cline and Knight and another scout named Forrester to activate contacts with the BMI’s civilian agents across the Rappahannock. They had not used the covered crossing through the ravine since January, but the agents were alert and visited them in their hiding place the night after they arrived. Silver had just arrived from a visit to Orange Court House, where Lee kept his headquarters. He had obtained Lee’s ration strength. The scouts agreed that the information had to be taken back to Sharpe immediately. They agreed that Knight would take it while the other two continued to work with the local agents.
When about half way through the ravine, in a place where one could stand upright, I suddenly ran against a man who was coming up from the river. It was very dark, and I had not been taking any heed or keeping still, and I judged the one I met was in the same fix as myself—neither of us knew that anyone was near until we came breast to breast. To say I was not frightened would be untrue. I actually felt my hair rise, and thought of the “quills upon the fretful porcupine.” I have always thought he recovered from the shock sooner than I did, for I heard him almost instantly trying to scramble up the side of the ravine. As soon as I heard that I thought to myself, “You are as much frightened as I am; let me alone and I will you,” and immediately went on my way. Neither of us spoke. When I had gotten on the north side of the river and told the boys of my adventure they said they had heard from a citizen that day that a mail was going to cross the river that night for Richmond.
It was the Confederate courier of that mail that Knight had collided with in the dark. The experience was a healthy reminder that the enemy was also an active participant in intelligence collection. It is unlikely that Sharpe did not use this information to set a snare for later Confederate couriers.6
Table 9.1. April 1864 Interrogations by the BMI
Even before Grant raised his flag at Culpeper, the War Department had issued a confidential order on the establishment of equivalent BMIs in the forces in the Valley and the Army of the James at Fortress Monroe. Manning, now promoted captain, departed for assignment with the Army of the James in April. On April 7, McEntee received orders to set up a BMI “for the purpose of acting in that district in accordance with Confidential Order, War Department, Washington City, March 21, 1864.” He was authorized to take two men and his servant. A week later his orders were clarified by the War Department to read that he was “authorized to proceed to such other points in the Shenandoah Valley, as will best serve the purposes of the orders, and give the greatest facilities for the employment of scouts, and for the prompt examination of persons coming within our lines.” It was a tall order with only two assistants. That would be the least of his problems.7
Sharpe’s analytical resources had now shrunk to Babcock and himself. He had received a number of applications to join his scout force which needed an increase for the coming campaign. He was very selective and turned down most. However, there is no indication in the surviving records of replacement officers assigned to the BMI. An unidentified individual is now writing out the interrogation reports that Manning used to prepare. Whether this is a clerk or an officer is unknown; the historical record is silent, and that silence is a strong indication, given Meade’s penny-wise, pound-foolish penury, that there were no officer replacements. It was now all up to Sharpe and Babcock, only a little less than a month before Grant would launch the most relentless and bloody offensive of the entire war. A list of the 49 officers on the staff of the Army of the Potomac as of May 2 shows no other officers working for Sharpe. Meade had not seen fit to replace the two detailed officers.8
In the middle of March Sharpe’s scouts brought in Herman Lohman, an employee of the RF&P run by Samuel Ruth; he was a German immigrant and secret Unionist. Sharpe was to find that German and British immigrants were common in the underground. Lohman had been sent by Unionists in Richmond to make contact with Meade’s army to provide information. He had gone to Isaac Silver’s home, where he made contact with the scouts. This would be Sharpe’s first direct contact with the Unionist community of Richmond that would ultimately be of the greatest value. Sharpe hurriedly wrote up the results of his interrogation on March 15 and briefed it to Meade, who in turn telegraphed it next day to Halleck and the day after to Grant. That same day Lohman was sent to Washington for further interrogation.
Lohman had presented a wealth of information. The most important item was that Longstreet was expected back in Richmond and was to be given command of an attack on Norfolk. Heavy drafts of men from Pickett’s Division were working night and day on three gunboats at Richmond. A feint was being prepared against Williamsburg. The eminent early 20th-century biographer Douglas Southall Freeman thoroughly reviewed the discussions of Longstreet’s options prior to his return to Lee. None of them had anything to do with an attack on Norfolk.9 Meade alerted the Cavalry Corps to prepare to meet the raid, but on March 21 Brigadier General Kilpatrick reported that there was some cavalry at Fredericksburg, but Stuart was simply collecting his people from furlough; ordered to return on the 15th of this month.10
It is clear that however enthusiastic were the Richmond Unionists to help the army, their collection methods left much to be desired. That problem, however, was correctable with proper guidance. Sharpe saw that the real importance lay in the fact they represented an established network that could be exploited. That it represented direct access to the operation of the railroad that was Lee’s main supply route was of enormous importance.
