By Douglas Waller
Release Date: August
6, 2019
A major addition to
the history of the Civil War, Lincoln’s Spies is a riveting account of
the secret battles waged by Union agents to save a nation. Filled with
espionage, sabotage, and intrigue, it is also a striking portrait of a shrewd
president who valued what his operatives uncovered.
Veteran journalist Douglas Waller, who has written
ground-breaking intelligence histories, turns his sights on the shadow war of
four secret agents for the North—three men and one woman. From the tense days
before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration in 1861 to the surrender at Appomattox
four years later, Waller delivers a fast-paced narrative of the heroes—and
scoundrels—who informed Lincoln’s generals on the enemy positions for crucial
battles and busted up clandestine Rebel networks.
Famed detective Allan Pinkerton mounted a successful covert operation to slip
Lincoln through Baltimore before his inauguration to foil an assassination
attempt. But he failed as General George McClellan’s spymaster, delivering
faulty intelligence reports that overestimated Confederate strength.
George Sharpe, an erudite New York lawyer, succeeded Pinkerton as spymaster for
the Union’s Army of the Potomac. Recruiting skilled operatives, some of whom
dressed in Rebel uniforms, Sharpe ran highly successful intelligence operations
that outpaced anything the enemy could field.
Elizabeth Van Lew, a Virginia heiress who hated slavery and
disapproved of secession, was one of Sharpe’s most successful agents. She ran a
Union spy ring in Richmond out of her mansion, with dozens of agents feeding
her military and political secrets she funneled to General Ulysses S. Grant as
his army closed in on the Confederate capital. Van Lew became one of the unsung
heroes of the war.
Lafayette Baker was a handsome Union officer with a controversial past, whose
agents clashed with Pinkerton’s operatives. The unscrupulous Baker assembled a
retinue of disreputable spies, thieves, and prostitutes to root out traitors in
Washington, D.C. But he failed at his most important mission: uncovering the
threat to Lincoln from John Wilkes Booth and his gang.
Behind these secret operatives was a president, one of our greatest, who was an
avid consumer of intelligence and a ruthless aficionado of clandestine warfare,
willing to take chances to win the war. Lincoln’s Spies, as Waller
vividly depicts in his excellent new book, set the template for the dark arts
the CIA would practice in the future.
About the Author
Douglas Waller is
a former correspondent for Newsweek and Time,
where he covered the CIA, Pentagon, State Department, White House and Congress.
He is the author of the bestsellers Wild Bill Donovan, Big Red
and The Commandos, as well as critically acclaimed works such as Disciples,
the story of four CIA directors who fought for Donovan in World War II, and A
Question of Loyalty, a biography of General Billy Mitchell. He lives in
Raleigh, North Carolina.
ISBN 978-1501126840, Simon & Schuster, © 2019,
Hardcover, 624 pages, Cast of Characters, Timeline of Major Events, Maps,
Photographs, Selected Bibliography, End Notes & Index.
$34.95. To purchase this book click HERE.
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