September 9, 2026 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, by 1864, the Confederacy was losing the Civil War on the battlefield. But hundreds of miles behind Union lines, Confederate agents were fighting a very different kind of war. Working out of secret bases in places like Montreal, they gathered intelligence, plotted acts of sabotage, worked with Northern antiwar activists, and searched for ways to disrupt the presidential election and ignite an uprising in the North. Some even considered an extraordinary target: Abraham Lincoln himself.
Patrick K. O'Donnell, author of The Unvanquished, shares the hidden history of the Confederate Secret Service and makes the case that its covert war ultimately became entangled with John Wilkes Booth's conspiracy against Lincoln. He also explains how the scouts, spies, raiders, and saboteurs of the Civil War later influenced Wild Bill Donovan as he helped build America's modern intelligence and special operations capabilities during World War II.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we return to Our American Stories. The story of
April 14th, 1865 often plays out like this. John Wilkes
Booth and his accomplices solely planned and then attempted to
decapitate the U.S. government following the surrender of Robert E.
Lee at Appomattox in a desperate attempt to save the Confederacy.
(00:31):
The real story is more complicated than that, though to
understand what happened earlier, we need to understand what happened
later in American history. Here to tell the story is
the best-selling author of The Unvanquished, Patrick K. O'Donnell. Let's
get into the story. We interrupt this broadcast to bring
you this important bulletin from the United Press.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
This country is at war with Germany.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
In the summer of 1940... The Axis powers are really
on a roll, steamrolling the planet. And their shadow warfare capabilities,
(01:18):
specifically with special operations forces, are incredibly effective. The United
States doesn't have a large standing army. It's tiny. And
it has no special operations forces or intelligence organization. And
it's the special operations component that, while Bill Donovan presides
in particular, focuses in on. He knows that having some
(01:39):
sort of a commando-type group that can act on intelligence
that's gathered from spies is an important part of the
Shadow Warfare. He kind of pioneers a combined arms of
Shadow Warfare where they look at it in its totality.
It's intelligence collecting, it's propaganda, but it's also operatives, special
(01:59):
forces as we know today, that were a very big focus.
And what we find in American history is we develop
things and then we lose them. It's almost like a
sine curve. And the United States has a very rich
history in special operations, going back all the way to
the 1680s and Benjamin Church and forces that would range
(02:21):
and attack Native Americans because they had to fight in
a regular manner. But in 1941, there was no special
operations forces. So Donovan had to look back at something.
And he looked back at our first modern war. the
American Civil War. And he specifically looked back at three
(02:43):
groups born in this cauldron where, through the compression of war,
they had to find unique ways to fight back, and
they fought back irregularly through special operations. One was Mosby's
Rangers of the 43rd Battalion, which is in Virginia. These
were men that were mounted on horses regularly, that attacked
(03:04):
Union wagon trains and captured bridges. And, you know, most importantly,
they tied down through their irregular warfare tens of thousands
of Union soldiers because they were constantly harassing the supply
lines and causing trouble. It's John Singleton Mosby who develops
much of, you know, modern irregular warfare. And there needed
(03:26):
to be a force to counteract that. And that is
the Jesse Scouts. They are the first counterinsurgency unit in
the United States Army. They go after partisans like Mosby.
They also lead the federal armies. They could get out
front and they could gather intelligence on the enemy. They'd
find the weak points. They'd communicate messages between the lines.
(03:50):
They also went after high-value targets. They went after the
South's most dangerous men. They wear the uniform of their enemy.
They wear Confederate uniforms, which is an incredibly dangerous thing
to do because if you're caught, you're considered a spy
and you can be executed immediately. And many of these
men would die. And that leads to the third group,
(04:11):
the Confederate Secret Service. They were very good at developing
spy gadgets, such as time bombs, to developing underwater torpedoes,
to developing landmines. But they were also the masters of propaganda.
One thing after another that we see in today's modern world.
(04:32):
And it's no wonder that Donovan pens a letter to
President Roosevelt that says that we need to go back
to our older ways, our traditions of the scouts, rangers era.
and the Secret Service, which is filled with lessons learned
that the OSS, eventually in 1942, when it's rebranded from
the Coordinator of Information to the OSS, utilizes these tactics
(04:56):
and techniques. And we see them today in the U.S. Army,
Green Berets, and later in the CIA as well. Confederate
Secret Service is this very nebulous organization that's opaque. And
it's deliberately so. It consists of men and women that
(05:16):
were in different departments. They had an area that was
devoted to spies, for instance. And they had a department
that was geared towards gadgets. This is the torpedo department.
It was run mainly by the Raines brothers. They were
called the bomb brothers because they specialized in blowing things up.
One Raines brother built the Augusta Arsenal. One of the
(05:39):
few public works projects that the Confederacy undertook, it's a
massive gunpowder works, and it was really a modern miracle.
The Confederate armies were pretty well supplied even at the
end of the war. And the other brother was involved
in the Confederate Secret Service building gadgets, kind of like
the Q's laboratory. And he built everything from time bombs
(06:00):
that were small. Like, for instance, this is not a
time bomb per se, but he built a small lump
of coal that was hollowed out. And within the cavity,
they placed gunpowder. And this little harmless piece of coal
would then be given to operatives. And they'd go up
to a steamboat and they would just pitch it near
the boiler room where the rest of the coal was.
