Surveillance and Spies in the Civil War: Exposing Confederate Conspiracies in America’s Heartland By Stephen E. Towne

Abstract

Stephen E. Towne’s Surveillance and Spies in the Civil War is an exhaustive account of the measures taken by the United States government to detect and defang conspiracies aimed at sabotaging the Union war effort in the Old Northwest (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois). In contrast to most previous scholarship, Towne argues that a broad, concerted effort to “incite desertion, resist arrest of deserters, stop enlistments, and prevent continued conscription” (p. 50) did indeed exist and, rather than serving simply as a cynical political tool for Republicans, constituted a genuine danger to the Union cause. Towne illustrates the difficulties U.S. military and government officials faced as they attempted to ascertain the nature of various threats and prevent them from materializing. His impressive research has produced a comprehensive and convincing account of Union efforts to secure the Old Northwest home front during the Civil War.