Slave in Jefferson Davis' home gave Union key secrets

CNN Online ^ | 2/20/09 | Barbara Starr and Bill Mears

[Non-Sequitur]

William Jackson was a slave in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. It turns out he was also a spy for the Union Army, providing key secrets to the North about the Confederacy.

William Jackson, a slave, listened closely to Jefferson Davis' conversations and leaked them to the North.

Jackson was Davis' house servant and personal coachman. He learned high-level details about Confederate battle plans and movements because Davis saw him as a "piece of furniture" -- not a human, according to Ken Dagler, author of "Black Dispatches," which explores espionage by America's slaves.

[Non-Sequitur]

I guess all those 'black confederates' should have recruited more heavily among Jeff's own chattel.

[deannadurbin]

“because Davis saw him as a “piece of furniture” — not a human, according to Ken Dagler”

Strictly his opinion, unconfirmed.

[Badeye]

I’m sure the man was ‘spying’. But given the time it took to get the information into the hands of anyone remotely close to Union high command, I have serious doubts as to the worth tactically or strategically.

[marron]

Jackson wasn't the only spy. There were hundreds of them. In some cases, the slaves made it to the North, only to return to the South to risk being hanged. One Union general wrote that he counted on black spies in Tennessee because "no white man had the pluck to do it."

Good article.

[Non-Sequitur]

Bubba bump

[Tallguy]

You have to be suspicious of inflated claims during “Black History Month”. Many stories have a grain of truth in them but are nonetheless blown way out of proportion.

The first question that leaps to mind is was this slave literate? Next was he able to comprehend military details sufficiently well to know what to convey to his handlers?

Just askin’

[Non-Sequitur]

Strictly his opinion, unconfirmed.

Read some of Davis's biographies and the man's own writings and you'll see that the opinion has a lot of basis in fact.

[Ditto]

But given the time it took to get the information into the hands of anyone remotely close to Union high command, I have serious doubts as to the worth tactically or strategically.

Even in the 1860s, that information could be in Washington in a day. They had the telegraph, you know.

[Non-Sequitur]

I don’t know. I might look up Dagler’s book and see what he has to say. Could be an interesting read.

[deannadurbin]

There is way too much historical revisionism in these modern studies. Unless we have a personal statement that Davis considered this servant a non-human I think it’s prudent to be cautious.

[ejonesie22]

Yes, they did have telegraph, the issue would be getting to an intact line going North from that deep in the South.

Most lines especially in the South had been destroyed by both sides to prevent their use by the other. That is on top of the fact there were few lines running North to South to begin with.

Now once the information made it to the extensive Military only telegraph system put in place by the North, it was a different story.

[Non-Sequitur]

". In the meantime the African slaves had augmented in number from about 600,000 at the date of the adoption of the constitutional compact to upward of 4,000,000. In moral and social condition they had been elevated from brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers, and supplied not only with bodily comforts but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision of a superior race, their labor had been so directed as not only to allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition, but to convert hundreds of thousands of square miles of the wilderness into cultivated lands covered with a prosperous people; towns and cities had sprung into existence, and had rapidly increased in wealth and population under the social system of the South;..." -- Jefferson Davis

Doesn't sound like he thought much of them.

[deannadurbin]

On the contrary it sounds like he noted the improvement in their living conditions, from savages to civilized. And there’s no statement there that claims they are not human.

[Ditto]

Yes, they did have telegraph, the issue would be getting to an intact line going North from that deep in the South.

The Capital of the Confederacy was Richmond, at the most a day's ride to the Union lines.

[ejonesie22]

Actually it sounds like he thought more of them than many others in the South at that time. Many thought they remained savages at heart and were in capable of embracing or at least participating in more formal culture.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

Savages?

[ejonesie22]

Yes, and in the case of Davis slaves whilst there, that would hold true, but many of these slave spies were further out, deeper in the south. The point would be the timing of tactical information, and since the Civil war occurred in that very critical time in military history as we moved from “Continental” style combat to more modern methods, timing was becoming more important.

Not to diminish their role, but not to over play it either, and the issue would be for spies of all types on either side.

[trumandogz]

If true, William Jackson is an American Hero.

[Ditto]

I suppose the value of the intel would vary on a case by case basis.

It is well know that the slave society had a very effective grapevine. News and information tended to travel very fast.

[trumandogz]

If Davis thought that slaves were human, why is it that the Confederate Constitution did not see slaves as human?