And nobody would know any better. And one of the
(06:23):
boiler tenders would shovel that lump of coal in with
another shovel full of real coal. And before you know it,
the boiler and the entire steam blew up and hundreds
of lives would be lost. They also had a diplomatic
section that worked with foreign powers to influence them to
change the course of the war. And in the spring
(06:45):
of 1864, Jefferson Davis sent several men on a steamship
to run the blockade from South Carolina through the Atlantic
up to Canada. They were carrying certificates worth several million
dollars in gold, and they make their way to the St.
(07:06):
Lawrence Hotel in Montreal. And let me sort of set
the stage here. This place is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
The St.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Lawrence is one of the best hotels in the area.
It's opulent, but... It serves mint juleps year-round to cater
to the Confederates that are either expatriates, Confederate prisoners of
war that somehow escaped from the North, to men like
these guys. They set up a node or a branch
of the Confederate Secret Service in Canada because it's a
(07:35):
neutral area, but also as Canada is also somewhat friendly
to the Confederacy because it's in their interest. Britain and
France loves the idea of a divided United States because
it's easier to control and contain. And these guys set
up shop there. And their main job is to influence
anybody that will take the side of the Confederacy. Because
(07:56):
they see that the North has a massive superiority in numbers.
But if they can change things diplomatically, either getting France
or England on the side of the Confederacy, or changing
things internally through the Democrat Party, influencing the election of
1864 that would be favorable to the South... That's what
(08:18):
they're there for, and they're very effective. There's a number
of men that are there. One is a guy by
the name of Clay, who's a former senator from the South.
He's on the dollar bill of Southern Confederacy. And then
there's George Sanders, who's kind of my favorite character. They
(08:41):
call him piranical, almost like a pirate. Overweight, fat, He's
always kind of puffing on cigars. He's surrounded by beautiful women.
He's got this ability to influence people. But he's also
obsessed with something called the theory of the dagger. And
that involves executing tyrants or despots. He spends much of
(09:02):
his time in the 1850s in Europe. And it's here
that they advocate for tyrannicide or killing leaders that are
so-called tyrannical. And he's also a big time operative within
the Democratic Party. And at the time, there is a
rising movement within the Democrat Party called the Copperhead Movement.
(09:24):
And this movement is a peace movement. And it's George
Sanders that is the link for the Confederate Secret Service
with the Democratic Party. And that involves the governor of
New York, many others, but the main character is an
Ohio congressman who is disgraced named Clement Laird Volandia.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And when we return, more of the story of the
Confederate Secret Service here on Our American Stories. And we
(10:09):
return to Our American Stories and the story of the
Confederate Secret Service. Telling the story is Patrick K. O'Donnell,
author of The Unvanquished. When we last left off, Patrick
was telling us about the Confederate Secret Service's attempts to
disrupt the election of 1864. The man who would facilitate
that attempt the most, a disgraced former senator named Clement
(10:33):
Laird Volandium. Let's get back to the story. You'll also
be hearing Kate Clifford Larson.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Volandium is from... Ohio holds a massive rally that draws
over 10,000 people. It's an anti-war rally and says things
that are pro-Confederate. And he's eventually, he's exiled by Abraham
Lincoln to first the South, and then he leaves voluntarily
and goes to Canada. And Clement Laird Volandium is an
(11:03):
asset of the Confederate Secret Service in every way. They
do some extraordinary things. They craft the campaign platform for
1864 for the Democrat Party. which is a campaign platform
of peace. It's an armistice, and it's couched in the
sense that it will be some sort of negotiation. But
the Confederacy knows that once you start a ceasefire, that
(11:25):
guns aren't firing anytime soon. They never will. It's a masterstroke.
It also means preserving slavery, which they have a euphemism
for everything, which is like, you know, existing law must
be preserved. And it is the campaign platform that's written
by the Secret Service, and then it's brought to Chicago.
Clement Laird Volandium sneaks back into the United States under
(11:45):
an assumed alias, and he's at the convention in Chicago
with all these other copperheads. And they pass their campaign platform,
and they also elect George McClellan as their candidate. But
their vice president is a hardcore copperhead and Volandium's right-hand man.
And then what's fascinating is the Secretary of War will
(12:06):
be Clement Laird Volandium. So nobody in their right mind
could ever imagine them prosecuting the war like Lincoln did.
Let me just sort of go back a little bit
in time, though, to March 1864. It's in March 1864,
(12:28):
where there's a raid that takes place, led by a
guy by the name of Dahlgren, who has a, you know,
in battle he lost his leg. He has a wooden leg.
His father is the, the name the Dahlgren Gun comes
from him. And he is a gung-ho cavalry leader that
convinces another guy, Judson Kilpatrick, that he wants to be
(12:49):
part of a raid. This raid, though, is special. It's
a decapitation mission to go after the South. Specifically, their
goal is to burn Richmond to the ground and execute
the Confederate cabinet, including Jefferson Davis. And they make it
through multiple areas of the defense of Richmond. But ultimately,
(13:13):
they're denied access of, you know, they have to cross
a river and there's supposed to be a ford there.
