Thomas Hines

Hines joined the Confederate army, as did at least eleven of his cousins.[3] Hines initially led "Buckner's Guides", which were attached to Albert Sidney Johnston's command, as his fellow guides recognized his "coolness and leadership". In November 1861, he was given a lieutenant's commission. On December 31, 1861, he led a successful mission to Borah's Ferry, Kentucky, to attack a Union outpost there.[3]

The Guides were disbanded in January 1862 after the Confederate government of Kentucky fled Bowling Green, as Hines did not want to fight anywhere except in Kentucky. He traveled to Richmond, Virginia, and missed the Battle of Shiloh as a result. In April, he decided to join Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan, and he re-enlisted in the army as a private in the 9th Kentucky Cavalry in May 1862. Morgan recognized Hines' talents and commissioned him as a captain on June 10, 1862. Afterward, Hines spent most of his time engaged in secret missions in his beloved Kentucky. Dressed in civilian clothes, he usually operated alone to avoid drawing attention to himself, not wanting to be executed as a spy.[4]

On many of his forays in Kentucky, Hines made special trips to see loved ones. Often it was to visit Nancy Sproule, his childhood sweetheart and future bride, in Brown's Lock, near Bowling Green. On other occasions he visited his parents in Lexington, Kentucky. In both places, Union spies attempted to capture Hines, but he always escaped, even after his father had been captured and his mother was sick in bed.[5]

Map of Hines' Raid into Indiana

In June 1863, Hines led an invasion into Indiana with 25 Confederates posing as a Union unit in pursuit of deserters. Their goal was to see if the local Copperheads would support the invasion of John Hunt Morgan planned for July 1863. Traveling through Kentucky for eight days to obtain supplies for their mission, they crossed the Ohio River to enter Indiana, near the village of Derby, on June 18, 1863. Hines visited the local Copperhead leader, Dr. William A. Bowles, in French Lick, and learned that there would be no formal support for Morgan's Raid. On his way back to Kentucky, Hines and his men were discovered in Valeene, Indiana, leading to a small skirmish near Leavenworth, Indiana, on Little Blue Island. Hines had to abandon his men as he swam across the Ohio River under gunfire.[6]

After wandering around Kentucky for a week, Hines rejoined General Morgan at Brandenburg, Kentucky. Colonel Basil W. Duke made a disparaging comment in his memoirs about how Hines appeared on the Brandenburg riverfront, saying Hines was "apparently the most listless inoffensive youth that was ever imposed upon"; despite being Morgan's second-in-command, Colonel Duke was usually not told of all the espionage Hines was carrying out, causing some to believe that Hines and Duke did not like each other, which was not the case.[7]

It was due to Hines that the riverboats Alice Dean and the John T. McCombs were captured for the purpose of transporting Morgan's 2000+ men force across the Ohio River. It was Hines' reports that encouraged Morgan to be rough with anyone posing as a Confederate sympathizer in Indiana, as Morgan had been relying on support from sympathizers in Indiana to be successful on his raid. Hines stayed with Morgan until the end of the Raid, and was with John Hunt Morgan during their imprisonment, first at Johnson's Island, and later at the Ohio Penitentiary just outside downtown Columbus, Ohio, where, despite the rules of war dictating that prisoners of war should go to military prison, they were put in with common criminals.[8]

Hines discovered a way to escape from the Ohio Penitentiary. He had been reading the novel Les Misérables and was said to be inspired by Jean Valjean and Valjean's escapes through the passages underneath Paris, France.[9] Hines noticed how dry the lower prison cells felt and how they were lacking in mold, even though sunlight never shined there. This caused him to believe that escape by tunneling down was possible. After discovering an air chamber underneath them, which he had deduced, Hines begun the tunneling effort. The tunnel was only eighteen inches wide, which was just large enough for him to enter the four foot by four foot air chamber that was surrounded by heavy masonry. As Hines and the six others who accompanied Hines and John Hunt Morgan worked on the tunnel, a thin crust of dirt was used to hide the tunneling from the prison officials. They tunneled for six weeks, with the tunnel's exit coming between the inner and the 25-foot (7.6 m) outer prison walls, near a coal pile. On the day of escape, November 26, 1863, Morgan switched cells with his brother, Colonel Richard Morgan. The day was chosen as a new Union military commander was coming to Columbus, and Morgan knew that the prison cells would be inspected at that time. Together, after the daily midnight inspection, Hines, John Hunt Morgan and five captains under Morgan's command used the tunnel to escape. Aided by the fact that the prison sentries sought shelter from the raging storm occurring at the time, the Confederate officers climbed the 25-foot-tall (7.6 m) wall effortlessly, using metal hooks to effect their escape.[10]