Lohman also told Sharpe that he “came by direction of Union citizens in Richmond—Mr. Charles Palmer, Mr. John H. Van Liew [sic], Franklin Stearns, Mr. [Frederick William Ernest, Herman’s brother] Lohman—Mr. Graham.” Presumably, Lohman explained who these people were. Van Lew would have figured in prominently. This is the first time that Van Lew’s name appears in a document of Sharpe’s. If Butler had shared Van Lew’s name with Meade, this would have been an “Aha!” moment for Sharpe. It would have told him that the Union underground was broad and overlapping and that Van Lew was its unofficial leader.
Useful as the scout’s information on Lee’s ration strength was, it was the patient work of Babcock’s interrogations that gave Grant the answer to his first great question—where is Longstreet? This was the dominant question in almost every interrogation report of deserters, prisoners, and contrabands, and it yielded a steady stream of surprisingly accurate camp rumor. At first it was downright inaccurate, perhaps reflecting Lee’s increasingly strong demands to Davis for the return of his most able corps commander. It also reflected the concern among all ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia for the absence of the mighty I Corps. It would be difficult to contemplate the major campaign they knew was coming without Lee’s Old Warhorse in the fray. Ironically, Grant had set Sharpe to finding Longstreet when Lee was not even sure where he was. On the 5th Lee wrote Davis that he had to infer Longstreet’s location in the absence of accurate information. In the strongest terms he asked for Longstreet’s return to his command. Early in the first week of April contrabands and deserters reported I Corps was entrained and halfway from Tennessee to Virginia with advance elements in Lynchburg, when Longstreet would not even receive his orders to move until April 7, orders triggered no doubt by Lee’s remonstrations of two days before.11
But from then on the information kept getting more and more accurate until it built a coherent, reliable picture. Longstreet was concentrating slowly at Charlottesville because of the limited capacity of the railroads and informed Lee on the 16th that not all of his men would reach that point until the 21st. On the 17th Sharpe reported the camp rumor that elements of I Corps had arrived in Charlottesville the previous week. On April 22 Lee ordered the corps moved to Gordonsville because of a lack of good camping sites in the Charlottesville area, a transfer that the BMI quickly picked up on the same day from deserters. Nevertheless, it is clear from the tone and wording of Sharpe’s reports that he was not satisfied with the camp rumors being reported by deserters. Like a good intelligence officer, he kept hunting for more concrete evidence, but his nervousness was palpable as his evidence remained only wispy camp rumors.12
At the same time, Babcock’s interrogations were also picking up another constant camp rumor entwined with the others reported from the BMI’s civilian agents. Lee intended to maneuver Longstreet through the Valley to attack the Union right at Culpeper while he attacked across the Rapidan. The origin of this rumor was probably the letter Lee wrote to Davis on March 30, in which he recommended, “Longstreet should be held in readiness to be thrown rapidly in the Valley if necessary to counteract any movement in that quarter, in accomplishing which I could unite with him, or he with me, should circumstances require it on the Rapidan.” Even the very reliable agent Silver, the “Old Man,” was reporting the intertwined rumor—one true and the other not—that Longstreet’s “corps was at Charlottesville. And it is supposed that Longstreet will join Early at the head of the valley, and when General Stuart and Fitzhue [sic] Lee starts from Fredericksburg, Longstreet will start down the valley, to commit depredations on the west side of the Union army.” The reporting was as persistent as it was consistent and had therefore to be taken seriously. It is one of the vagaries of the art of intelligence that intelligence of the discussion of a plan will trigger counter-planning by the collecting side. The latter will take on a life of its own, as it did in this case, even when the original threat never, in the end, materialized. When the truth and an untruth come wrapped around each other, it is nearly impossible to untangle them, as Sharpe was not able to do in this instance. The importance of Longstreet’s arrival outweighed the misinformation of his movement to the Valley.13 It was better that both be believed than both disbelieved.
The misinformation would have important consequences. What was clear at the time to Grant was that Lee was attempting to forestall him. He had accurately read Lee’s intent of the proposed Valley maneuver, and fearful of losing the initiative, he set the date for the Union advance for May 4.