But it turned out that their guide, who was African-American,
just didn't anticipate the tide of the river changing because
of the winter. And they're trapped. And it's eventually the
Home Guard and a mix of other troops that kill
Dahlgren and many of the men that are in this
(13:33):
specialized raid. Within his wooden leg are orders from the
Secretary of War to do this decapitation mission to kill
Jefferson Davis and burn Richmond. This has a They get
the orders and it's like, oh, my God, the war
is now suddenly it's the black flag was raised and
(13:53):
they're going all out. Now that the North had done
that or tried to, the South felt that they had
to respond in kind. And this is where the the
the operations to decapitate the North really originate. The origins
of the color revolution can be tied to 1864 and
(14:18):
something called the Northwest Conspiracy. The Confederate Secret Service's plans
to launch an insurrection. The Confederate Secret Service had kind
of two plans or two faces of their plan. One
was violent and the other one was more of a
use of the current political machinery. The more violent side, though,
they planned to have hundreds of thousands of men, part
(14:41):
of the Copperhead movement, rise up. Color revolution is a
modern term that we use for many of the insurrections
that have occurred in the last 20 years, where a
color is involved, like the Orange Revolution. There was a
color revolution in Ukraine, for instance. And what you see
(15:03):
on the surface is the population overthrowing whatever the established
government is but there is a hidden hand behind it
in every case that is actually fomenting the population funding
it directly influencing or specific key components of the current
(15:24):
regime whatever it is and that's what was going on
they were planning a massive insurrection. They also had a
decapitation plan where they were going after the friendly union
governors of these states. It's supposed to take place in Chicago, 1864,
at the time of the convention. In fact, it's the
(15:45):
Sons of Liberty, which are the main group under Volandium,
the shadowy group within the Copperhead movement, that provides security
at the convention, but also is potentially going to work
with the Confederate Secret Service. And Confederate Secret Service was
sending them arms. About 40 operatives come down from Canada,
and they also plan for a massive prison break. One
of the POW camps, Camp Douglas, which would have tied
(16:08):
down tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, potentially, of Union troops,
and had succeeded them. The plan is neutralized because the
Copperheads are absolutely convinced that they will win the election.
(16:29):
They back down. It fizzles. And the special operation that
we now talk about that's really profound is after the
election is lost, they're looking at a way to somehow
kidnap Abraham Lincoln. The plan is really hatched in Montreal
(16:49):
at the St. Lawrence Hotel. It's Sanders and company and others.
And oh, by the way, John Wilkes Booth visits the hotel.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Now, John Wilkes Booth was one of the most famous
actors in America at the time. He was born into
an acting family. His father was a famous actor. He
grew up in Maryland. He had strong Southern sympathies. So
(17:19):
he hatched this idea, and I don't know where it
came from.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
The excuse is that he's going up there for extra costumes.
It's preposterous. I think what makes this so interesting is
the story that we were all told is that Booth
had his kind of gang of guys. They get together
down in Washington, D.C., and they decide to hatch this plan.
And the reality is it's hundreds of people. It's well-financed,
(17:43):
and it's financed by the Confederate Secret Service. It is.
And Booth is a braggart. I mean, inside of the St.
Lawrence Hotel, in the lower area, there's a billiards room.
And you can kind of picture the smoke-filled room and
the mint juleps going around. And he's in there and
sort of makes these references that we're going to change
the world. And it's quite fascinating. But it's here that
(18:07):
he gets a lot of his planning for this operation.
And he's also given some key operatives that are also
coming up to the hotel. John Surratt. for instance, is
one of them. John is a, you know, youthful 20-something
that is one of their best operatives. And he comes
and goes from the St. Lawrence and goes on different missions.
(18:27):
He's often accompanied by a woman by the name of,
they name her the French woman because she knows, she
speaks French, typically wears a veil. You know, fascinating story.
Her husband is a Confederate soldier that's always at war,
never comes home. And she's just, had enough of it,
and volunteers her services to become a spy. Booth then
(18:52):
moves back to New York City by rail, meets other
operatives there, which the place is teeming with them, and
then comes back to Washington, D.C.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
And thus was hatched the plot to kidnap Lincoln. By
the way, there'd been many attempts to assassinate Lincoln, including
on his journey from Springfield to Washington, D.C., way back
when he first took office. We told a terrific story
about that journey on the show. When we come back,
more of the story of the Confederate Secret Service here
(19:24):
on Our American Stories. And we return to Our American
Stories and the final portion of our story on the
Confederate Secret Service's and the secret plot to kidnap, as
(19:46):
you'll hear now, and kill Abraham.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Lincoln.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Let's return to the story.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
The Confederate Secret Service has a very elaborate plan to
kidnap the president. They realize the best thing that they
can do is to somehow seize him somewhere and by
carriage bring him across to Maryland and into the eastern
portion of Maryland, which is all southern.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Thirteen Confederate states in the south separate from the Union.
Maryland stays in the Union, part of it by strong-arming
on the part of the Lincoln administration, But there was
an appetite in Maryland to not be part of this
sectional crisis.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
They have an entire line of a rat line, if
you will, of messengers and couriers and even doctors that
will be utilized to secretly move the team through Maryland
and then to a boat and then ultimately to the
northern neck. And it's here at the northern neck that
they needed a security component.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The United States Army has posted soldiers throughout southern Maryland
because they knew that so many of those southern Marylanders
were communicating with and aiding and abetting the Confederacy across
the Potomac.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
They needed a security component to bring the men through
not only Maryland, but also through the northern neck. Mosby's Rangers.
What we find is in the winter of 1864, Mosby
splits his command almost in half. And mysteriously, hundreds of
(21:28):
men in multiple companies go to the Northern Neck. Ostensibly,
it's to get fodder for their horses because there's none
up here. It's a nonsense argument. They're there to provide
security for the potential kidnapping operation. The next main component
is none other than one of the South's most dangerous men,
(21:49):
Lewis Powell. who is a sort of hulking ranger, that
silver tongue that can get his way out of anything,
great with a gun, has this amazing charisma, and they
depart with other rangers to Richmond. And he connects with
the Confederate Secret Service. And he then deserts. Or at
(22:16):
least that's the story. But it's preposterous. He deserts to
Baltimore and joins the most dangerous special operation of the war,
which is the plot to kidnap the president. Makes his
way to Baltimore. He's handled entirely by the Signal Corps
and Confederate Secret Service. I've got all the receipts on this.