Hines had even left a note for the warden. It read: "Warden N. Merion, the Faithful, the Vigilant" as follows: "Castle Merion, Cell No. 20. November 27, 1863. Commencement, November 4, 1863. Conclusion, November 20, 1863. Hours for labor per day, three. Tools, two small knives. La patience est amere, mais son fruit est doux. By order of my six honorable confederates." Those left behind were strip searched and moved to different cells in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Two of the officers who escaped with Hines and Morgan, Captain Ralph Sheldon and Captain Samuel Taylor, were captured four days later in Louisville, Kentucky, but the other three (Captain Jacob Bennett, Captain L. D. Hockersmith, and Captain Augustus Magee) made good their escape to Canada and the South.[11]

Hines led John Hunt Morgan back to Confederate lines. First, they arrived at the train station in downtown Columbus, where they bought tickets to Cincinnati, Ohio. The duo jumped off the train before it entered the Cincinnati train station. They continued to evade capture in Cincinnati, staying for one night at the Ben Johnson House in Bardstown, Kentucky. In Tennessee, Hines diverted the Union troops' attention away from John Hunt Morgan, and was himself recaptured and sentenced to death by hanging. He escaped that night by telling stories to the soldier in charge of him and subdued him when given the chance. A few days later he again escaped Union soldiers who intended to hang him.[12]

Hines went to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, after his escape in January 1864. He convinced Confederate President Jefferson Davis of a plan to instill mass panic in the Northern states, by means of freeing prisoners and causing arson in larger Northern cities. Impressed by Hines' plan, Davis agreed to back him. Davis urged Hines to tell Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin and Secretary of War James Seddon his plan. Both men agreed to the plan, and encouraged Hines to proceed, with the only hesitation by Davis, Benjamin and Sheldon being the effect on public opinion on such a plan, including what Great Britain and France would think of Hines' actions.[13]

Hines thought it would be easier to enter the North from Canada and traveled there during the winter. Hines led the Northwest Conspiracy from Canada in the fall of 1864. Colonel Benjamin Anderson was involved in the plot, along with other Confederate soldiers. It was hoped that Hines and his men would be able to free the Confederate prisoners held at Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois.[14]

Hines led sixty men from Toronto, Ontario, on August 25, 1864. They arrived during the Democratic Party National Convention held in Chicago that year. The Copperheads had told Hines to wait until that time, as they said that 50,000 Copperheads would be there for the event. However, encountering Copperhead hesitation to assist Hines and his force, and with Federal authorities apparently knowledgeable of the plot, Hines and his men were forced to flee Chicago on August 30, 1864. Many of the men thought Anderson may have been a double agent, forcing him to leave the group. A second attempt to free the Camp Douglas Confederate prisoners occurred during the United States Presidential Election of 1864, but that plan was also foiled.[14]

In the same year he tried to free Confederate prisoners of war by recruiting former members of Morgan's Raiders who had escaped to Canada, including John Hunt Morgan's telegrapher George "Lightning" Ellsworth, who was a native of Canada. On his last day in Chicago, Hines had to avoid discovery by Union soldiers inspecting the home he was hiding in by crawling into a mattress upon which the homeowner's wife lay ill with delirium. The Union soldiers inspected the house he was in, and even checked to see if Hines was the one lying on the bed, but did not discover Hines in the mattress. The soldiers established a guard by the door of the house. As it rained the next day, visitors were encouraged to visit the sick woman. The soldiers never looked at the faces under the umbrellas, and as a result, Hines sneaked out of the house and left Chicago.[15]

In October 1864, Hines again went to Cincinnati, after crossing covertly through Indiana, where Union troops had again sought him. This time, with the help of friends whose home he hid in, Hines concealed himself in an old closet obscured by mortar and red bricks, where he avoided detection by the Union troops who inspected the house. Hines learned there that his beloved Nancy Sproule was in an Ohio convent. He decided to "spirit" her from it, and on November 10, 1864, at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Covington, Kentucky, they were married, despite her father's wishes that they wait until the war was over, due to Hines' wartime activities. They spent a week's honeymoon in Kentucky, after which Hines returned to his clandestine activities in Canada.[16]

Two days after Lincoln's assassination, on April 16, 1865, Hines was in Detroit, Michigan, when he was mistaken for John Wilkes Booth, who was then the subject of a massive manhunt. After finding himself in a fight, Hines jumped several fences and made his way to Detroit's wharf. He waited for a ferryboat to empty its passengers and then forced the captain at gunpoint to take him across the Detroit River to Canada. On arrival, Hines apologized to the captain and gave him five dollars. Hines' exploit led to the mistaken rumor that Booth had escaped into Canada.[17]