The location of Longstreet remained a collection priority. Braxton Bragg on the 16th had ordered Longstreet to move his corps at Charlottesville, but then, since the area had no good camping grounds, he was to bivouac in the vicinity of Gordonsville where Lee’s headquarters was located. Lee had informed Davis on April 23 that he was retaining Longstreet at Cobham 6 miles southwest of Gordonsville until the remainder of his troops arrived. That would be slow because the trains could only deliver 1,500 men a day. Sharpe was closely following the move of I Corps. On April 25 the weight of testimony from deserters and agents was such that Sharpe was able to confidently state that “the arrival of Longstreet’s advance at Charlottesville is fully corroborated.” That was only 12 miles southwest of Cobham. Two days later Sharpe identified Longstreet at Wolftown, 21 miles from Cobham to the north in Madison County. That same day Meade ordered cavalry reconnaissance in brigade strength to confirm that report. The brigade found none of Longstreet’s infantry there. McEntee, who was in the Valley with Sigel’s command, was still reporting on April 28 Longstreet in the valley, but the next day corrected that assessment and reported Longstreet in Gordonsville, definitely outside the Valley, with the vital observation, “in easy supporting distance of Lee.” Longstreet himself in his memoirs cites a location just south of Gordonsville. Notwithstanding the erroneous identification of Wolftown as occupied by some of Longstreet’s Corps, the BMI had accurately located Longstreet in the vicinity of Gordonsville.14
At this point it was clear that Longstreet was not moving to the Valley; Lee had concentrated his II and III Corps along the Rapidan, with Longstreet’s Corps the furthest west of the three corps but within easy supporting distance of the others. Lee had placed Longstreet in a position that would shield Richmond while at the same time giving him a mobile reserve while he awaited Grant’s first move.
Grant had more than one army to employ in the coming campaign in eastern Virginia. Major General Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James was ideally poised for a rapid descent on Richmond, while Lee would be focused on Meade’s army. While planning was underway for the coming campaign, Butler had come across a pearl of great price, the news of which reached Sharpe. A Richmond lady named Elizabeth Van Lew had made contact with him, volunteered to provide valuable military information, and had done just that. In his planning for the Army of the James’s share of the general offensive of all the Union armies, he had identified Fort Darling protecting Richmond on the James River as a key obstacle to be overcome. He passed a request through the lines for information on the fort. Van Lew responded with a complete set of drawings from Union sympathizers most likely in the Confederate war department.15
For Sharpe, Van Lew’s potential as an agent would have been immense. He must then have been horrified to read that the National Republican on April 12 published an article that did all but identify Van Lew by name. The nightmare of any intelligence officer is that the feckless press will compromise agents. It was an especially dangerous revelation because the Confederates had a rapid conduit for information from Washington to reach Richmond. Fortunately, the Confederate authorities did not connect the article to Van Lew.16
It was not long before Sharpe sent a request for information that was passed through Butler to Van Lew. There were three issues:
1. Is there any powder under the Capitol at Richmond?
2. Money sent by Hughes for Hancock’s benefit (Hancock was a prisoner at Libby. Hughes was a scout)
3. Send immediately correspondence between Early and Barksdale after the battle of Chancellorsville.
The use of the Capitol as a possible headquarters after the fall of Richmond prompted the first item and was probably prompted by a rumor that must have caused some senior officer—Meade, Humphreys, or Grant—to request confirmation. Van Lew’s reply assured Grant’s headquarters that there was no powder under the Capitol. The third item was expected to have topographical and other information useful to the planning for the coming Overland Campaign. How Sharpe knew there was such correspondence is unknown but intriguing. That correspondence had already been published and was also included in her reply. Barksdale’s Brigade of Early’s Division occupied the area of Fredericksburg after the battle of Chancellorsville. Barksdale was the officer charged with cleaning up that part of the battlefield and in sending Union wounded back across the Potomac. The Early-Barksdale correspondence would have discussed the Fredericksburg area, the terminus of Lee’s main supply route. What specifically Sharpe was looking for is unknown, but intelligence casts a wide net in support of operational planning. However, there is nothing in official records to substantiate this story.17
Van Lew also provided Sharpe with a startling report obtained from one of her agents at the War Department—that Davis and his cabinet considered the Confederacy “to be in a state of collapse.” In April Sharpe received a report from McPhail’s well-placed and reliable agent Maddox that supported that report.
An order has just been issued ordering the quartermasters throughout the land to seize all provisions in the possession of the people except ¼ pound per day for every grown person. Lee’s army has not meat twice a week. They are subsisting entirely on cornbread and molasses. The cold spring has thrown back the corn crops in the South and the whole country is apprehensive of an early famine. Lee cooped up in Richmond could not subsist an army 30 days. The Petersburg Railroad could not supply him.
Perhaps this explains Grant’s optimism in the coming campaign that if he kept hitting Lee hard and often enough, the Army of Northern Virginia would simply collapse.18
Lee’s intelligence collection efforts and his own analysis were also serving him well, as Douglas Southall Freeman pointed out:
Lee studied with utmost care the reports that came from his spies [scouts] during this period of waiting, and on April 16, he was satisfied that three attacks were in the making—a main assault across the Rapidan, a diversion in the Valley of Virginia, and an attack on the flank or rear of the Army of Northern Virginia, probably directed against Drewry’s Bluff on the James River, so as to expose the ware-line to Richmond.