(22:39):
And then he gets a telegram to arrive at Mary
Surratt's house in Washington, D.C. He shows up and there's
all these other sort of older women there. And there's
a piano in the main room. He comes in kind
of this dashing figure. He's very attractive and handsome. And
he claims he's a preacher. And he sits down and
(23:03):
he starts to play the piano. And he's charming the women.
And they're like, this is the most handsome preacher I've
ever seen. And just has this electric kind of presence.
And he then sort of fits into the group. and
(23:24):
they start to plot to kidnap the president. The first
is a sort of harebrained plot where they find out
Lincoln is near a federal building a few miles away
from the house, and they attempt to seize his carriage.
It doesn't work out. And then they plot and scheme.
Lincoln makes an announcement, and he's out in the open
(23:45):
air near the White House. Booth actually encourages Powell, who's
an expert shot with a pistol, to try to kill
the president right then and there. And Powell demurs. And
then another event takes place. One of the stories that
I don't think has ever really been told. And that
is a plan to blow up the White House. Mosby's
(24:10):
Rangers are utilized to conduct a ostensibly a raid to seize,
you know, some supplies. But it makes no sense at
all near Burke Station. But their plan was to confuse
the Union forces nearby and allow another man or a
few men that had detonators. They were from the Confederate
(24:32):
torpedo works. to then infiltrate to Washington, D.C., where they
would attempt to blow up the White House. But the
plan was foiled by the 8th Illinois Cavalry, and Booth
somehow gets word that that operation failed. And it's at
that point that they believe, many believe, that it was
the Frenchwoman that infiltrated back into Washington, D.C., and gave
(24:56):
Booth and his team the orders to execute the president.
It's a classic decapitation mission. There's also another man that's
assigned to the vice president. Interestingly enough, the secretary of war,
who's one of the most powerful men, isn't targeted. But
the plan is kicked off at Ford's Theater. The other
(25:20):
elements of the plan also occur. The man that was
the operative that was sent after the vice president drinks
heavily and just gets cold feet and doesn't do it.
But Powell goes after Secretary Seward, who's very sick at
this point, bedridden, and they have a plan to infiltrate
his house. It's quite clever. He poses as a pharmacist
that is delivering medicine to him. And one of the
(25:43):
other conspirators actually worked as a pharmacist mate. He had
all the right packaging and everything to say, gets to
the door, and said, I'm here to deliver the medicine.
And they don't believe it at first. And he keeps
saying over and over, I have to deliver this medicine.
Then he sticks his foot in the door and bursts
(26:05):
in and kind of does a, you know, checks one
of Seward's bodyguards and charges up to the room and
pulls out his pistol. And at point-blank range, fires at Seward,
but it misfires. Then he pulls out a dagger and
starts to just you know, hack the Secretary of State
practically to death. And he's, you know, somehow able to dodge,
(26:29):
even as he's getting knifed. None of his vital organs
are hit, but he's just turned into a Swiss cheese, basically.
But then they get Paul, somebody takes him, gets him
off him, and he flees down in the middle of
the night and goes on the run, basically. And for
several days, he tries to escape Washington, D.C., but he's
(26:49):
not able to do it. And he goes back to
the boarding house and he goes back at exactly the
wrong time because Northern investigators are inside the house and
he's immediately questioned and the story doesn't check out. He's arrested.
And there's a massive and sweeping manhunt to try to
(27:10):
find Booth. Coincidentally, several of Mosey's men find him and
he is escorted to another safe house and he hides
in a barn. The North is able to put pieces
of information together through one thing or another. And one
of Mosey's men is rounded up and it leads back
to the barn. The barn is surrounded and they try
(27:32):
to get Booth to come out willingly. And they set
fire to the barn. And there's orders not to shoot.
But a sort of deranged member of the Union Cavalry...
by the name of Boston Corbett, a man that is
literally a Mad Hatter, fires into the barn and it
(27:53):
hits Booth and he's mortally wounded. What's interesting is they
pull out his diary, which is fascinating. It includes maybe
100 or so pages. And in those pages, it talks
about how he went up to Montreal to kidnap the president.
(28:14):
They eventually round up the conspirators, all of them. And
there's a trial. And it's a quick trial. I mean,
they want justice. Mysteriously, Booth's diary is never entered into evidence.
And the northern judges and authorities attempt to convict the
other conspirators and Lewis Powell. And they also try to
(28:40):
connect Jefferson Davis and the Secret Service to the entire plot.
But It fails miserably. The prosecution utilizes witnesses that are tainted.
They provide evidence that is false, demonstrably provable false, which
destroys the entire case. We find out later is that
(29:02):
George Sanders, one of his last actions was to coach
these men on how to perjure themselves brilliantly to blow
up the entire federal case. And that is exactly what happens.
They're convicted, but the Confederate Secret Service is off the hook,
so to speak. They don't link it to them. They
(29:23):
link it to Booth and his, as a madman, as
a kind of a lone gunman theory, right? I think
it's interesting. I mean, one thing that is out there
that we must consider is what if they were convicted
and that the Confederate Secret Service was tied to them?
