If slavery had been as bad as the abolitionists maintained that it was, and as we have been reminded countless times on supposedly good authority, then why were there not thousands of rabid abolitionists demanding an end to the evil? Or, even more to the point, why were there not hundreds of slave rebellions? These questions have not been asked often or loudly enough. The answer would shock and dismay the vast majority of our nation who have been carefully schooled in abolitionist propaganda. As we have already mentioned, the “peculiar institution” of slavery was not perfect or sinless, but the reality was a far cry from the horrific descriptions given to us in modern histories, which are often nothing more than a hackneyed reworking of abolitionist propaganda. Douglas Wilson & Steve Wilkins

During the American Civil War (originally called the War of the Rebellion), southern slaves fled to the Northern lines for refuge from the slavocracy. Individual slaves, slave families, and entire plantations ran for their lives from the master class. When those poor oppressed souls felt freedom within arm’s reach, they did not hesitate — they grabbed it. I cannot imagine their awful sense of desperation but I do understand their quest for relief. Anything, anything, to get away from that wicked regime.

The first batch of runaways caught the Union army by surprise because the North did not engage the South to free the slaves. The North engaged the South to put down the rebellion that began at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, when the South took up arms against the Union. Nevertheless, the slaves had hope in the North and they bolted to the Northern lines whenever possible. In response the Union adopted the wartime policy of calling these runaway slaves “contrabands” and today’s post is about a contraband named Charlie Wright — the runaway slave, or “contraband,” who saved the Union.

On this day in 1863, the three-day Battle of Gettysburg began. Robert E. Lee planned to invade the North and bring the war to a quick end. If he had succeeded, the South might have won and if the Confederacy had its way, blacks would still live in perpetual slavery to the master class. Because the Bible says so.

Here are three historical facts that all US Civil War buffs know: (1) The Civil War turned at the Battle of Gettysburg; (2) Whichever army held the high ground at Gettysburg would prevail, and (3) the Union seized the high ground before Robert E. Lee arrived and never relented. The Union defeated the Confederacy on July 4, 1863, but Lee chose to retreat for 21 months rather than surrender.

Now here is a historical fact that many people do not know. A runaway slave named Charlie Wright notified the Union army of Confederate troop movements in the month of June 1863, which convinced the Union that Robert E. Lee planned to invade. Because of Charlie Wright’s intelligence, the Army of the Potomac knew to take the high ground at Gettysburg.

The following excerpt is from an article titled Black Dispatches: Black American Contributions to Union Intelligence During the Civil War, published by the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence (I cannot find a date UPDATE: published in 1999):

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Bureau of Military Information and Charlie Wright
When Gen. Joseph Hooker took command of the Army of the Potomac on 27 January 1863, he immediately saw the need for an effective centralized intelligence system. On 11 February, Col. George H. Sharpe, an attorney and an officer of New York state volunteers, accepted the post of head of the Army’s intelligence service. Under Sharpe, with direction from Hooker, the Bureau of Military Information (BMI) was created. Its sole focus was collection of intelligence on the enemy; it had no counterintelligence responsibilities. It soon developed into the first “all-source intelligence” organization in US history. Sharpe obtained, collated, analyzed, and provided reports based on scouting, spying behind enemy lines, interrogations, cavalry reconnaissance, balloon observation, Signal Corps observation, flag signal and telegraph intercepts, captured Confederate documents and mail, southern newspapers, and intelligence reporting from subordinate military units. This structured approach, which ended with the Confederate surrender, was not re-institutionalized until 1947, when the CIA was created.

Sharpe’s BMI was well established when Charlie Wright, a young black man, arrived at Union lines from Culpeper, Virginia, in June 1863. While being debriefed, his extensive knowledge of units in Lee’s army became apparent. He had an excellent memory for details. On 12 June, Capt. John McEntee, an officer from the BMI who had deployed with Union cavalry forces just after the battle of Brandy Station, telegraphed Sharpe the following:

A contraband captured last Tuesday states that he had been living at Culpeper C. H. for some time past. Saw Ewells Corps passing through that place destined for the Valley and Maryland. That Ewells Corps has passed the day previous to the fight and that Longstreet was . . . coming up.⁸

Shortly thereafter, McEntee also reported that Wright was well acquainted with these two corps and that he believed Wright’s information was reliable. Wright identified more than a dozen separate Confederate regiments from both Ewell’s Corps and Longstreet’s Corps. The key intelligence Wright provided was that these troops had passed through Culpeper bound for Maryland.

Thanks to the Bureau’s records and all-source information, Sharpe was able to confirm Wright’s descriptions of the various Confederate units. This confirmation convinced General Hooker of Wright’s assertion that Lee’s army was moving into Maryland. Hooker ordered his army to shadow the Confederate forces’ movements while traveling on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains out of view of Lee’s troops.

This movement by the Union Army shielded Washington from Lee’s forces and eventually forced the battle at Gettysburg. For several decades after the war, Union cavalry reconnaissance was given credit for identifying Lee’s movement in the valley toward Maryland. But historical records now make it clear that Wright’s intelligence was the key factor in convincing Hooker to move his forces.⁹

While many reasons can be cited for Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg, there can be no doubt that the ground held by the Union forces played a significant role in the victory. This was Charlie Wright’s contribution. He had provided the intelligence that eventually enabled Union forces to get to Gettysburg first and seize the best ground.

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⁸ Bureau of Military Information Files. Washington, DC: National Archives, Record Group 393, entry 3980.
⁹ Fishel, Edwin C. The Secret War for the Union. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1996; p. 440.

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