Lee’s reports of the activities of his scouts is worth recounting at length to show how his scouts were operating and how effective they were. Sharpe’s BMI was not the only game in town. As early as April 7, Lee was able to inform Braxton Bragg, now figurehead commander of all the Confederate armies, that “I think it apparent that the enemy is making large preparations for the approaching campaign in Virginia.” You can almost see him rolling his eyes as he recounts how a source named “Potomac,” as of the 1st, had reported, “60,000 troops marching from Washington to Point Lookout I suppose intended for wit.” Point Lookout was the large Union POW camp located on the tip of the long stretch of ground separated by the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. Lee thought it a poor unintended joke that a Union army would be marching to a cul de sac and POW camp.
He discounted rumors of Union reinforcements coming from the west, “but none of my scouts have seen them. I therefore think it is doubtful.” He had two scouts observing the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, on either side of the tracks, with no communication between them. They were providing him the same information that the railroad was extremely active and that troops were constantly arriving from Alexandria. “They think they are recruits and furloughed men. Their clothes are too new and overcoats of too deep a blue for old troops. They estimate that from 20,000 to 30,000 men have been transported by the railroad in the last ten days.” Lee than insisted on the return of his two detached brigades and the forwarding to him of every available recruit.19
On the 18th he wrote to President Davis:
I received yesterday reports from two of our most reliable scouts, upon whom I have depended for information. One was dated the 4th and the other the 6th. The writer of the former had been near Alexandria, had communication with persons inside the town every day, and had watched the Alexandria and Orange Railroad four or five days. He states that a large number of recruits are being sent to the Army of the Potomac, and expressed surprise at the number of troops conveyed on the road, but that no additional corps had yet passed up. The general impression was that the great battle would take place on the Rapidan and that the Federal army would advance as soon as the weather is settled. All the white troops had been taken from the intrenchments around Alexandria and ordered to General Meade, and their places supplied by negroes. It was reported that the troops from Charleston were to be brought to Fort Monroe. The writer of the latter was in Culpeper in communication with the C. H. watching the enemy’s movements. Among the reports in circulation was that the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps were expected. That may be, however, to encourage their men, who were deserting in expectation of a fight.20
Lee wrote again the very next day to Davis. His scouts had identified the concentration of IX Corps at Annapolis, and the Washington Chronicle had identified its strength at 30,000, but he correctly noted that it was an exaggeration—Burnside had about 20,000 men in reality. The Washington newspapers had rumored that this force was to be used in some special operation on the coast, the deception planted by Grant.
Scout Thomas N. Conrad was sent on a special mission to pin down Burnside’s mission. His War Department contacts did not know. So far Grant’s security was working. He was keeping Burnside’s mission to himself. Then Conrad traveled up to Annapolis and walked around the city dressed in his preacher’s suit, chatting up a number of people, and discovered that no one expected any coastal adventure. The only logical alternative mission was to reinforce Grant in the coming campaign. He wrote out a dispatch to Lee: “Burnside will reinforce Grant, and that at an early day.” The next day he sent it out through the “doctor’s” line to the Potomac where it was taken across to camp on the Virginia shore called the “Eagle’s Nest” and from there to the Fredericksburg telegraph which sent it directly to Richmond. To ensure that Lee got the information, Conrad crossed back into Virginia and rode breakneck to Lee’s headquarters, where he discovered that his first message had been forwarded to Lee the day before. Lee was now sure that Burnside’s IX Corps would array itself against his Army of Northern Virginia in the spring.21
His scout at Culpeper also continued to report the arrival of large numbers of troops, not in organized units but in squad size that reported to different commands, presumably replacements and or convalescents. He, however, erroneously reported that the XI and XII Corps were expected, and rumor had them arriving in Alexandria. Lee then noted that the Washington Chronicle had also written on the 4th, “that General W. F. Smith has been ordered to the command of the troops around Fortress Monroe … if true, would indicate that operations are contemplated from that quarter, which they did not wish to trust to General Butler.” He was correct in this. Grant had put Smith in command of XVIII Corps in Butler’s Army of the James precisely because he did not trust the latter’s ability but was forced to keep him for political reasons.22
Three days later he wrote Davis another summary. Mosby reported that no reinforcements had been sent to the Army of the Potomac despite the deception measure of the enemy to assert that it had to dismay the local population. Lee did not believe this, concluding that this information came from citizens and because his scouts from personal observation have reported otherwise. He does accurately report that troops from the defenses of Washington were being replaced with the Invalid Corps. An especially trusted scout, Lt. Channing Smith reported security measures and indications of preparations for movement. “[T]he sutlers, traders, and all persons not connected to the Army of the Potomac are ordered to leave. All extra baggage, &c., has been ordered to Washington.” Smith then adds that XI and XII Corps had been ordered to join Meade. The Washington Chronicle continued to be a good source of information; Lee noted that it reported that the two corps had been consolidated under the command of Major General Hooker and that Maj. Gen. P. H. Sheridan has been assigned to the command of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac.
