50 Facts About Thomas Hines

Thomas Henry Hines was a Confederate cavalryman who was known for his espionage activities during the last two years of the American Civil War.

Thomas Hines was an assistant to John Hunt Morgan, doing a preparatory raid in advance of Morgan's Raid through the states of Indiana and Ohio, and after being captured with Morgan, organized their escape from the Ohio Penitentiary.

Thomas Hines was then granted secret authorisation, following the Dahlgren Affair, by Jefferson Davis and his cabinet to unleash total war behind Union lines.

From a secret base at Toronto in Upper Canada, Hines oversaw Confederate Secret Service covert operations with Copperhead Democrat leaders Harrison H Dodd and Clement Vallandigham for arson, state terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and pro-Confederate regime change uprisings by the paramilitary Order of the Sons of Liberty against pro-Union governors throughout the Old Northwest.

Thomas Hines started practicing law, which led him to serve on the Kentucky Court of Appeals, eventually becoming its chief justice.

Hines was born in Butler County, Kentucky, on October 8,1838, to Judge Warren W and Sarah Carson Hines and was raised in Warren County, Kentucky.

Thomas Hines was said to love women, music, and horses fondly.

Thomas Hines became an adjunct professor at the Masonic University, a school established by the Grand Lodge of Kentucky Freemasons for teaching the orphans of Kentucky Masons in La Grange in 1859.

Thomas Hines was the principal of its grammar school, but with the advent of the war, he joined the Confederate States Army in September 1861.

Thomas Hines joined the Confederate army, as did at least eleven cousins.

Thomas Hines initially led "Buckner's Guides", which were attached to Albert Sidney Johnston's command, as his fellow guides recognized his "coolness and leadership".

The Guides were disbanded in January 1862 after the Confederate government of Kentucky fled Bowling Green; Thomas Hines did not want to fight anywhere except in Kentucky.

Thomas Hines traveled to Richmond, Virginia, and missed the Battle of Shiloh as a result.

Thomas Hines made special trips to see loved ones on his forays in Kentucky.

In June 1863, Thomas Hines led an invasion into Indiana with 25 Confederates posing as a US unit in pursuit of deserters.

Thomas Hines abandoned his men, swimming across the Ohio River under gunfire.

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, 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.

Thomas Hines' reports 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 in his raid.

Thomas Hines stayed with Morgan until the end of the raid and was with John Hunt Morgan during their imprisonment as prisoners of war, first at Johnson's Island, and later at the Ohio Penitentiary just outside downtown Columbus, Ohio.

Thomas Hines discovered a way to escape from the Ohio Penitentiary.

Thomas Hines had been reading the novel Les Miserables and was said to be inspired by Jean Valjean and Valjean's escapes through the passages underneath Paris.

Thomas Hines noticed how dry the lower prison cells felt and how they were lacking in mold, even though sunlight never shined there.

In Tennessee, Thomas Hines diverted the Union troops' attention away from Morgan and was himself recaptured and sentenced to death by hanging.

Thomas Hines escaped that night by telling stories to the soldier in charge of him and subdued him when given the chance.

Thomas Hines traveled to Richmond, Virginia, after his escape in January 1864.

Thomas Hines convinced Confederate President Jefferson Davis of a plan to instill mass panic in the northern states by freeing prisoners and systematic arson in the larger US cities.

Davis urged Hines to tell Secretary of State Judah P Benjamin and Secretary of War James Seddon his plan.

Thomas Hines thought entering the Union from Canada would be easier and traveled there during the winter.

Thomas Hines led the Northwest Conspiracy from Canada in the fall of 1864.

Thomas Hines led sixty men from Toronto, Ontario, on August 25,1864.

The Copperheads had told Thomas Hines to wait until that time, as they said that 50,000 Copperheads would be there for the event.

On his last day in Chicago, Thomas Hines had to avoid discovery by US soldiers inspecting the home he was hiding in by crawling into a mattress upon which the homeowner's wife lay ill with delirium.

The soldiers inspected the house he was in and even checked to see if Thomas Hines was lying on the bed, but they did not discover Thomas Hines in the mattress.

The soldiers never looked at the faces under the umbrellas, so Thomas Hines sneaked out of the house and left Chicago.

In October 1864, Thomas Hines again went to Cincinnati after crossing covertly through Indiana, where US troops sought him again.

Thomas Hines learned there that his beloved Nancy Sproule was in an Ohio convent.

Two days after Lincoln's assassination, on April 16,1865, Thomas Hines was in Detroit, Michigan, when he was mistaken for John Wilkes Booth, who was then the subject of a massive search.

Thomas Hines waited for a ferryboat to empty its passengers and then forced the captain at gunpoint to take him across the Detroit River to Canada.

Thomas Hines' exploit led to the mistaken rumor that Booth had escaped into Canada.

Thomas Hines did not expect to return to the United States, so he sent for his wife, Nancy.

Once US President Andrew Johnson declared a pardon for most former Confederates, Thomas Hines returned to Detroit to sign a loyalty oath to the United States on July 20,1865.

Thomas Hines moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 1867, where many of his family lived and practiced law.

Thomas Hines later became the County Judge for Warren County, Kentucky.

Thomas Hines was elected to the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1878 and served there until 1886.

Buford, enraged by Elliott's failure to rule in favor of his late sister in a property dispute, shot Elliott with a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun filled with buckshot after Thomas Hines had turned and walked away from Elliott.

Thomas Hines inspected the body as Buford surrendered to a deputy sheriff who had come to investigate the turmoil.

In 1886, Hines began writing four articles discussing the Northwest Conspiracy for Basil W Duke's Southern Bivouac magazine.

However, after consulting with Jefferson Davis at Davis' home in Mississippi, Thomas Hines did not name anybody on the Northern side who assisted in the conspiracy.

Thomas Hines died in 1898 in Frankfort and was buried in Fairview Cemetery in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in the Thomas Hines series of plots.

Historical markers concerning Thomas Hines' deeds have occasionally included mistaken information.