It's interesting because it would have meant a continuation of
(29:46):
the war, you know, instead of the reconciliation that takes place.
That's one possibility. It's unmistakable. The organization and the money matters.
that was needed to pull this off is something that
only could have been done by like a state actor,
which would be the Confederacy, versus a lone wolf like
John Wilkes Booth, as he's portrayed.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
The story again of the Confederate Secret Service here on
Our American Stories.
And we return to Our American Stories. The story of
April 14th, 1865 often plays out like this. John Wilkes
Booth and his accomplices solely planned and then attempted to
decapitate the U.S. government following the surrender of Robert E.
Lee at Appomattox in a desperate attempt to save the Confederacy.
(00:31):
The real story is more complicated than that, though to
understand what happened earlier, we need to understand what happened
later in American history. Here to tell the story is
the best-selling author of The Unvanquished, Patrick K. O'Donnell. Let's
get into the story. We interrupt this broadcast to bring
you this important bulletin from the United Press.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
This country is at war with Germany.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
In the summer of 1940... The Axis powers are really
on a roll, steamrolling the planet. And their shadow warfare capabilities,
(01:18):
specifically with special operations forces, are incredibly effective. The United
States doesn't have a large standing army. It's tiny. And
it has no special operations forces or intelligence organization. And
it's the special operations component that, while Bill Donovan presides
in particular, focuses in on. He knows that having some
(01:39):
sort of a commando-type group that can act on intelligence
that's gathered from spies is an important part of the
Shadow Warfare. He kind of pioneers a combined arms of
Shadow Warfare where they look at it in its totality.
It's intelligence collecting, it's propaganda, but it's also operatives, special
(01:59):
forces as we know today, that were a very big focus.
And what we find in American history is we develop
things and then we lose them. It's almost like a
sine curve. And the United States has a very rich
history in special operations, going back all the way to
the 1680s and Benjamin Church and forces that would range
(02:21):
and attack Native Americans because they had to fight in
a regular manner. But in 1941, there was no special
operations forces. So Donovan had to look back at something.
And he looked back at our first modern war. the
American Civil War. And he specifically looked back at three
(02:43):
groups born in this cauldron where, through the compression of war,
they had to find unique ways to fight back, and
they fought back irregularly through special operations. One was Mosby's
Rangers of the 43rd Battalion, which is in Virginia. These
were men that were mounted on horses regularly, that attacked
(03:04):
Union wagon trains and captured bridges. And, you know, most importantly,
they tied down through their irregular warfare tens of thousands
of Union soldiers because they were constantly harassing the supply
lines and causing trouble. It's John Singleton Mosby who develops
much of, you know, modern irregular warfare. And there needed
(03:26):
to be a force to counteract that. And that is
the Jesse Scouts. They are the first counterinsurgency unit in
the United States Army. They go after partisans like Mosby.
They also lead the federal armies. They could get out
front and they could gather intelligence on the enemy. They'd
find the weak points. They'd communicate messages between the lines.
(03:50):
They also went after high-value targets. They went after the
South's most dangerous men. They wear the uniform of their enemy.
They wear Confederate uniforms, which is an incredibly dangerous thing
to do because if you're caught, you're considered a spy
and you can be executed immediately. And many of these
men would die. And that leads to the third group,
(04:11):
the Confederate Secret Service. They were very good at developing
spy gadgets, such as time bombs, to developing underwater torpedoes,
to developing landmines. But they were also the masters of propaganda.
One thing after another that we see in today's modern world.
(04:32):
And it's no wonder that Donovan pens a letter to
President Roosevelt that says that we need to go back
to our older ways, our traditions of the scouts, rangers era.
and the Secret Service, which is filled with lessons learned
that the OSS, eventually in 1942, when it's rebranded from
the Coordinator of Information to the OSS, utilizes these tactics
(04:56):
and techniques. And we see them today in the U.S. Army,
Green Berets, and later in the CIA as well. Confederate
Secret Service is this very nebulous organization that's opaque. And
it's deliberately so. It consists of men and women that
(05:16):
were in different departments. They had an area that was
devoted to spies, for instance. And they had a department
that was geared towards gadgets. This is the torpedo department.
It was run mainly by the Raines brothers. They were
called the bomb brothers because they specialized in blowing things up.
One Raines brother built the Augusta Arsenal. One of the
(05:39):
few public works projects that the Confederacy undertook, it's a
massive gunpowder works, and it was really a modern miracle.
The Confederate armies were pretty well supplied even at the
end of the war. And the other brother was involved
in the Confederate Secret Service building gadgets, kind of like
the Q's laboratory. And he built everything from time bombs
(06:00):
that were small. Like, for instance, this is not a
time bomb per se, but he built a small lump
of coal that was hollowed out. And within the cavity,
they placed gunpowder. And this little harmless piece of coal
would then be given to operatives. And they'd go up
to a steamboat and they would just pitch it near
the boiler room where the rest of the coal was.
And nobody would know any better. And one of the
(06:23):
boiler tenders would shovel that lump of coal in with
another shovel full of real coal. And before you know it,
the boiler and the entire steam blew up and hundreds
of lives would be lost. They also had a diplomatic
section that worked with foreign powers to influence them to
change the course of the war. And in the spring
(06:45):
of 1864, Jefferson Davis sent several men on a steamship
to run the blockade from South Carolina through the Atlantic
up to Canada. They were carrying certificates worth several million
dollars in gold, and they make their way to the St.