Scouts on the Potomac on the 9th observed 10 steamers carrying an estimated two brigades of infantry. In a shrewd appraisal, Lee drew the appropriate conclusions:
They may be merely sick, &c. If they are preparing armed transports and launches for disem-barking troops I think they can only be intended for the James River. I see no other place where they would be required. We should be prepared in that quarter. A landing may be intended at City Point to capture Drewry’s Bluff. I think it probable that at the appointed time operations at Charleston will be suspended and certain troops and iron-clads be transferred to James River, as I see it stated in the Northern papers that General Gillmore has been assigned a part in the proposed campaign in Virginia.23
It was another shrewd appraisal. Gilmore and a large number of his troops were indeed being transferred to the James from the siege of Charleston.
In his April 18 letter to Davis, Lee persisted in the error that XI and XII Corps had returned to join Meade. His sources were also unsure of the numbers of the corps, an indication that his order-of-battle analysis was not nearly as detailed as Sharpe’s. His most important conclusion was to divine Grant’s intentions in the Valley.
A scout just from the valley reports that Averell left Martinsburg last Tuesday, and moved up the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, taking with him all the cavalry that could be spared from that region, leaving only a garrison at Martinsburg… I think it probable that Averell will move upon the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, or Staunton or some point west, at the time of the general movement upon Richmond, from some point beyond the North Mountain. I think, too, General Grant will rely upon his flank movement upon Richmond to draw this army back.
One day later he was alerting Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge, commanding in the Valley, to Averell’s cavalry threat, though he incorrectly discounted it as a deception of a major advance up the Valley. He added that “General Meade’s army is reported ready to advance. His sick, invalids, sutlers, &c., have been sent back to Washington, his troops rationed, and only waiting for the roads to become passable.” On the 29th Lee cited another trusted scout, Frank Stringfellow, as reporting the movement of Burnside’s Corps through Washington and Alexandria and concluded it was destined to be employed on the Rappahannock front. He received a report dated April 27, probably from his clandestine agent, Walter Bowie, which gave an “extremely accurate account … of the forces and strategy General Grant expected to employ” in the coming campaign.24
Finally, on the 30th Lee wrote to Davis again to tell him essentially that the Union forces were uncoiling from their camps and moving across the Rappahannock. He quoted a Philadelphia Inquirer of the 26th that said that “all their available forces are being advanced to the front. They are also apparently drawing troops from Florida and the Southern coast.” On the 28th Mosby was at Centerville, between Alexandria and Manassas, and watched Burnside’s IX Corps training south. Prisoners told him there were only convalescents left in the camps in Annapolis. That same day “loyal citizens” reported Burnside had arrived at Rappahannock Station. The Washington Chronicle of the 27th stated that XI and XII Corps would not return from Tennessee to reinforce the Army of the Potomac. His scouts reported that V Corps, which had been guarding the Orange and Alexandria Railroad had been relieved by negro troops. They also reported that Meade’s engineer troops, pontoon trains, and all his cavalry had crossed the Rappahannock. “Everything indicates a concentrated attack on this front…” He also identified that Union forces would “demonstrate” north or south of the James River and that Sigel and Averell would strike the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to Stanton.25 How quickly he acquired enemy newspapers is a testament to his intelligence collection network in the Union rear.
Lee’s scouts were an operational security challenge for the Union forces. They had the uncanny ability to infiltrate camps and even headquarters and gain the most valuable information simply from listening to conversations. Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Lyman, Meade’s aide, observed, “A secret expedition with us is got up like a picnic, with everybody blabbing and yelping. One is driven to think that not even the prospect of immediate execution will stop Americans from streaming on in their loose, talking, devil-may-care ways.”26
Lee had security problems of his own which he expressed in a letter to Secretary of War Seddon on the 30th. He objected to the publication of official military reports of operations:
It is no little advantage to our opponents to know how we are affected, or what action is induced by movements of theirs, or by any other state of circumstances. Particularly is this the case at the present time. The operations of his campaign are likely to cover many localities that have been the scene of some of the events narrated in my reports, and it is by no means impossible that we may have to deal with combinations of circumstances in all respects analogous to some that have already been encountered, and I feel that I should be embarrassed if the enemy knew the line of conduct pursued by me on former occasions and the reasons that governed me.
I am afraid that much injury has already been done by these publications. I should be well pleased to have as accurate information as to the strength, means, and difficulties of the enemy…27
It would have been bitter vindication had Lee known that Sharpe had acquired a train of about 20 wagons for this campaign—dedicated to carrying his growing valuable files of newspapers and other captured documents. It represented a unique database in the history of war.
