Discover our mission: IC principles, history, and success stories
Meet the people of the IC
Learn how to join the IC
Check out Bin Laden's Bookshelf, IC on the Record, and declassified documents
Read the latest news about and from the IC
Learn about how we work, IC members, and oversight
By the presidential election of 1860, the United States had experienced profound change since America’s war for independence, when Loyalist and Patriot spies roamed the Eastern seaboard. A westward expansion, fueled by waves of European immigrants, had sparked unprecedented growth and prosperity, pushing colonial-era territorial boundaries from Ohio, Kentucky, and western New York to faraway places like New Mexico, Colorado, and California. That compelled the presence of America’s peacetime army—numbering fewer than 16,000 soldiers—to manage clashes in the West among settlers and the indigenous Native American tribes. The nation’s navy had also languished, with less than half of its 90-vessel fleet operable.
From left: An 1856 map of the United States showing the divide between free and slave states; Campaign banner from the 1860 presidential election; Native Americans in western Wyoming, 1837; Campaign button from the 1860 presidential election; Fort Pierre, 1855
With the Western frontier commanding the Army’s attention and a scarcity of foreign threats and spies on American soil, there was little need for an intelligence organization in Army headquarters or the War Department in Washington, D.C. That would soon change just a few short months after the inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln.
As tensions between North and South over the institution of slavery and the sovereignty of states escalated into rebellion and war, many of the conditions that allowed espionage to flourish during the Revolutionary War remained largely unchanged.
The political and cultural differences between Northerners and Southerners were vast, but the two sides shared a common heritage and language, and from the outset of the war, movement and blending among competing armies and capitals posed little challenge. Espionage thrived, with many living on one side of the Mason-Dixon Line harboring sympathies for those on the other, while the mobility and daring of skilled, mounted scouts provided an added dynamic.
In the end, just as British and American agents shaped wartime strategies and outcomes during the Revolutionary War, so, too, would Union and Confederate spies make their mark, including women and African Americans, who used biases and misperceptions about their acumen and abilities to aid their deception. Collectively, spies from both sides had a profound and lasting effect on one of the most momentous chapters in the annals of American history.
From left: Confederate spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow; United States Capitol, 1861; African American soldier