Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Pinkerton Agency During the Civil War

At least you didn’t start with “if only Stonewall would have been there”!😀
Fact is, Lee fought the first two days of that battle without any idea who was in front of him, and where they were placed.
He went into Gettysburg blind, with only a couple small brigades of Cavalry until Stuart finally showed up the evening of the 2nd.
I respect “Marse Robert” as much as anyone.
But Gettysburg is a “WTF were you thinking” battle for him.
He let Early push him into attacking on 2 July, against his better judgement, and his Army paid for it in blood.
If you remember, he wanted to slide around to his right down Emmitsburg Road on the evening after the first day.
Early talked him out of it, sighting a dip in moral after the men had won a victory.
He ordered Longstreet to attack Cemetery Hill , right up Emmitsburg Road, not knowing that Meade had occupied Cemetery Ridge.
Pete did the reconnaissance, delaying an attack that wasn’t ordered for the morning anyway.
That delay actually give Sickles time to stick his head through a noose by vacating his position and moving ahead to the Peach Orchard.
There was never a “dawn attack” order for the 2nd or the 3rd.
That myth was dreamed up by Early and Pendleton after Lee had died and Longstreet became a (gasp) Republican in 1870.
Pete, with only two divisions, nearly won. Quick thinking by several Union officers, Warren, Hunt, and Hancock held the ground, at terrible cost.
Reon

As much as I don’t like him, I still would like to read his take on Stanton, before and after the assassination. Like I said, I’m beginning to think that he was actually the one pulling the strings.
And I can easily believe he would feed Little Mac bad intel to keep him from winning the war. If he had taken Richmond in 1862, the war would have been over, and Mac would have been President in 1865. With slavery still legal!
Reon

I think it’s a stretch to think that the Pinkertons were purposefully inflating Confederate numbers for any reason given the uncertainty of the times.

What was the methodology used to gather estimates by the Pinkertons? It certainly wasn’t radio intercepts or drones.

Also, when they were providing estimates, would it not be safer for them to err on the high side?

I’m inclined to go with Occam on this one: that McClellan was exactly as portrayed; a great organizer but not a risk-taker.

Don’t know how to link podcast..

Truly a cluster indeed

Mike, I had been wanting to get your thoughts on this.
As to method, I can only say for sure that they had an agent in the Confederate commissary dept who was feeding them info as to how much food, rations, and such were distributed to each army or unit. What else they may have had going, I can’t say with any certainty.
And while I agree that they’d naturally err on the side of caution, I remind you that Little Mac, on the peninsular campaign believed he was outnumbered more than 2 to 1! Nearly the same applies to the Antietam campaign. Mac thought Lee had over 120k to his own 87000. That’s a little high for the sake of caution!😀
Any prudent commander who believed those numbers would rightfully be cautious, and with the proximity to the capital, hold onto a large reserve. (Franklins Corps)
I also point out that Stanton did everything possible to gain Macs trust, then back stabbed him repeatedly after he had left Washington for the peninsula.
A victorious democrat McClellan in 1862 would be a slam dunk for president in1864. I’m sure savvy republicans knew this, and would attempt to prevent it!
Lastly, I’ll remind you that even after Little Mac was gone, Stanton never stopped purging the army of his friends and supporters. I’d almost compare it to the Nazis persecution of the Jews in WW2.
I’m a big fan of using Occams Razor.
Applying it to this particular mess, it points the finger towards Stanton!😀
Reon

Won’t there a woman spy the yankys used?

Reon, you are far better informed on this than I.

From the Wiki bio, I had no idea that Pinkerton was a committed Abolitionist and that he repeatedly put his own life on the line.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Pinkerton

Pinkerton himself served on several undercover missions as a Confederate soldier using the alias Major E.J. Allen. He worked across the Deep South in the summer of 1861, focusing on fortifications and Confederate plans. He was found out in Memphis and barely escaped with his life.

Stanton leaned Abolitionist before the war, McClellan did not, opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and was in fact favoring just the opposite to accommodate the South and possibly induce them to quit, lending credence to your theory.

…just for interest, Pinkerton’s methodology…..

Military historians have been strongly critical of the intelligence Pinkerton provided for the Union Army, which for the most part was undigested raw data.…….

Pinkerton's estimates of Rebel troop numbers, derived from his credulous interrogations of Confederate prisoners, deserters, refugees, escaped slaves ("contrabands"), and civilians unused to counting large bodies of men, badly exaggerated the size of those formations, sometimes almost doubling their actual strength. Pinkerton's numbers caused McClellan to consistently believe that he was drastically outnumbered.

Interesting

I’ll just take credit for having a lucky hunch.😀
I have always believed that McClellan got dealt a bad rap by most historians.
The war he fought in 1861, 62, was a far different war from what it became in late 1863.
But, as I said reading Stiles account of the Peninsular Campaign jarred loose the memory of what I had read before about Macs indecisiveness.
Thanks for looking into the possible motives. I had my mind on Stanton as the chief culprit, but with this it looks like it may have been a conspiracy to extend the war and bring emancipation into the equation.
Reon