Taken all in all, Lee had orchestrated an effective intelligence collection effort; his scouts appear to have been able to penetrate just about anywhere in the Union rear. He made full use of their information, shrewdly analyzing the results, despite the errors in reference to XI and XII Corps and a major move down the Valley. Confident that he had fully grasped Grant’s strategy, he concluded in his last letter to Davis, “If that movement can be successfully met and resisted, I have no uneasiness as to the result of the campaign in Virginia.”28
With this information, Grant could decide which enemy flank to turn, and that decision turned largely on logistics and the need to get between Lee and Richmond. Attacking Lee’s left or western flank would severely overextend the supply lines of the Army of the Potomac and offer an easy target to Lee. An attack from that direction would also engage Longstreet directly and would break communications with Butler’s Army of the James near Richmond. It would also violate another working principle of Grant’s—try to get between Lee and Richmond. Grant decided to maneuver around Lee’s right or eastern flank, and at this juncture, Sharpe’s scouts found that the necessary fords over the Rappahannock were unguarded. Meade’s chief of staff, Major General A. A. Humphreys, was given the task of planning the movement, and he relied on Lee’s reaction to Meade’s similar maneuver the previous fall in the Mine Run Campaign as a guide. Then Lee had taken over 30 hours to develop the situation against Meade and had retreated behind his fortifications along Mine Run to the south of the Rapidan. The unguarded fords, however, were not an unalloyed gift. On the other side lay the Wilderness, the same tangle of jungle-like thickets and woods that had enmeshed Hooker at Chancellorsville the previous May. The problem would be to rapidly push through the Wilderness and debouch into the open territory to its south in order to maneuver against Lee. This done, he would let opportunity guide his actions. As he wired to Halleck, “My own notions about our line of march are entirely made up,” because “circumstances beyond my controll [sic] may change them.”29
Grant was not too concerned with the enemy’s probable course of action as long as it allowed him to engage Lee in the open while guarding his logistics. For him, the essential point was to know that the enemy was in the area of operations and to bring him to battle through the use of bold initiative. Unfortunately, precise intelligence on enemy dispositions and movements and especially on the terrain to be traversed was exactly what was needed to facilitate Grant’s grand movement to contact. None of these were to be forthcoming.
Maps of the terrain of the Wilderness area prepared by the army’s topographical engineers were so devoid of detail as to be essentially useless. Both Meade and Grant bungled the use of cavalry for reconnaissance over this difficult ground. It would be Meade’s infantry and not his cavalry that would warn him of the approach of Ewell’s men in the battle on May 5. Apparently the cavalry was not used to gather intelligence on the most useful routes through the Wilderness before the army was set in motion. During the movement to contact, two-thirds of the Cavalry Corps were employed guarding the trains, and the other third performed poorly in reconnaissance.
Aside from his excellent order-of-battle reporting, Sharpe’s scouts and agents mainly reported on “fortifications protecting certain fords, the strength of the Mine Run defense, and Longstreet’s latest whereabouts.” The latter was critical because it indicated to Grant where Lee’s reserve was located as well as its movement in the direction of Orange, which was bringing it closer to Grant’s intended battlefield.30
Sharpe did, however, attempt to do what the cavalry did not and that was provide local guides through the Wilderness, but his resources were limited. On May 2 Sharpe wrote to Hancock, commanding II Corps, promising to send “two good men as guides. One of them may have to ride in an ambulance having lost part of one of his feet while lying within the enemy’s lines during the late snow-storm.”31
Lee’s scouts and signal corps would serve him much better, though there would be a barb in that service. On the very morning that the blue columns were in motion over the Rappahannock fords, the Union signal station on Stony Mountain, north of the Rapidan, intercepted and deciphered a signal report of 9:30 a.m. to Ewell. “From present indications everything seems to be moving to the right, on Germanna and Ely’s Ford roads, leaving cavalry in our front.” At 11:00 another intercepted message read, “We are moving.” Grant was delighted. “That gives me just the information I wanted. It shows that Lee is drawing out from his position, and is pushing across to meet us.” That was confirmed again by a further signal station observation at 3:00 p.m.: “Enemy moving infantry and trains toward Verdierville. Two brigades gone from this front. Camps on Clark’s Mountain breaking up.” The giant meeting engagement he had wanted was about to come to pass.32
As the blue masses snaked toward the Rappahannock that morning of the 4th, many of them set fire to their winter quarters, a clear statement that they did not intend to return. The army’s headquarters was at one end of a small valley, and the provost marshal and BMI headquarters at the lower end. In the distance the huge plumes of smoke from the burning camps of the Cavalry Corps filled the sky. The scout Daniel Plew set his own hut on fire just as Brigadier General Patrick rode into the camp. He flew into a rage at Plew, striking him repeatedly with his riding crop and shouting, “Do you want to let the enemy know we are coming?” He promptly arrested Plew and kept him in confinement for three more days. It was not difficult to see why the scouts thoroughly detested Patrick. By inference it seems Sharpe was not present but probably with the army command group at the upper end of the Valley. Given his paternal care for his men, he doubtless would have intervened.33
Patrick could have spared Plew the abuse had he known that Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry scouts had infiltrated the Union camps and galloped back to inform their commander of the enemy’s movement. Fitzhugh Lee informed Robert E. Lee immediately. The latter divined Grant’s intentions from these and the signal reports and put his army in motion to meet him.34
Sharpe had his scouts out, crossing the Rapidan at Germania Ford and fanning out along the roads. They found the dense scrub hard going and eventually most of them were held near the army headquarters to be available for any special missions. The next morning, at 7:30 a.m., Meade notified Grant that the enemy had appeared on his front still within the Wilderness. Grant ordered him to pitch in, and the terrible battle of the Wilderness had begun. In the first day’s fighting on May 5, Sharpe discovered from an intercepted message and prisoner interrogation that the Confederates were aware of Grant’s build-up on their right and that Longstreet would be arriving to stop him the next day. Scouts Knight and McEneany also discovered that “the bulk of the rebels, in our belief, had moved to the left, and the results showed that we were right,” and reported this finding immediately to Sharpe at headquarters.