(07:06):
Lawrence Hotel in Montreal. And let me sort of set
the stage here. This place is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
The St.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Lawrence is one of the best hotels in the area.
It's opulent, but... It serves mint juleps year-round to cater
to the Confederates that are either expatriates, Confederate prisoners of
war that somehow escaped from the North, to men like
these guys. They set up a node or a branch
of the Confederate Secret Service in Canada because it's a
(07:35):
neutral area, but also as Canada is also somewhat friendly
to the Confederacy because it's in their interest. Britain and
France loves the idea of a divided United States because
it's easier to control and contain. And these guys set
up shop there. And their main job is to influence
anybody that will take the side of the Confederacy. Because
(07:56):
they see that the North has a massive superiority in numbers.
But if they can change things diplomatically, either getting France
or England on the side of the Confederacy, or changing
things internally through the Democrat Party, influencing the election of
1864 that would be favorable to the South... That's what
(08:18):
they're there for, and they're very effective. There's a number
of men that are there. One is a guy by
the name of Clay, who's a former senator from the South.
He's on the dollar bill of Southern Confederacy. And then
there's George Sanders, who's kind of my favorite character. They
(08:41):
call him piranical, almost like a pirate. Overweight, fat, He's
always kind of puffing on cigars. He's surrounded by beautiful women.
He's got this ability to influence people. But he's also
obsessed with something called the theory of the dagger. And
that involves executing tyrants or despots. He spends much of
(09:02):
his time in the 1850s in Europe. And it's here
that they advocate for tyrannicide or killing leaders that are
so-called tyrannical. And he's also a big time operative within
the Democratic Party. And at the time, there is a
rising movement within the Democrat Party called the Copperhead Movement.
(09:24):
And this movement is a peace movement. And it's George
Sanders that is the link for the Confederate Secret Service
with the Democratic Party. And that involves the governor of
New York, many others, but the main character is an
Ohio congressman who is disgraced named Clement Laird Volandia.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And when we return, more of the story of the
Confederate Secret Service here on Our American Stories. And we
(10:09):
return to Our American Stories and the story of the
Confederate Secret Service. Telling the story is Patrick K. O'Donnell,
author of The Unvanquished. When we last left off, Patrick
was telling us about the Confederate Secret Service's attempts to
disrupt the election of 1864. The man who would facilitate
that attempt the most, a disgraced former senator named Clement
(10:33):
Laird Volandium. Let's get back to the story. You'll also
be hearing Kate Clifford Larson.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Volandium is from... Ohio holds a massive rally that draws
over 10,000 people. It's an anti-war rally and says things
that are pro-Confederate. And he's eventually, he's exiled by Abraham
Lincoln to first the South, and then he leaves voluntarily
and goes to Canada. And Clement Laird Volandium is an
(11:03):
asset of the Confederate Secret Service in every way. They
do some extraordinary things. They craft the campaign platform for
1864 for the Democrat Party. which is a campaign platform
of peace. It's an armistice, and it's couched in the
sense that it will be some sort of negotiation. But
the Confederacy knows that once you start a ceasefire, that
(11:25):
guns aren't firing anytime soon. They never will. It's a masterstroke.
It also means preserving slavery, which they have a euphemism
for everything, which is like, you know, existing law must
be preserved. And it is the campaign platform that's written
by the Secret Service, and then it's brought to Chicago.
Clement Laird Volandium sneaks back into the United States under
(11:45):
an assumed alias, and he's at the convention in Chicago
with all these other copperheads. And they pass their campaign platform,
and they also elect George McClellan as their candidate. But
their vice president is a hardcore copperhead and Volandium's right-hand man.
And then what's fascinating is the Secretary of War will
(12:06):
be Clement Laird Volandium. So nobody in their right mind
could ever imagine them prosecuting the war like Lincoln did.
Let me just sort of go back a little bit
in time, though, to March 1864. It's in March 1864,
(12:28):
where there's a raid that takes place, led by a
guy by the name of Dahlgren, who has a, you know,
in battle he lost his leg. He has a wooden leg.
His father is the, the name the Dahlgren Gun comes
from him. And he is a gung-ho cavalry leader that
convinces another guy, Judson Kilpatrick, that he wants to be
(12:49):
part of a raid. This raid, though, is special. It's
a decapitation mission to go after the South. Specifically, their
goal is to burn Richmond to the ground and execute
the Confederate cabinet, including Jefferson Davis. And they make it
through multiple areas of the defense of Richmond. But ultimately,
(13:13):
they're denied access of, you know, they have to cross
a river and there's supposed to be a ford there.
