Allan Pinkerton, The spy in the rebellion; being a true history of the spy system of the United States Army during the late rebellion, revealing many secrets of the war hitherto not made public, compiled from official reports prepared for President Lincoln , General McClellan and the Provost-Marshal-General .

Here to be known or suspected as a Union man was to merit certain death, and to advocate any theory of compromise between the two sections was to be exiled from the city. Here rebeldom was rampant and defiant, and I had some difficulty in evading the suspicions of the watchful and alert Southron, who regarded all strange civilians with doubtful scrutiny, and whose committee of safety were ever on the qui vive to detect those whose actions savored in the least of a leaning towards the North. Fearlessly, however, I mingled with these men, and as I lost no opportunity in pronouncing my views upon the righteousness of the cause of secession, and of my belief in its certain triumph, I obtained a ready passport to the favor and confidence of the most prominent of their leaders. I talked unreservedly with the private soldier and the general officer, with the merchant and the citizen, and by all was regarded as a stanch Southern man, whose interests and sympathies were wedded to rebellion.

General Pillow was in command at this point, and almost every citizen was enrolled as a soldier, whose services would be cheerfully and promptly rendered whenever the call should be made upon them.

Even this redoubtable chieftain was not proof against my blandishments, and he little dreamed when on one occasion he quietly sipped his brandy and water with me, that he was giving valuable information to his sworn foe, and one to whom every