The role of the BMI becomes more difficult to follow, because for the battle of the Wilderness there is only one report by Sharpe for May 5 and another by Meade to Grant on the same day in which he cites what Sharpe told him. “It appears to be the general opinion among prisoners that Longstreet was not in the action to-day, though expected, and that his position was to be on their right or our left. His force supposed to be about 12,000. He probably will attack Hancock to-morrow.”35
Grant’s build-up on his left was meant to cover his communications, and Longstreet or no Longstreet, he would be committed to that attack regardless of the fact that it meant a brutal fight in the jungle-like growth of the Wilderness where his advantage in numbers would be cancelled. The next day his attack, led by Hancock’s II Corps, just ground away at the Confederates opposing his attack until their front began to unravel. The crisis was such that Lee himself rode to the front to lead a last desperate defense. It was then that Longstreet’s I Corps double-timed onto the field, shouting, “General Lee to the rear!” as Lee tried to join them in their charge and threw the victorious Union advance back. The battle ended on that flank as a stalemate while hundreds of the wounded burned to death in the fires set among the thick brush.36
The battle had one last act. The Confederate II Corps overlapped the Union VI Corps flank on the right. Lee authorized an attack late in the day by Early’s Division. Sharpe was a direct observer of Grant’s sang froid as the Confederate attack struck.
Well, one of the very critical periods of that battle—I might say its crisis—occurred on the second day, May 6, 1864, when General Early was hurled in a vigorous attack against the Union right wing, then in command of General Sedgwick, who met his death three days later while planting some guns in an advanced position at Spottsylvania [sic]. At the height of this attack I know that General Mead was greatly disturbed that Lee should turn our right flank. That done, in all probability we should have been driven back over the Rapidan, and the country would have said it was a case of Bull Run, Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg over again.
We were standing in a little group around Meade, observing his anxiety, when, casually turning my eyes toward the place where I had seen General Grant standing some time before, I failed to locate him. However, I did see a soldier sitting under a tree and whittling a stick. I thought that was a curious attitude for a soldier to take, and I looked again. Then, for the first time I saw that the man in question was General Grant. You know, at that time, our eastern officers were not as familiar with his peculiarities as we became later. This was the first battle we had been in with him.
There sat the great general, actually whittling on a piece of pine, and apparently perfectly unconcerned as to the outcome of the attack on Sedgwick or the fortunes of the battle anywhere else along our front. I think Meade also must have observed Grant’s apparent indifference, for at last he approached him, and the rest of us went with Meade. As we neared the tree, I noticed that Grant wore no uniform with which would distinguish his rank. He had on a private’s blouse and thick boots and, so far as I could see, no stars.
He looked up at as Meade came within speaking distance and waited patiently for the latter to speak. I did not catch exactly what Meade said, but I know its purport, Meade intimating to Grant that he was very apprehensive that Lee was turning our right and it seemed to him that reinforcements should be sent to Sedgwick.
Grant stopped whittling, with the knife blade buried half way down the wood. “I don’t believe it,” he said. Slowly, quietly and very decisively. Then he began whittling again.
General Meade and the rest of us drew offa few paces, but after a minute or two Meade repeated his anxiety to Grant, who once more stopped shaving down the piece of pine just long enough to repeat in the same quiet, determined way: “I don’t believe it.”
But despite the assurance from our commander we stood around apprehensively, and Grant, finally noticing our doubt, apparently added a few words to his stock sentence as he whittled away. “Don’t worry about our right,” he said. “Sedgwick is there. No one will be able to turn him; nobody can get by him. Besides, Lee can’t afford to send reinforcements from other parts of his army to his left. Don’t worry, gentlemen.”