But it turned out that their guide, who was African-American,
just didn't anticipate the tide of the river changing because
of the winter. And they're trapped. And it's eventually the
Home Guard and a mix of other troops that kill
Dahlgren and many of the men that are in this
(13:33):
specialized raid. Within his wooden leg are orders from the
Secretary of War to do this decapitation mission to kill
Jefferson Davis and burn Richmond. This has a They get
the orders and it's like, oh, my God, the war
is now suddenly it's the black flag was raised and
(13:53):
they're going all out. Now that the North had done
that or tried to, the South felt that they had
to respond in kind. And this is where the the
the operations to decapitate the North really originate. The origins
of the color revolution can be tied to 1864 and
(14:18):
something called the Northwest Conspiracy. The Confederate Secret Service's plans
to launch an insurrection. The Confederate Secret Service had kind
of two plans or two faces of their plan. One
was violent and the other one was more of a
use of the current political machinery. The more violent side, though,
they planned to have hundreds of thousands of men, part
(14:41):
of the Copperhead movement, rise up. Color revolution is a
modern term that we use for many of the insurrections
that have occurred in the last 20 years, where a
color is involved, like the Orange Revolution. There was a
color revolution in Ukraine, for instance. And what you see
(15:03):
on the surface is the population overthrowing whatever the established
government is but there is a hidden hand behind it
in every case that is actually fomenting the population funding
it directly influencing or specific key components of the current
(15:24):
regime whatever it is and that's what was going on
they were planning a massive insurrection. They also had a
decapitation plan where they were going after the friendly union
governors of these states. It's supposed to take place in Chicago, 1864,
at the time of the convention. In fact, it's the
(15:45):
Sons of Liberty, which are the main group under Volandium,
the shadowy group within the Copperhead movement, that provides security
at the convention, but also is potentially going to work
with the Confederate Secret Service. And Confederate Secret Service was
sending them arms. About 40 operatives come down from Canada,
and they also plan for a massive prison break. One
of the POW camps, Camp Douglas, which would have tied
(16:08):
down tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, potentially, of Union troops,
and had succeeded them. The plan is neutralized because the
Copperheads are absolutely convinced that they will win the election.
(16:29):
They back down. It fizzles. And the special operation that
we now talk about that's really profound is after the
election is lost, they're looking at a way to somehow
kidnap Abraham Lincoln. The plan is really hatched in Montreal
(16:49):
at the St. Lawrence Hotel. It's Sanders and company and others.
And oh, by the way, John Wilkes Booth visits the hotel.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Now, John Wilkes Booth was one of the most famous
actors in America at the time. He was born into
an acting family. His father was a famous actor. He
grew up in Maryland. He had strong Southern sympathies. So
(17:19):
he hatched this idea, and I don't know where it
came from.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
The excuse is that he's going up there for extra costumes.
It's preposterous. I think what makes this so interesting is
the story that we were all told is that Booth
had his kind of gang of guys. They get together
down in Washington, D.C., and they decide to hatch this plan.
And the reality is it's hundreds of people. It's well-financed,
(17:43):
and it's financed by the Confederate Secret Service. It is.
And Booth is a braggart. I mean, inside of the St.
Lawrence Hotel, in the lower area, there's a billiards room.
And you can kind of picture the smoke-filled room and
the mint juleps going around. And he's in there and
sort of makes these references that we're going to change
the world. And it's quite fascinating. But it's here that
(18:07):
he gets a lot of his planning for this operation.
And he's also given some key operatives that are also
coming up to the hotel. John Surratt. for instance, is
one of them. John is a, you know, youthful 20-something
that is one of their best operatives. And he comes
and goes from the St. Lawrence and goes on different missions.
(18:27):
He's often accompanied by a woman by the name of,
they name her the French woman because she knows, she
speaks French, typically wears a veil. You know, fascinating story.
Her husband is a Confederate soldier that's always at war,
never comes home. And she's just, had enough of it,
and volunteers her services to become a spy. Booth then
(18:52):
moves back to New York City by rail, meets other
operatives there, which the place is teeming with them, and
then comes back to Washington, D.C.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
And thus was hatched the plot to kidnap Lincoln. By
the way, there'd been many attempts to assassinate Lincoln, including
on his journey from Springfield to Washington, D.C., way back
when he first took office. We told a terrific story
about that journey on the show. When we come back,
more of the story of the Confederate Secret Service here
(19:24):
on Our American Stories. And we return to Our American
Stories and the final portion of our story on the
Confederate Secret Service's and the secret plot to kidnap, as
(19:46):
you'll hear now, and kill Abraham.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Lincoln.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Let's return to the story.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
The Confederate Secret Service has a very elaborate plan to
kidnap the president. They realize the best thing that they
can do is to somehow seize him somewhere and by
carriage bring him across to Maryland and into the eastern
portion of Maryland, which is all southern.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Thirteen Confederate states in the south separate from the Union.
Maryland stays in the Union, part of it by strong-arming
on the part of the Lincoln administration, But there was
an appetite in Maryland to not be part of this
sectional crisis.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
They have an entire line of a rat line, if
you will, of messengers and couriers and even doctors that
will be utilized to secretly move the team through Maryland
and then to a boat and then ultimately to the
northern neck. And it's here at the northern neck that
they needed a security component.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The United States Army has posted soldiers throughout southern Maryland
because they knew that so many of those southern Marylanders
were communicating with and aiding and abetting the Confederacy across
the Potomac.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
They needed a security component to bring the men through
not only Maryland, but also through the northern neck. Mosby's Rangers.
What we find is in the winter of 1864, Mosby
splits his command almost in half. And mysteriously, hundreds of
(21:28):
men in multiple companies go to the Northern Neck. Ostensibly,
it's to get fodder for their horses because there's none
up here. It's a nonsense argument. They're there to provide
security for the potential kidnapping operation. The next main component
is none other than one of the South's most dangerous men,
(21:49):
Lewis Powell. who is a sort of hulking ranger, that
silver tongue that can get his way out of anything,
great with a gun, has this amazing charisma, and they
depart with other rangers to Richmond. And he connects with
the Confederate Secret Service. And he then deserts. Or at
(22:16):
least that's the story. But it's preposterous. He deserts to
Baltimore and joins the most dangerous special operation of the war,
which is the plot to kidnap the president. Makes his
way to Baltimore. He's handled entirely by the Signal Corps
and Confederate Secret Service. I've got all the receipts on this.
