Union Spies Saved Washington, D.C. From Becoming a Confederate City

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By David Axe,War Is Boring

In December 1860, the United States was on the brink of civil war. South Carolina’s legislature had already passed an ordnance of secession and other states would soon follow suit.

The nation’s capital Washington, D.C. was in a perilous position. Surrounded by secessionist Virginia and ambivalent Maryland, the undefended city would soon find itself within quick marching distance of Confederate armies. In 1860, the U.S. Army was busy fighting natives out West.

Worse, many city residents — in particular, the family and friends of U.S. legislators from southern states — were “actively disloyal,” in the words of historian Philip Van Doren Stern.

Indeed, it’s possible that only the quick actions of the District’s emergency inspector-general and his spies saved the capital from becoming a Confederate city. Stern recounts this fascinating tale and others in his all-but-forgotten 1959 book Secret Missions of the Civil War.

In late 1860, there was only a handful of regular Army troops in D.C. — and no single commander whose job it was to oversee the District’s defenses. On Dec. 31, U.S. Army commander-in-chief Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, whose headquarters were in New York City, was in Washington at Pres. James Buchanan’s behest.

Scott happened to cross paths with a former subordinate of his — an officer named Charles Stone, a 36-year-old graduate of West Point and a veteran of the Mexican War. Scott asked Stone how many D.C. residents were loyal to the United States.