1776

CNN has a story about black spies during the Civil War. While mentioning Robert Smalls and Harriet Tubman, the story centers on William Jackson.

Jackson was a coachman to Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Mostly ignored, Jackson overheard military conversations. Later, he escaped to the North and revealed what he knew to the Union.

I have seen this story mentioned on several blogs. Some of them imply that the Union employed William Jackson for this purpose. They suggest that he was actively working for the Union while he was coachman for Jefferson Davis. However, the CNN story doesn’t say that. Instead, it says that Jackson overheard information and gave it to the Union when he had the chance.

Below is the oldest account I could find of the Jackson story. The text is from Harper’s Weekly, June 7th, 1862.

JEFF DAVIS’S COACHMAN.

WE publish on page 365 a portrait of WILLIAM A. JACKSON, EX-COACHMAN OF JEFF DAVIS, who recently entered our lines at Fredericksburg. Jackson is an extremely intelligent man, reads and writes (as his signature shows), and converses in a manner which shows that he has been used to good society. He seems well posted in regard to the events of the past year, and to the condition of affairs at the South. He says that the negroes at Richmond and throughout the South have long foreseen the present state of things, and look anxiously for the coming of the Union armies. He says that the rebels dare not trust the negroes with arms; and as to relying upon their fidelity, they are well aware that every negro at the South prays earnestly for the success of the Union armies. He adds that notwithstanding the care taken by the slave-owners to conceal the news from the negroes, and to deceive them as to the purposes of the Northern men, they are generally well acquainted with the course of events. Jackson represents Davis, in whose service he remained several months, as much disheartened and querulous: fond of complaining of the want of popular support, and very downhearted about the future. When Jackson first came into our lines he made a statement to General McDowell, which was published in all the papers. We subjoin the following summary:

The coachman overheard a conversation between Davis and Dr. Gwin, formerly United States Senator from California. Davis said he had sent General J. R. Anderson from North Carolina to resist the march of the Nationals from Fredericksburg, and to delay them long enough for him to see the probable result of the contest before Yorktown, so that if that was likely to be unsuccessful he would have time to extricate his army from the peninsula and get them into Richmond and out of Virginia; that otherwise they would all be caught. The coachman represents that Mrs. Davis said “the Confederacy was about played out,” and “that if New Orleans was really taken she had no longer any interest in the matter, as all she had was there; that it was a great pity they had ever attempted to hold Virginia and the other non-growing cotton States;” and that she said to Mrs. D. R. Jones, daughter of Colonel James Taylor, United States Commissary-General of Subsistence, who was very anxious to get to Washington, where she has one of her children, “not to give herself any trouble, but to stay where she was, and when the Yankees came to Richmond she could go.”

The coachman says that Mr. and Mrs. Davis have all their books, clothing, and pictures packed up ready to move off; that there is much outspoken Union feeling in Richmond; that, having been a waiter in a hotel there, he knows all the Union men of the place, and that the Yankees are looked for with much pleasure, more by the whites than even the colored people. Confederate money is not taken when it can be avoided.

Miss Davis herself was refused, when she offered a $10 Confederate note, which she did in payment for something purchased for Mrs. Brown.

Many of the Richmond people wish the Union troops to come, as they are half starved out.

The bank and Government property are all packed up for removal to Danville, near the North Carolina line.

Jackson is a man of thirty years of age. He is or was owned in Richmond, but was hired out by the year by his owner. For some years he was a messenger in one of the courts; he drove a hack for a couple of years, and latterly, as we said, he drove the rebel President. He has a wife and three children, all slaves, in Richmond. It is a misdemeanor at law in Virginia to teach William Jackson’s children to read.

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