I could see that General Meade was not at all convinced that he was, in fact, beginning to lose his temper—you know, he was a quick-tempered man. But just then occurred an extraordinary incident. An officer rode up, saluted General Grant, and the next moment was declaring that he had the honor of reporting for Sedgwick that the right was holding its own and was in no danger.
“I thought so,” said Grant quietly, more to himself than to us, as he resumed whittling.
I think from that moment we never lost our confidence in the accuracy of Grant’s judgment.37
Confidence in Grant had also permeated down through the ranks. On June 19 Grant, Meade, and Butler were riding along the lines of the VI when Grant stopped before Drummer Bill and asked, “Drummer, where do you belong?”
Seeing all the stars on the group, Bill snapped to attention and saluted, “To the Sixth Corps.”
Grant then asked, “Well, Drummer, where is the Sixth Corps going?”Bill shot back, “Deed I don’t know, sir. Gen. Grant ought to know!”38
Sharpe’s information about Longstreet had been spot on. Unfortunately, there were no other BMI reports to illustrate the role of intelligence, other than those two, for the rest of the battle. Meade’s report to Grant of the 5th shows that there was more BMI reporting. If those reports survive, they have not yet come to life; a diligent search of the National Archives has proved fruitless. The next extant report from Sharpe would not be until May 9, after the army had already reached Spotsylvania. Most of Sharpe’s reports during a battle would have been delivered in briefings; there was no time to write out official reports. What reports that have survived in the Official Records are in the form of prisoner interrogations by the capturing corps which contained an important piece of information. The word had spread like wildfire through the Confederate ranks when Longstreet had been badly wounded, and, through prisoners, quickly came to the ears of Meade and Grant. Lee appointed one of his division commanders, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Anderson, to replace him. Sharpe picked this up from a Richmond newspaper and briefed it to Meade and Grant because the latter cites Longstreet’s wounding in a message to Halleck on the 7th as did Rawlins in a letter of the same day. About the same time Butler found Lee’s official report of Longstreet’s wounding.39
As the fighting was raging, Sharpe had sent his scouts out to find the enemy’s rear. Scouts Knight and McEneany found their way blocked and reported back to Sharpe. They also reported the ludicrous flight of the new 22nd New York Cavalry, in which half the men had fallen off their horses so green were they after only two months’ service. Sharpe immediately took him to Grant and Meade to repeat the story. Grant replied, “Take their horses away and give them to better men, if they don’t behave better.” Luckily for the 22nd NY, the order was never carried, and with experience they became a good regiment.40
In one of the bitter ironies of war, one of Sharpe’s most valuable agents, Isaac Silver, whose farm was on the Plank Road, suffered the ruin of his farm at the hands of Sheridan’s cavalry, which had “settled down on his place like a flight of Egyptian locusts.” Sheridan had concentrated his cavalry divisions around Silver’s home on the night of May 8 during the battle of Spotsylvania in preparation for his strike into the Confederate rear that would lead to the battle of Yellow Tavern and the death of Stuart. Silver served Sheridan as his guide.41 He would find little gratitude from the cavalry.
Later, Sharpe had sent Knight and other scouts to rescue some Union wounded in the hands of the Confederate sheriff. Before their arrival the sheriff had sent the prisoners to Richmond and then fled. On their return to BMI headquarters they stopped at Silver’s farm. Knight remembered that a few days before he had been there and had never “seen a nicer farm … growing crops, with young apple and peach orchards. Now it was the desert of the Sahara, orchards, fences, growing crops all had disappeared from the face of the earth.” He asked why he did not explain that he was a Union agent. Silver replied, “I did, but no one would believe me, and it seemed to me that they have treated me worse on account of what I told them than they would have done had I said nothing.” One can imagine Sharpe’s wrath had he come across the scene. The perpetrators had already departed with Sheridan on his great ride through the Confederate rear.
The only troops at the farm were from the Quartermaster Corps. Knight sought out the commander.
I told him who Silver was, and what he had done for us, the condition he was now in, and what he would be in when our people left, and asked him to furnish rations enough to keep the family for some time. His answer was that he was sorry he could not do it, but there was no law or regulation by which he could. After thinking the situation over, I asked if he could issue rations to me, and he said he could; also, that he would be pleased to do so. I made a requisition for a great many more men than I had with me for 10 days, and turned the things over to Silver.
The scouts visited the man over twenty years later and found he had forgotten the desolation of his farm as old age had fallen upon him. They were to note that “His wife, however, remembered.”42
What was manifesting itself at Wilderness in the dearth of intelligence reports and subsequently was the consequence of Meade’s inattention to the BMI. He had allowed the detail of McEntee and Manning to the Valley and Fortress Monroe and provided no replacements. The entire burden of BMI analysis fell upon Sharpe and Babcock alone. As the campaign continued he would find other duties to further divert Sharpe from his primary mission.