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The political neutrality of the news media has recently been called into question, but since the Civil War, opponents have understood the importance of controlling the narrative of the press, and they have used it to influence elections. has made great efforts to influence the
Faced with an overwhelming disadvantage from large northern armies, Southerners innovated and developed shadow warfare and covert operations to level the disadvantage, including manipulating war coverage and attempting to erode Northern morale. I let it happen.
The intentionally opaque Confederate secret service was the real but unofficial hidden hand behind these covert efforts to change the course of the war. Various branches of the Secret Service have tried a variety of techniques, including kidnapping personnel, violence, and inciting riots, but believe that using influence and money is their best chance of success in stopping the war. There were people too.
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Although there was no official head of the Secret Service, Confederate President Jefferson Davis served as director, authorizing operations and working closely with a small number of officials. A division of the Confederate secret services was overseen by the State Department, headed by Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin, also known as the “brain of the Confederacy.” Benjamin’s State Department trafficked in election interference and bribed Northern reporters to craft a narrative favorable to the South.
President Abraham Lincoln and his eventual 1864 election opponent, future Democratic presidential candidate General George B. McClellan, at their headquarters in Antietam, October 3, 1862. From left: General George W. Morrell, Colonel Alexander S. Webb, General McClellan, Scout Adams, Dr. Jonathan Letterman, unidentified officer, President Lincoln, Colonel Henry Hunt, General Fitz, John Porter, unidentified. Unknown officer. (Getty Images)
One of their most important objectives was to try to influence the 1864 presidential election. George Nicholas Saunders, a Confederate Secret Intelligence Service agent, was headquartered at Montreal’s luxurious St. Lawrence Hotel, where mint juleps were served year-round to Confederate soldiers living in Canada, and a Democrat. He led a movement to influence and control the self-proclaimed Democratic Party. A word that exaggerated itself at the time.
The full story of this secret organization and its covert operations is told in my best-selling book, Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln Special Forces, the Search for the Mosby Rangers, and the Shadow War That Shaped American Special Operations.
The book tells the story of President Abraham Lincoln’s special forces, who donned Confederate gray to hunt John Singleton Mosby and his Confederate Rangers, from 1863 to the end of the war at Appomattox, and tells the story of the North and South. It reveals the drama of the irregular guerrilla warfare that changed the course of the war.
This is the never-before-told story that inspired the creation of modern American special operations in World War II, as well as the story of the Confederate Secret Intelligence Service. This book provides an innovative and fresh perspective on the Civil War.
Best-selling author Patrick K. O’Donnell’s upcoming book on the Civil War is titled “Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln’s Special Forces, the Search for the Mosby Rangers, and the Shadow War That Shaped American Special Operations.” There is.
Piratical, fat, and restless, George Sanders was a shrewd secret warrior and diplomat who advocated the “dagger theory” of assassination and the killing of people he deemed unjust leaders, and who promoted information warfare and the media. He had a keen understanding of power.
He boasted to Davis that his next goal was “democracy.” [the Democratic Party] Among other efforts, the Secret Service transferred tens of thousands of dollars to various Democratic news organizations, according to one Confederate operative.
Many Northern news outlets were vehemently anti-war and anti-Lincoln, and their articles had a demoralizing and chilling effect in the North. Thus, Confederate secret intelligence provided cash to Northern newspapers to shape the Confederate narrative about how hopeless and futile the war had become.
Horace Greeley, the influential editor of the New York Tribune, was an anti-slavery activist who supported the war, but was horrified by its aftermath and the stalled Union offensive, and was forever It looked like the war would continue.
He summed up the mood of the country in a letter to Lincoln: “Nine-tenths of all Americans, North and South, are anxious for peace, and desire peace on almost any terms; I am absolutely disgusted by the slaughter and devastation of humanity.”
In the summer of 1864, Sanders and secret agents set up a sham peace conference and tricked Lincoln into admitting that the war would not end until the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was abolished.
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This plan worked, and Mr. Sanders immediately sent a press release to the Associated Press, which said, “Every Democratic news organization condemned Lincoln’s manifesto in strong terms, and many Republican news organizations We acknowledge that it was a mistake,” the company said in a press release. The 1864 Democratic Party platform, which the Confederate Secret Service helped write, called for an armistice and the continuation of slavery.
As the 20th century and the first quarter of this century proved, if a rebel army has popular support, it is nearly impossible to crush it. The South didn’t need to win the war, just survive.
He boasted to Davis that his next goal was “democracy.” [the Democratic Party] Among other efforts, the Secret Service transferred tens of thousands of dollars to various Democratic news organizations, according to one Confederate operative.
By 1864, much of the vast territory of the South was unoccupied by Northern forces, and Southerners overwhelmingly supported the war. Capturing the entire South against a hostile American population was nearly impossible, as Britain had tried in vain decades earlier with the Revolution and the War of 1812.
Controlling the narrative and influencing people’s minds through information warfare became central to the Coalition’s shadow war. In the summer of 1864, Northern forces were forced to retreat at Lynchburg, Virginia, and Confederate General Jubal Early’s army marched through the Shenandoah Valley, nearly taking control of Washington, DC.
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Hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers were killed or wounded, and the number of deserters within the Union army increased rapidly. Through the efforts of Confederate Secret Intelligence, the media amplified hopelessness and the belief that a political solution was needed to end eternal war.
As the Chicago Democratic Convention approached in August 1864, opinion polls showed that Democrats had the upper hand. A depressed President Abraham Lincoln wrote, “You think I don’t know if I’m going to get beaten, but I do know that unless something major changes, I’m going to get beaten badly.” Ta.
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