Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1912-10-30
SECRET SERVICE IN SOUTH
One of Original "Boy Scouts" Relates
How knowledge of Telegraphy
Aided the Federals.

The small boy fond of juvenile de
tective stories could ask for moth
ing better than a biography of John
N. Stewart, past vice-department COM
mander Of the G.. A R. of Illinois,
who lives at 495 West Sixty-first
place, Chicago. Mr.. Stewart was one
of the original boy scouts" of the
Civil war. At the age of fifteen he
started out from Washington on the
first of his many journeys as spy in
advance of the Union armies
II became interested in telegraphy
when l was a boy in Cleveland said
Mr.. Stewart, "and l soon became an
expert operator. In 1862 place was
found for me in the military telegraph
service at Washington, and l went
east. From there / was sent out on
secret service. I would go out in
advance of an army sometimes with
a cavalry escort and sometimes alone,
often making a telegraph station in
tree top, cutting into a passing wire
with my pocket instrument, or quietly
and lnobserved getting within hear
ing distance Of some Confederate tel
egraph station, usually manned by an
operator who read the Morse code
from paper only. Information thus
secured often proved valuable in To-
eating camps and marching bodies Of
the enemy.
"One of the most interesting Of my
experiences was in connection with
conspiracy in Indiana, engineered by
the knights Of the Golden Circle, the
secret society of the south that had
branches through the northern states.
A banker in Indiana had a country
place where the meetings of the con-
spirators were held. l got chummy
with the bankers son, let him learn
that l knew something about teleg-
raphy, and so got into the conspiracy.
/ did not learn all their secrets, but
/ learned enough. They were going
to assassinate Gov. Morton of Indiana
and blow up the capitol buildings at
indianapolis. They had gunpowder
secretly stored in the building and 1t
was to be put in electrical connection
with some remote point. They got me
to show them how to make the connec-
tons, after explaining and making dia-
grams of about how the thing could be
done. l, for my part, neglected sew
eral essential points necessary to
their success. The night of execu-
zion arrived, but Of course the thing
failed to work. Soon thereafter the
government officials jumped on the
bunch, and some of them were sent to
military prisons or through the lines
to their southern friends.
Later in the war I and a man by
the name of Catlin, who said his home
was in or near Buffalo, N. Y, were
started south from Washington. We
were to precede Sherman's march to
he sea and report what force he
would encounter on the memorable
campaign. We went dressed as ma
tives' and aroused comparatively lit
tie suspicion. On the way l became
separated from Catlin and went on
alone in Savannah. There 1 went to
the telegraph Office as if curious, boy
fashion, to investigate the mysteries
of the telegraph. The operators re-
ceived the dispatches on strips of pa
per, and only one or two of them knew
even the signal (used in calling their
office) by the sound Of the instrument.
made myself useful Whereabouts for
day or so as a sort of q general lack
ey' and was allowed to sleep at night
on the soft side Of the office floor.
Several times the signal sounded and
l nearly betrayed myself in my de-
sire that the operator promptly an
swer so that l might catch what the
other fellow had to say. shook
the town as soon as could safely do
SO, and made my way north to the fed
eral lines, then somewhere in the vi.
cinity of Aiken, on the Southern rail-
road"
The military telegraph system, with
which Mr.. Stewart was at first con-
nected as an operator, was finely or
ganized in the first years of the war.
Batteries were carried with the march
ng armies and the currents thus
supplied carried messages over wires
emporariIy stretched between strateg-
ic points.