The below two paragraphs are from my novel, The Silence of Sorrowful Hours. They explain a little bit about how "irregulars" operated during the Civil War.
Captain Henderson heard about the arms and dynamite near Carpentersville through an intricate system of communication. Irregulars kept track of troop and supply movements by intercepting telegraph transmissions and interviewing sutlers who moved easily among the armies of the North and South. Sympathizers in the Border States passed along conversations overheard in the fields, at campfires, in general stores, and at church. Irregulars spread information about troop movements, supply shipments, and firepower by opening or closing window shades or hanging wash on the line on one day and not another.
The Confederate Army used slaves to serve them in their camps and those slaves had no interest in helping the Southern cause. Slaves who worked in government buildings and the homes of politicians and Confederate officers sometimes had access to maps and secret documents. Slaves served refreshments during military planning sessions. With the valuable information they provided, the Union Army avoided disasters and created havoc.
My next blog post will be about an actual young woman who posed as a man to join the Union infantry. On one of her spying missions for the Army, she used silver nitrate to darken her skin and infiltrated a Confederate camp posing as a slave in order to glean information about their troop movement plans.