(22:39):
And then he gets a telegram to arrive at Mary
Surratt's house in Washington, D.C. He shows up and there's
all these other sort of older women there. And there's
a piano in the main room. He comes in kind
of this dashing figure. He's very attractive and handsome. And
he claims he's a preacher. And he sits down and
(23:03):
he starts to play the piano. And he's charming the women.
And they're like, this is the most handsome preacher I've
ever seen. And just has this electric kind of presence.
And he then sort of fits into the group. and
(23:24):
they start to plot to kidnap the president. The first
is a sort of harebrained plot where they find out
Lincoln is near a federal building a few miles away
from the house, and they attempt to seize his carriage.
It doesn't work out. And then they plot and scheme.
Lincoln makes an announcement, and he's out in the open
(23:45):
air near the White House. Booth actually encourages Powell, who's
an expert shot with a pistol, to try to kill
the president right then and there. And Powell demurs. And
then another event takes place. One of the stories that
I don't think has ever really been told. And that
is a plan to blow up the White House. Mosby's
(24:10):
Rangers are utilized to conduct a ostensibly a raid to seize,
you know, some supplies. But it makes no sense at
all near Burke Station. But their plan was to confuse
the Union forces nearby and allow another man or a
few men that had detonators. They were from the Confederate
(24:32):
torpedo works. to then infiltrate to Washington, D.C., where they
would attempt to blow up the White House. But the
plan was foiled by the 8th Illinois Cavalry, and Booth
somehow gets word that that operation failed. And it's at
that point that they believe, many believe, that it was
the Frenchwoman that infiltrated back into Washington, D.C., and gave
(24:56):
Booth and his team the orders to execute the president.
It's a classic decapitation mission. There's also another man that's
assigned to the vice president. Interestingly enough, the secretary of war,
who's one of the most powerful men, isn't targeted. But
the plan is kicked off at Ford's Theater. The other
(25:20):
elements of the plan also occur. The man that was
the operative that was sent after the vice president drinks
heavily and just gets cold feet and doesn't do it.
But Powell goes after Secretary Seward, who's very sick at
this point, bedridden, and they have a plan to infiltrate
his house. It's quite clever. He poses as a pharmacist
that is delivering medicine to him. And one of the
(25:43):
other conspirators actually worked as a pharmacist mate. He had
all the right packaging and everything to say, gets to
the door, and said, I'm here to deliver the medicine.
And they don't believe it at first. And he keeps
saying over and over, I have to deliver this medicine.
Then he sticks his foot in the door and bursts
(26:05):
in and kind of does a, you know, checks one
of Seward's bodyguards and charges up to the room and
pulls out his pistol. And at point-blank range, fires at Seward,
but it misfires. Then he pulls out a dagger and
starts to just you know, hack the Secretary of State
practically to death. And he's, you know, somehow able to dodge,
(26:29):
even as he's getting knifed. None of his vital organs
are hit, but he's just turned into a Swiss cheese, basically.
But then they get Paul, somebody takes him, gets him
off him, and he flees down in the middle of
the night and goes on the run, basically. And for
several days, he tries to escape Washington, D.C., but he's
(26:49):
not able to do it. And he goes back to
the boarding house and he goes back at exactly the
wrong time because Northern investigators are inside the house and
he's immediately questioned and the story doesn't check out. He's arrested.
And there's a massive and sweeping manhunt to try to
(27:10):
find Booth. Coincidentally, several of Mosey's men find him and
he is escorted to another safe house and he hides
in a barn. The North is able to put pieces
of information together through one thing or another. And one
of Mosey's men is rounded up and it leads back
to the barn. The barn is surrounded and they try
(27:32):
to get Booth to come out willingly. And they set
fire to the barn. And there's orders not to shoot.
But a sort of deranged member of the Union Cavalry...
by the name of Boston Corbett, a man that is
literally a Mad Hatter, fires into the barn and it
(27:53):
hits Booth and he's mortally wounded. What's interesting is they
pull out his diary, which is fascinating. It includes maybe
100 or so pages. And in those pages, it talks
about how he went up to Montreal to kidnap the president.
(28:14):
They eventually round up the conspirators, all of them. And
there's a trial. And it's a quick trial. I mean,
they want justice. Mysteriously, Booth's diary is never entered into evidence.
And the northern judges and authorities attempt to convict the
other conspirators and Lewis Powell. And they also try to
(28:40):
connect Jefferson Davis and the Secret Service to the entire plot.
But It fails miserably. The prosecution utilizes witnesses that are tainted.
They provide evidence that is false, demonstrably provable false, which
destroys the entire case. We find out later is that
(29:02):
George Sanders, one of his last actions was to coach
these men on how to perjure themselves brilliantly to blow
up the entire federal case. And that is exactly what happens.
They're convicted, but the Confederate Secret Service is off the hook,
so to speak. They don't link it to them. They
(29:23):
link it to Booth and his, as a madman, as
a kind of a lone gunman theory, right? I think
it's interesting. I mean, one thing that is out there
that we must consider is what if they were convicted
and that the Confederate Secret Service was tied to them?
It's interesting because it would have meant a continuation of
(29:46):
the war, you know, instead of the reconciliation that takes place.
That's one possibility. It's unmistakable. The organization and the money matters.
that was needed to pull this off is something that
only could have been done by like a state actor,
which would be the Confederacy, versus a lone wolf like
John Wilkes Booth, as he's portrayed.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
The story again of the Confederate Secret Service here on
Our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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